Renner Anderson

After visiting Martha's sister in Northfield, Minnesota, Martha and I looked for a nearby hike. We decided to visit Valley Grove Cemetery, which we remembered from the early 1980s, when we biked along the back roads near Nerstrand Woods State Park. Back then, as we walked through the cemetery, we found a family grave plot for the Quie family. We wondered whether our then-current Minnesota governor, Al Quie, was related. Today, as we wandered through the cemetery, we came upon his headstone in the same Quie family plot. The Quie family's former farm was nearby in Rice County. The weather provided mood and a historical perspective on our adventure today. The overcast skies lent a somber feel to the prairie landscape. Intermittent precipitation shifted between drizzle, sleet, and light hail. The wind, whipping across the prairie ridge, peppered my cheeks with bits of hail. The mild stinging of my cheeks brought to mind the severe hardships endured by the Norwegian immigrants who settled this land.

There are currently no ready-made tours available on Komoot for any activities at this location. However, I found a curated trail on AllTrails that circles the lake. I'm familiar with this spot as it is one of my regular stops for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Today, we spotted our first Eastern Phoebe of the year.

Looking for a hike suitable for the icy conditions and our age, we found this one on AllTrails. The trail is not on OpenStreetMap and therefore, not on komoot either. We were wearing traction devices on our boots, but could have used full-on ice teeth. I suspect the trail is used primarily by fly fishers, given the many side spurs leading to the creek bank. I remember fishing this same water with my Tenkara rod in June 2013.

The Shovel Point Trail at Tettegouche State Park is one of Martha's and my all-time favorite trails along the North Shore of Lake Superior. Lately, each time we hike it, we find ourselves asking, "Is this our last hike here?" However, we are not ready to give up just yet. We just booked another stay at Castle Haven Cabins for early November.

We jumped the gun on this one!. Traditionally, our first bike ride of the season is on the Cannon Valley Trail, which we have been biking since the 1980’s when the surface was gravel.. We love to remember when our daughter Mary, then age five, confronted Bruce, the then-trail manager, telling him he shouldn’t be driving his car on the trail! Yesterday, we prepared for our first bike ride of the season by pumping up the tires, charging the batteries, oiling and cleaning the chain, and routing our planned adventure on komoot.. Imagine our surprise when we found the trail completely snow-covered, especially since all the paved trails in the Minneapolis area were clear and dry.. Quickly pivoting, I found a nearby curated trail on AllTrails—the Red Wing Walking Path—that we hadn’t biked yet, so I routed it on komoot, and we headed to Red Wing.. When we arrived at the new trail, we discovered that it, too, was snow-covered! Technical not: Proton VPN not installed on the phone

We discovered another amazing park in our new backyard, right across the Minnesota River. We found it using AllTrails since the park and its associated trail are not yet available as a pre-made route on Komoot. However, I am confident that this trail will soon be algorithmically transformed into a ready-made route on komoot.

While looking for a new trail to hike, I realized we had only hiked four of the five AllTrails curated trails at Doyle Kennefick Regional Park, so of course, we had to hike the fifth. This Three Rivers Regional Park is truly special because it's so remote. Many of the regional parks closer to the cities have been developed to the point that they almost feel like amusement parks. Technical note: My komoot app is still experiencing GPS signal dropouts, so I imported a Gaia GPS file for this hike.

Martha and I found this park through AllTrails; no pre-made komoot tour was available. The main entrance on Diffley Road was closed, so we parked across the street on Amberleaf Trail and entered the park by crawling under a gate. Navigating the trail with my komoot app was challenging because it didn't display on the app; we had to rely on a track uploaded from AllTrails. Additionally, the trails were covered in snow and had seen little use since the last snowfall. To make matters worse, komoot frequently lost the GPS signal. Although a work crew had cleared the trails of overgrowth, they left behind loose brush along the path, which constantly snagged our hiking poles. Despite these challenges, we were pleasantly surprised to discover this 60-acre outdoor museum and cultural center in suburban Eagan, which blends art with the natural landscape.

Our daughter, Abbie, invited us to the Hyland Park Reserve Winter Play Day organized by the Three Rivers Park District, where Abbie works in the Natural Resources Section. Our main activity was a ride on an aerial lift to enjoy an arborist’s-eye view of the treetops. An activity perfectly suited for ages eight to eighty! As we joined the festivities with both young and old, I was reminded of the photos of Fun Runs in England that I have seen posted by Adventurer Nic and MLK.

As I looked for our next adventure, a line I recall from my college years, from Steppenwolf's 1967 song "Born to Be Wild," keeps echoing in my mind. "Get your motor runnin' Head out on the highway Looking for adventure In whatever comes our way." "Looking for adventure," I found this hike in the AllTrails app, and then realized it is also a komoot ready-made route. Doyle and Kennefick Regional Park was developed through a partnership between Scott County and the Three Rivers Park District. It officially opened in September 2024, less than two years ago. The Doyles and the Kenneficks were early Irish settler families who homesteaded this land in the late 1880's and whose homestead sites are preserved within the park's boundaries. Local history records note that a member of the Kennefick family was once known as the "poet laureate" of Cedar Lake Township, often composing verses and songs about local characters and events. Because we were exploring this park for the first time, the hike felt like an adventure, and unlike the park trails in our neighborhood, no one had walked these trails since the last snowfall several days prior. On a technical note, the komoot track of this hike experienced GPS signal dropouts; therefore, this track is uploaded from the reliable and accurate Gaia GPS app. This problem is becoming tiresome, but at least it is now predictable.