Category: Adventures

This past weekend Jesse and I had a blast at The Creamery in Menomonie, WI. We have not had great experiences at bed and breakfasts (if you know a good one, let us know) but still like a place to be homey. The Creamery Inn personally welcomed us with a tour. The rooms were large with a large bathroom of tile (Mom, can you imagine how expensive that would be???). But the best part was a screened in patio area. Both mornings and evenings we stayed at the inn, we sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather as well as one another’s company.

The other fun part was The Creamery’s proximity to the Red Cedar Trail. We were proud of ourselves in that we completed the entire trail in both directions. We began the morning biking 7 miles into Menomonie for lunch and shopping. Then we biked back and did the next 7 miles to the Chippewa River for some swimming.  We biked a total of about 30 miles.

We really enjoy living close to Minneapolis and St. Paul (about a 30 minute drive). For our anniversary we drove to Minneapolis with our bikes. We completed the part of the Grand Rounds route entitled The Chain of Lakes byway. We stopped off at Punch Pizza (they bake pizza the way they do in Nepal). It was very fun and we felt very urban. Plus we were practicing for the Red Cedar Trail in Wisconsin, which we are headed to right now!

This past weekend we backpacked the Superior Hiking Trail along the North Shore of Minnesota. Our small group dubbed last summer’s trip the “Death March”, so this year we set out with more wisdom and a more realistic amount of miles to be hiked. We were joined by our great friends Ross and Megan Jahnke.  With pouring rain at the beginning of the trail Friday morning, we wondered about our sanity but decided to venture on anyway. Thankfully, the rain stopped in the early afternoon. It remained dry the rest of the weekend except the extreme muddiness of the trail (which in my clumsiness I fell in twice).  We hiked from Temperance River State Park to Lutsen (a total of 17.5 miles with 3 different mountain summit hikes). We climbed Britton Peak, Carlton Peak, Leveaux Mountain, Oberg Mountain, Moose Mountain, and Mystery Mountain. Our starting point was 600 feet and we reached a height of 1600 feet.

Those are the facts of the trip. The things you can’t see in the pictures are the silly songs we created to distract our bodies from the pain, the extreme stink of three days without a shower, and the sense of pride and accomplishment you feel knowing you traveled so many miles with a 25-pound (or more)  pack on your back. The scenery was breath-taking and the company was a blast, but it is always good to be home…clean…eating real food…in a comfortable bed…with no bugs buzzing around your head…

Click on a photo and scroll through…enjoy (and join us next time)!

A blog’s name says a lot about the blog and the people writing it. On our spring break trip to South Carolina, Jesse and I had 22 hours in the car to decide on a name for our blog.

Some possible names:

• A Graphic Designer and a Teacher
• Everything But the White Picket Fence
• Married With No Kids
• The Open Road
• The Awesome Sutherlands

…and many much worse. After sleeping on it and driving 22 hours back to Minnesota, we decided on Sutherland Road: Detours and Adventures. Check back to hear about the adventures to come.