sausageheavenoutdoors Enjoy making homemade sausage, Tasty way's to BBQ, smoking meats and poultry. See how northern Minnesota was settled and the life early homesteader's lived their lives and more!!

Construction of a six-mile paved trail segment connecting the Paul Bunyan State Trail to Crow Wing State Park in Brainerd is now complete and open to the public, according to the DNR Parks and Trails Division. The completion of this segment brings the total length of the trail to 116 miles, not including a couple of short on-road connections through the cities of Baxter and Bemidji. Extending all the way to Lake Bemidji State Park, north of Bemidji, it is the longest of Minnesota’s 25 state trails and the longest continuously paved rail-trail in the country. In 2011, the Rail-to-Trails Conservancy bolstered the trail’s growing national reputation by naming it to the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame.

An aerial video of the new trail segment-created by the contractor, Anderson Brothers Construction Company of Brainerd-is posted on You Tube at http://youtu.be/cIN-ObQm9OU .