I honestly don’t know if it’s because we’re older now or have officially embraced the Yooper mindset to the point where we can’t remember the days where this wasn’t our life, but either way, we had the best date we may have ever had yesterday. So much so that when we went to bed, we asked each other if we had just had the perfect day. And we think we did.

We did some cleaning of my deer stand (a squirrel and I have had fights daily over whose space it actually is), and some trees were blocking my lanes so we hauled things out and worked together to set things straight.

Then, we spontaneously (because sometimes that’s just how you have to make fun things happen when the calendar is full!) packed our g0-bags and headed out on a gorgeous Fall day toward the end of peak color and took off in our side-by-side. ” What is a “side-by-side?” you may ask. This is ours (pic taken in the Spring).

Here in the U.P., it’s not a toy, but a mode of transportation. We can ride them on every road except the M-roads (highways) which are few and far-between. We also have webs of trail systems — totaling over 3,000 miles worth — on which you can get just about everywhere. UTV’s are plows, and pullers, and tools, and transportation, as well as a whole lotta fun!

So, off we went with no real plan. And these are the things we saw as we followed our noses.

And our noses led us the loooong way via trails and roads to a restaurant in a town 26 miles away (by car). We drove through the town, stopping at the gas station and almost at the hardware. We had a lovely dinner where we saw the sweetest elderly couple hold hands across the table to bless their meal together, and then we drove home as the sun set — holding hands ourselves — and grinning at the beautiful simplicity of a perfect date.