Oct. 7, 2005. There we were, me, wife and dog, 20 miles into our 600- mile trip from the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula to Detroit, always sad to be leaving the U.P., always a bit intimidated by the drive ahead. When, SUDDENLY, ding, ding, a bell goes off and a light flashes on the dashboard saying to turn off the engine, and the oil light is flashing too.

I pull over, open the hood, check the oil. It's two quarts low. The city of Calumet is just two miles up the road, so I take a chance and drive slowly into town, buy some oil, top it off, turn on the engine and pray the pinging is gone and the lights are out.

It is. They are. Hooray. It was just low on oil.

Five miles later, the pinging starts anew. The warning lights on the dash start flashing. And ... the pinging stops and the lights go out.

And start again. And stop. I pull into a BP station in Hancock where a guy is putting a tire on a rim. Another hooray, a mechanic working on a Sunday.

Turns out he's not a mechanic. He's just a kid who does tire work on weekends. His best guess is it's probably just a sensor going bad. Might be fine. Might not be. But we won't be finding any mechanics in town on a Sunday, so unless we want to wait a day ...

Which we don't since we've both got to get back to work, me to a new job at Crain's Detroit Business where I have no personal days accrued yet, and where I'm still sort of on tryout.

We start the car back up and head out U.S. 41, trying best we can to ignore the pinging. Eight miles later the pinging seems louder. I look down and see the tachometer has suddenly gone down to zero. The engine has stalled. I coast to a stop and try to restart it. Nada.

Luckily, we have coasted to a stop in front of the only motel in the small town of Chassell, the only motel for the next 30 miles. The owner tells me they don't take dogs, but he's not going to turn me away under the circumstances, so we're all welcome until we can figure out what to do with the car.

Chassell doesn't have cell-phone coverage. He loans me his phone and phone book and it turns out the nearest weekend towing service is the BP station I'd just left. A little while later, the same kid is hooking up the Chrysler van and hauling it off.

If we have to be stuck, this is the place. Behind the motel is a rails-to- trails path, and past that is a park and beach. It is hot and sunny and even though it's October in the U.P., the summer and fall have been so hot we have no trouble getting into Portage Lake.

Later, we discover across the highway and on the other side of the two blocks that constitute Chassell, there are miles of ski trails though thick forests.

Monday, we get the news. Blown bearing. Maybe they can find a used engine. Probably they have to order a new one. We can either buy a used car or fix this one.

We go for the fix. They'll let us know what they find. Which, good news, is a low-mileage used engine that will cost $2,000 instead of $4,000, but the car won't ready till Thursday.

Monday, too, the weather turns. It gets gray and blustery and rainy and stays that way till we leave. There's no restaurant in town. The last one burned down a while back; all that's left is a concrete slab by the pay phone that rarely works.

Thank God for the bike path and trails. We walk or run three or four times a day, whenever we can't stand another minute in the motel room.

The trails are beautiful, tough and anything but boring. There are a lot of squirrels for the dog to chase as we do our miles.

(The owner of the motel has a day job and is rarely around. Such is the nature of the U.P. that there is a sign on the office door, and next to it a bunch of keys. The sign tells what each room costs and advises that if no one is around, take the room you want and leave the money in the top drawer of the nightstand when you depart in the morning.)

Aug. 26, 2006. We're back in the U.P. Haven't blown the new engine, yet. It's Kathleen, the dog, me, her daughter, Jennie, and the grandson, Daron, who had announced to me at the Corktown race in Detroit in March that he wanted to do a 5K before the summer is over.

And we're back in Chassell. We're in the U.P. for two weeks' vacation and staying in the beautiful, postcard-pretty town Eagle Harbor. To our delight, the newsletter that arrived from the U.P. Road Runners before we left had an entry form for the Carl Olson Memorial Run in Chassell and - what do you know? - it's on the same ski trails that saved our sanity.

Daron was planning to do the mile here, but on a two-mile trail run earlier in the trip, his longest run ever, he'd had so much fun he suggested doing the 5K instead.

It's a freaking bear. The first mile is all uphill, some gradual, a lot steep, with lots of roots and the usual trail trippery. I have Maddie on the leash, the happiest trail racer you've ever seen.

I keep telling the kid at least the last mile will be easy, to hang in there, the pain in his lungs and legs really will get better. He finishes like a champ, passing folks on the long downhill of the loop course.

We both win age-group awards, he competing with 13 and under at age 11, me in the 55-59 geezer division. The 35 minutes won't get us in the Guinness Book of World Records, but each of us wearing our matching t-shirts all day and winning awards? Magic. Worth having blown an engine in the same place a year earlier.

The next Saturday Daron wants to do another 5K, and shaves two minutes off his time at Chuck Block's Run Like the Wind in Westland.

**

When is a 5K run tougher than a seven-miler? When it's at the glorious, fantastic, man-oh-man-you-can't-believe-the-views Harvest Stompede through the Leelanau wine country northwest of Traverse City.

I use all those adjectives by way of trying to entice those of you who haven't done it yet to do so next year. Those of you who have, like John Wehrly of Madison Heights, know I exaggerate not.

This year's run Sept. 16 had the same cobalt-blue sky and endless vistas the race seems to have trademarked. I was there to do the seven- miler, getting to some semblance of shape for the first time in a few years in hopes of surviving the Detroit Free Press Marathon.

Last year I ran 61 minutes here. This year - those 30-mile weeks are paying off - I finished in 57:37. The course really is too cool. It starts at Ciccone Vineyards, Tony being Madonna's dad. Yep, that Madonna. The vines are lush with grapes bulging with juice, just days away from harvest.

A long downhill leads to Mawby's Vineyard, where a series of steep ups-and-downs get the heart soaring. Then comes a mercifully-long flat trail stretch to Black Star Farms, where more short, steep ups-and- downs await, followed by a killer mile-long climb up and up through loose sand.

The course loops back to Ciccone's and up the same steep hill we ran down to start, going up now, and there - finally! - is the pit filled with grapes we get to jump in at the finish line.

The course doesn't lend itself to running with a dog on a leash - too many narrow stretches through rows of grapes - so to thrill Maddie and add on some miles, I take her out on the now-empty 5K course.

And find out it may be the toughest 5K course I've seen. And one of the prettiest. It is relentless. Not a flat spot to be seen. Nearly everything at what seems like 30- or 40-degree angles.

Which is why later, after the awards, I approached Ken Flannery with even more heartfelt congratulations than usual. He's 46, now, but his chiseled torso and unlined face belie his master's status. For the third- straight year he's won. Once again he's broken 20 minutes, finishing in 19:48.

Sub-20 on that course? Better check his pee. MR