Not only is Taylor driving now, her brother Tony was just taller than Judy when we left Colorado last September. Now he’s about as tall as me. (I still outweigh him though). He’s just twelve, but he’s growing up so fast. I took a clip of him describing a new video game.He looks just like Brian did at the same age.
Along the way
Our granddaughter Taylor turned sixteen. Now she drives herself to school.
We’ve been watching the U.S. Open at Matt’s house on High Definition television. We like High Definition a lot.We priced High Definition for the motorhome. The dish alone would cost $3,500. We like Regular Definition a lot too.Ideal fall weather here. Eighty degree days. Cool nights. Took a drive into the mountains on Sunday to check out Golden Gate Canyon State Park at 9,000 feet. We were greeted by a mountain shower with thunder, lightning, and 45 degrees. We’re enjoying the approach of fall at Denver’s moderate 5,000 foot altitude.Here is something you don’t usually see; a leaping prairie dog. Really. He got air! 
Dakotas
We loved the Dakotas; both of them. Open, uncrowded, and scenic. Rolling grasslands. Forests. Lakes and streams. We mean to go back and spend more time. We were only in them for a couple days driving through, but we got several looks at what is a rare bird for us, the sharp tailed grouse. Got lots of hawks and golden eagles. Thought we would get a ferruginous hawk but we didn’t. Here is the Dakotas list: 1. Ring necked pheasant 2. Sharp tailed grouse 3. Pied billed grebe 4. Double crested cormorant 5. Turkey vulture 6. Northern harrier 7. Swainson’s hawk 8. Golden eagle 9. American kestrel 10. Prairie falcon 11. American coot 12. Killdeer 13. Baird’s sandpiper 14. Eurasian collared dove 15. Mourning dove 16. White throated swift 17. Belted kingfisher 18. Eastern kingbird 19. Horned lark 20. Barn swallow 21. White breasted nuthatch 22. Mountain bluebird 23. American robin 24. Red winged blackbird 25. Western meadowlark 26. American goldfinch 27. House sparrow
Map
We bought a map with stick-on states back in 1992 when we got our first motorhome, the 19’ El Dorado. We’ve been sticking new states on it ever since, every time we go to a new one in the motorhome. We’ve carried the map with us in the El Dorado, the Jamboree, the first Bounder (Shamu), the diesel Bounder, and now the Monterey.
We’re westerners. We took care of all the western states right away. Then we got all the southern states. We haven’t added many states lately. The last one was in 2004, when we went to Michigan to pick up the diesel Bounder. But now… we got a new state this last trip: North Dakota. Here is our updated map. I suppose it should be a digital map now, after all these years, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. So, in the meantime, here is a photographic update of the primitive map.
More Techno
And Judy’s new HP Mini. This will run the navigation software while we’re driving the coach, without being a giant distraction on the dashboard. It has campground software on it so Judy can research possibilities on the fly. It will be online as we’re driving (using the Mifi), in case Judy needs to look anything up.
