Favorites for Fall

Quiet time on Minnesota's North Shore
Late fall is marked by stark beauty, cheaper stays and the gales of November.

30 classic fall hikes
For autumn scenery, these beautiful trails are the best of the best.

So many festivals, so little fall
The season is short, so go on a power trip and catch two or three festivals each weekend. Here's where to go.

Pursuing the hues
With luck, leaf peepers can squeeze seven weeks of color out of fall.

15 great fall drives
Chase the colors through glorious autumn landscapes.

Autumn in the Brainerd Lakes
In fall, this lake-resort area is a hideaway in plain sight.

15 great fall views
From these overlooks, see rolling waves of color light up the landscape.

Old World Christmas markets
Local versions of the traditional German Christkindlmarkt are a hit during the holidays.

Gales of November

Along Minnesota's North Shore, early-winter winds evoke visions of shipwrecks.

In November 1905, the people of Minnesota saw Lake Superior at its most malevolent.

As dozens of ships left Duluth-Superior Harbor in the calm after a violent storm, an even worse storm hit, with blinding snow and winds of more than 60 mph.

The 4,840-ton steel steamer Mataafa turned back and, just as it was about to slip into the harbor entry, was lifted by a giant wave, upended and smashed into first one concrete pierhead, then the other.

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Wings over the Mississippi

Along the river in Minnesota and Wisconsin, tundra-swan watchers have a honkin' good time during the November migration.

In the sloughs of the Upper Mississippi, birds of a feather flock together.

Bird-watchers, especially. On chilly days in late fall, they crowd onto wooden platforms to watch tundra swans paddling around sloughs of the Mississippi River.

This big bird needs a lot of fuel for its flight from the Arctic Circle to the marshes of Chesapeake Bay.

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15 great trails to ride in fall

Here's where to get your fill of flora, fauna and fall colors.

It was a classic fall weekend when we rode the Willard Munger State Trail in eastern Minnesota.

It's a peaceful corridor through forest that, on the second weekend of October, surrounded us with a warm palette of honey and cinnamon, mixed with evergreens and the white of birch trunks and milkweed pods.

From time to time, we went through one of the small towns on Highway 61, immortalized by Bob Dylan.

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15 great late-fall getaways

It's the mellowest time of the year, and hotel rates drop with the leaves.

Late fall — when crowds fade and hotel deals appear — is one of the best times to make a getaway.

For hikers, it's the sweet spot between the fall-color rush and hunting season. For shoppers, it's the time to get a head start on the holidays, before the craziness starts.

More often than not, the weather still is gorgeous, and stubborn oaks and willows offer color that lasts into the middle of November.

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Ghosts of the Great Lakes

Centuries of tragedy on ship and shore leave haunting memories.

In late fall, ghosts go hand in hand with shipwrecks and the malevolent storms that cause them.

Crews and passengers have been coming to bad ends ever since boats sailed the Great Lakes, starting with the French explorer La Salle's Griffin, which disappeared in 1679 after leaving Washington Island in Door County and may have been found off Michigan's Garden Peninsula.

Some say the ship was done in by an Iroquois curse on the French invaders, and that it still can be glimpsed lurking in the fog.

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Fall in Door County

On this peninsula in Lake Michigan, autumn colors gild a much-loved landscape.

Around the Upper Midwest, Door County is the tourist destination that other tourist destinations envy.

Everything a tourist loves, it's got: Lighthouses, craggy shorelines, sand dunes. Golf courses, boutiques, bistros. Bicycle paths, hiking trails, beaches.

There's a little bit of New England in the white-frame buildings of Ephraim, where tourists click photos of Wilson's, a century-old ice-cream parlor.

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