We always get a little frantic in fall, trying to make the most of a too-brief window of opportunity.

Fall is the best time for a lot of things: hiking, after frost has knocked off the bugs; road trips, when the countryside is at its loveliest; and wildlife-watching, when birds and beasts are on the move.

Plus, it's gorgeous. Most people try to catch the reds and oranges of maples at peak, but tamaracks, tallgrass and oaks keep things glowing through October.

As soon as rhubarb leaves unfurl and morels pop out of the ground, towns across the region begin their salutes to the local specialty.

It starts with Norwegian lefse on Syttende Mai and continues to Finnish pasties, German pretzels, Czech kolacky, Danish pancakes and American pie.

There will be music and parades and all kinds of goofy contests — rhubarb-stalk throwing in Lanesboro, a rutabaga shot put in Calumet — but mostly, there will be a lot to eat.

Milwaukee doesn't toot its own horn much, so you've got to explore it yourself to see how much fun it can be.

Right in town, you can spend an entire day touring breweries or riding on the Oak Leaf Trail, a 100-mile chain of paved paths, parkways and connecting streets.

But the city also is surrounded by old Yankee mill towns and German settlements.

Americans have a love-hate relationship with their tourist traps. They're so uncool . . . but so irresistible.

What makes something a tourist trap? It's a place that's so cheesy you have to see if it's really as cheesy as it looks. A place so iconic you've seen a million pictures of it. A place plugged by thousands of highway billboards.

Mostly, it's a place everyone else has seen — so you have to, too. We can't help ourselves, especially when it comes to anything that's odd or oversized.

As anyone who's ever planned a fall trip knows, peak leaf color can be elusive.

Betting on a burst of spectacular color is like plugging nickels into a slot machine. To win, all of the figures have to line up: the right number of warm days and cool nights, the right levels of sugar produced, the right amounts of moisture.

Predictions always are chancy. What experts look for are summer rains that give trees plenty of moisture, and sunny days that are warm but not hot enough to stress trees.

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.