Norwegian Christmas Weekend in Decorah, Iowa. In the northeast Iowa bluffs, Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum will have Scandinavian food, theater, music, folk-art demonstrations, singing around the Jule tree and appearances by Julenisse and Julebukker. Dec. 6-7.

What a difference competition can make.

On Nov. 5, the cheapest round-trip air fare between the Twin Cities and Chicago was $397. The next day, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines entered the market, and now it's $159.

Southwest won't start flying until March, but it's accepting reservations for travel between March 7 and May 8 on its new Twin Cities-Chicago Midway route. That's lowered fares that more than doubled after AirTran withdrew in May 2008.

Sometimes, when traveling, it's nice to let someone else run the show.

Someone who reserves those holiday-weekend rooms a year in advance. Someone who gets discounts on lift tickets, plans dinners and organizes transportation. Then, all you have to do is sign up and go.

And the costs can be irresistibly low.

After 33 years, the mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald is debated as hotly as ever.

In 1975, the seemingly indestructible ore freighter foundered in a vicious storm and sunk, carrying its captain and 28 crewmen with it. But why?

Among the theories: The 729-foot boat (pictured) hit a little-known reef and damaged its hull. Its steel and welds were overstressed from its years as a workhorse. It was hit by the Three Sisters, a Lake Superior phenomenon in which two rogue waves strike, followed by a third massive wave that overwhelms the boat as it struggles to recover.

The leaves are barely off the trees when holiday mansion tours begin.

In the southern Minnesota town of Rochester, the country manor built by W.W. Mayo's younger son is first out of the block, filling its 38 rooms with ribbons, garlands and gleaming glass balls for tours that start Nov. 7.

In a picturesque pocket of southeast Minnesota, four unusual venues provide an astonishing amount of music — for those who know about them.

In Red Wing, the jewel-box 1904 Sheldon Theatre is fairly well-known. But then there's also the Music Loft at Hobgoblin Music, in a renovated barn west of Red Wing;  the earthy Oak Center General Store, up the bluffs from Lake City; and the Crossings at Carnegie (pictured), the smallest Carnegie library in the state, in Zumbrota.

When reserving the region's most coveted cabins, it pays to be Johnny on the spot.

I was in Wisconsin's Point Beach State Forest (pictured) on a sunny Saturday in late September, checking out two cabins, each with its own boardwalk to a virtually private white-sand beach on Lake Michigan.

Amazingly, there was still one cabin left for one summer weekend in 2009, but I didn't reserve it. Fall would be better for biking on the Rawley Point Trail and hiking on the Ice Age Trail, both of which cut through the park. Still, that beach looked really inviting.

In Ely, the Michelangelo of maples is retiring, and the northwoods Minnesota town isn't sure where it'll get its next display of fall leaves. If you can color within the lines and know scarlet from crimson, there may be a job for you with Ely's Fall Leaf Colorization Project. Find out more by watching this fun YouTube report.

Are your Halloween plans up in the air? Imagine walking on a cable three stories above the forest floor, with nothing to hang onto except a rope swaying overhead. Now imagine doing it at night, helped along by ghouls.

That's the Haunted High Ropes course at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center,  just west of Lanesboro, Minn., on a bluff overlooking the North Branch of the Root River. It's 6-10 p.m. Oct. 31, and the $15 tickets are going fast; call 507-467-2437.

In central Iowa, a gleaming Arts and Crafts boutique hotel has reopened.

To people in Perry, 40 miles northwest of Des Moines, it seemed like manna from heaven when hometown girl Roberta Ahmanson, who had married a California savings-and-loan heir, took the dowdy old Hotel Pattee and filled it with terra-cotta tile, Persian rugs and so much Honduran mahogany she cornered the market for it.

If you're planning to hike along Minnesota's North Shore this weekend, be sure to wear blaze orange.

On Oct. 11 and 12, Minnesota's DNR is holding an early firearms deer season, in addition to the regular firearms season Nov. 8-23. The Lake County section of the Superior Hiking Trail between Two Harbors and Crosby-Manitou State Park near Little Marais is affected, as are parts of the westernmost section, between Jay Cooke State Park and Magney-Snively Park in Duluth.

It began with a sepulchral fugue, crashing through the frigid iron innards of the ship. Then there was a shriek. And throbbing blood-red lights.

At a fork along a curtained gantlet, a hand-lettered sign advised, "Choose wisely.'' We chose. Another sign said, "You chose poorly.'' Then the ghouls began to crowd in, chattering like monkeys: "Where you goin'? Where you goin'?''

This weekend, the stampede to Minnesota's North Shore begins.

Leaf peepers who descend on the craggy shores between Duluth and Grand Marais are out of luck if they didn't reserve far in advance for weekends between now and Minnesota's long school break, Oct. 16-19.

