Well we had a great Holloween, although there is always a catch right?  This time it was finding out that one of our gypsy wagons was a month past due, as the nice officer at the air force base politely made us aware before telling us to turn out disorganized hides around.  Probably not the best idea while living on the road?  I guess the layers of mail forwarding finally got us on something that counted.  Regardless Bill and Jennifer drove out to the gate and picked us up, so Andy still made it to the party, and enjoyed his costume.  We even went to the mall afterward but he seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the strange looking strangers.  Recovering in style however, when we got home he decided that we didn't need to spoon feed him anymore.  He could do it himself!  Not sure what rice cereal does to eyes and nasal passages but he didn't seem to mind the mess.  Next week it is back on the road, and we can't wait to get back west.

Well we have been having a great fall here.  Until last weekend when winter hit us with a snowy 65mph blast we havdn't seen a drop of rain and the abnormally high temperatures and continuous sunshine made playing outside easy.  Andy and I have continued to spend two to four hours a day outside walking, running, and watching wildlife around our favorite park.  We have been using Andy's stroller as a grocery getter.  Beth even managed to get a couple good mountain bike rides in with us during her last week of surgery.  However the Saturday before last she dove into following hospitalists on her internal medicine rotation and the biking has been cut short by her long call hours and the snow on the ground.  On the plus side since we live a skyway away from the hospital she has been able to come spend time with us between admits.  Andy  even took a little time out of his busy day to send a little message to one of his great grandfathers who we all hope feels much better soon.  This last weekend we took a little trip south to Bismarck for Beth's ski patrol refresher.  This gave Andy the opportunity to spend his first night in his new tent at the hotel.  It worked very well and I highly recommend them.  Then while Beth was refreshing we summited the snowy "peak" above Huff Hills Ski Area for some nice views.  Andy loves to explore.  It's been a big couple weeks for him.  He seems to have taken being 5% by weight very seriously and suddenly doubled his milk intake the beginning of last week.  In addition he has now mastered front to back rolling, and is getting much more comfortable on his stomach with his head up as well as seems to be slowly warming up to spoon feeding.  He really likes the high chair, that we finally had a chance to pull out of the storage in Bismarck last weekend.  That's a funny story in itself, but by the time we were done we had managed to rescue the snow tires for both cars from the bowels of the pile, change them out in the mud, dug our way into the keys for the fire safe we have been carrying around with no way to open, as well as retrieve ski gear.  So now we have passports (in safe) and equipment for our x-mas ski trip.

This week we had lots of fun.  On top of the normal biking and running during the week we decided to go exploring over the weekend.  This took us north to the Turtle "Mountains" of North Dakota.... Don't want to hurt anyones feelings, the area was beautiful but we didn't see any mountains.  Just a couple hundred foot high plateau with lots of short trees on it.  First we stopped at the Strawberry lake camping area... which was in fact a very nice campground although even in the mountains of ND the watter appears to be rising.  As a result many of the picnic tables, a few lights, and at least one outhouse are currently submerged or near so.  Next we continued across to Lake Metigoshe State Park for some hiking.  Interesting the park had its beginnings as a transient camp for the civilian conservation corps and was littered with abandoned buildings.  On our four or so mile hike we must have passed at least half a dozen abandoned outhouses as well as several larger buildings and a huge abandoned lodge.  The map also left a bit to be desired and the first trail we took began as a mowed road with variety but suddenly turned to single track.  I followed this path around a group of bushes with a short chunk of fence tangled up in them and headed up the trail toward what I thought was a pioneer grave marker.  On closer look it was very nice chrome colored and said United States on the close side... so I walked to the other side... and it said Canada, causing me to jump back to my side since we certainly were not carrying passports.  Oops...  So we turned around and found some different trails to explore.  On the way home we stopped to see several of the great turtles the guard the mountains... ND has lots of big things spread around and this area is no exception.  The first is a huge turtle made of welded together car wheels, and the second is a very tall turtle ridding a snow mobile...   Go figure..So not a bad weekend and I think Andy had lots of fun.  Let me know how you like the new slide show thing, or I can go back to the old layout.