Hey everyone, Josh and Mitzi here from Lanesboro, Minnesota. Eagle Bluff Environmental Education Center to be exact. We are here visiting Susan the Naturalist for a few days.

I'll try to give an update of the places we went and the people we've met since our last blog (which seems like so long ago already!) sorry!

So, we stayed for three weeks in the Gunks. Autumn rolled in right before our eyes, and we felt truly blessed to be living outside during such a beautiful time of year in the Northeast. After the Gunks, we returned home to drop off/pick up a few more items need for our cross-country adventure. It was really nice to spend a few days with the family before taking off. We got a chance to see Logan, Todd and Stacy's baby boy, which was a real treat. The first Harding grandbaby!!

Then we set off for good this time, with 1,463 miles so far on the trip odometer. Our first stop was Lock Haven. Josh did a presentation to finish up his degree, and got an A (way to go Babe!). We stayed one night with the Smiths and Pairodox Farm, our second favorite place in Lock Haven (the first being Texas for breakfast, and we went there too!) Joanna made us a delicious home grown meal, and we had a great time visiting with them. Thank you!!

We stayed a second night with Heather and spent some time with Luke too... making our stop to Lock Haven really nice. Thanks to Heather for boarding us, and thanks to Luke for the beer. We love you guys.

We left LHU on a Friday, heading west to visit Sue in Minnesota, thinking we'd stop in Southern Illinois for some climbing. We stopped for coffee in Northern Kentucky at about 10pm and found out the Red River Gorge was only 2 hours away! Our other destination in Southern Illinois was 3.5 hours away so, we decided to change course and head to the gorge for some world class sport climbing for a few days!!

When we arrived at Miguel's (pizza shop/climber's campground), we found out it was "Rocktoberfest 2007"-a world famous climbing festival, and the Petzel climbing team was in town for a competition and other festival events. There had to be 150 tents set up at the spot we were planning on camping at, but we squeezed our car in the parking lot and found an empty patch of grass for our tent at 12:30am when we finally get there.

The Red River Gorge is one of the most spectacular places we've ever climbed. The sand stone cliffs that make up the gorge are beyond describtion, they are so beautiful. It has a great mix of all types of climbing, from sport face climbing to tradition crack/offwidths, and every variation in between.

We met some really cool folks there. Two guys we spent some time with have been travling like us for two years now!! They were an inspirtaion to us!! Thanks to Daniel for all his generosity. We met a guy named Matt from Oregon and climbed hard with him the day before we left. He was a good guy, hope to meet up with him sometime in the future out west maybe. We also exchanged numbers with a super mellow couple from Denver who offered to meet up and climb some once we get out there. One of the greatest parts of being climbing bums is the people we meet.

So, we headed out of Kentucky when the rains moved in (last Tuesday or Wednesday, I think??). Onto Chicago for the night to stay with Ashley, Jason and Makai for the night. We spent the next day with Jason for his b-day, then headed the rest of the way up to Lanesboro, Minnesota to visit Sue.

We've been here at Eagle Bluff for almost a week. Everyone here is so great, and welcoming. They've been letting us bum around the "commune" all week, and feeding us too!! We've seen a bunch of Bald Eagles, and some other raptors, beautiful hikes, and A LOT of corn. We went to Minneapolis for the weekend to visit Steph Zmich, and stupid us didn't take any pictures!!! : ( Sorry!!) . But Minneapolis is a beautiful city, and Steph was a great tour guide. We will post some pictures of Eagle Bluff next time it is getting late and, today is Susan's birthday so I want to go hang out. We will be on the road again tomorrow morning before the sun comes up. We have a twelve hour drive ahead of us to Ten Sleep, Wyoming. Pray for no snow for us. We miss all of you and will be in touch soon.

Love, Grace, and Peace!