But those who drive a little farther, just an hour beyond Grand Marais, will find everything the Minnesota shore has and more. Thunder Bay, Lake Superior's largest town, no longer is a great bargain, thanks to the weak U.S. dollar. But in fall, it does have one thing the North Shore doesn't: plenty of hotel rooms.

When that first autumn day arrives, its crisp air laced by the faint aroma of wood smoke, many of us get the urge to take a drive.

One drive that really packs in the attractions is the 52-mile stretch of the St. Croix River between Taylors Falls and the St. Croix’s confluence with the Mississippi at Prescott. It has everything a tourist could want — train excursions, boat cruises, shopping, historic houses, apple orchards and hiking in five Wisconsin and Minnesota state parks.

Wondering what geocaching is? Find out Saturday, Sept. 27 at 10 a.m. in Minnesota's Savanna Portage State Park west of Duluth, which is holding a Geocaching 101— The History Challenge program. On Oct. 11, William O'Brien State Park in Marine on St. Croix will hold Geocaching 101.

In Minnesota, which is celebrating its sesquicentennial, state parks have issued a Geocaching History Challenge, hiding a cache in each of the 72 parks. Each cache contains collectible history cards from the park, a logbook and information on geocaching challenges and awards.

In September and October, hawks fill the skies, swooping down from northern forests and prairies by the thousands.

Experienced birders wait for them on the shores of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, counting raptors overhead and banding those they can catch. That's a great opportunity for amateur birders to see a raptor up close (pictured, a red-tailed hawk), and unlike eagles and most other birds, they're best viewed in the middle of the day.

It's a great idea for a fall adventure: Spend two nights at the Blue Heron B&B in Ely, then drive along remote forest roads on the edge of the Boundary Waters to the Gunflint Trail, where you'll spend two nights at the Poplar Creek Guesthouse B&B.

In September and October, artists everywhere throw open their studio doors, inviting the public to see some fall colors along with some fine art.

It's so tempting because of the scenic landscapes in which so many artists live: the bluffs of northeast Iowa, the coulees of southwest Wisconsin, the towns around Lake Pepin, the lumpy terrain of the Ice Age Trail.

In Wisconsin, boys like to go fast.

That's why they invented the outboard motor (Cambridge), the Harley-Davidson motorcycle (Milwaukee), the race car (Menomonie) and the snowmobile (Sayner).

Here's where to go to pay homage to your favorite machine.

Menomonie, the race car. This western Wisconsin town was the home of Harry Miller, whose pioneering cars won the Indy 500 12 times; cars with his engines won another 29 times. The Rassbach Heritage Museum is showing the Golden Submarine, a race car Miller built for driver Barney Oldfield in 1917 for $15,000, the equivalent of $282,488 today. It's part of the exhibit "Harry Miller: Automotive Genius,'' running through Oct. 26.

In the tourist axis around Lake Pepin, three great old buildings have opened with new owners, just in time for the fall rush.

On the Red Cedar River in Downsville, Wis., the Creamery Restaurant and Inn has reopened as the New Creamery, and new owners Paula and Terry Vajgrt are adding a cafe, wine bar and gallery.

Soon, summer will be over, temperatures will cool down and everyone will start thinking the same thing: Time to plan a weekend bike trip.

Autumn is a great time to try out a new bike trail, not only because of fall colors and invigorating weather but because so many small towns throw harvest festivals in September and October.

Great River in southwest Wisconsin: Along the Mississippi between Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge and Onalaska, over bottomlands and bogs.

Central Lakes in western Minnesota: Between Fergus Falls and Osakis, with lots of prairie wildflowers and birds.

All across the north woods, lodge owners are heaving a sigh of relief: The fall-color rush is over.

But that doesn't mean lodges don't want guests. So they've dropped their rates by up to half until the holiday and ski seasons start.

It's just one reason the last week of October and first week of November is my favorite time to hike on Minnesota's North Shore (pictured, the Brule in late October); also, mud freezes on the trails and curtains of leaves fall back to reveal new views of Lake Superior.

In the natural world, misfortune for some means opportunity for others.

No bird is more opportunistic than a bald eagle, and that's why a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist last week spotted 500 of them on the Mississippi River between Trempealeau, Wis., and Brownsville, Minn., feasting on scaup and coots dying from snail-borne parasites.

If this were a normal year, 20,000 to 30,000 tundra swans now would be feasting on arrowhead tubers and wild celery on the section of the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge between Wabasha, Minn., and Prairie du Chien, Wis.

It's not Mother Nature. She's the one downing the trees and making the brush grow over the path.

The U.S. Forest Service and state Department of Natural Resources try to keep many trails open, but they can't do it alone. So, every spring and fall, they count on volunteers to pitch in and help.