Jumping for joy!

Us and several other foreigners who traveled with us

to the northern part of our province, and we're

happily exploring a fort on the Great Wall.

Not sure what I (in green) am doing...

We had a great time on the foreigner trip hosted by the provincial government. They certainly honored us and treated us with the utmost of care. We are so blessed, and we met some great people (from provincial big-wigs to local university volunteers).

We have so many pictures to share and stories to tell. This is just to whet the appetite. Place-by-place story and picture gallery to come!

A beautiful "dan-xia landform" near Zhangye.

We heard that the colors are really strong at

sunrise and sunset, and we were there about

an hour before sunset. We want to go back here!

Mike, having a ball on the western-most fort on the Great Wall.

He is running DOWN the horse path, which is said to bring

good luck and prosperity to all who climb it.

Okay, this next pic is not your typical "great" picture. We're not even looking at the camera and some guy is randomly in it!

BUT, this is no random guy: He was officially hired by the provincial government to document our trip. He took that to mean "follow the palest one around and get as many pics as possible of her". Hmmm.

So, this pic below was so fitting, as he just finished taking 10 or so pics of Mike and me looking out into the river valley. :)

Hired photographer on right :)

Okay, the next picture just cracks me up. It needs a little story-telling first.

Many of you know that I love to take pictures, especially of nature. When we were at the landform, I was just mesmerized by the amazing colors and formations that He made for our pleasure.

So, imagine me, snapping pictures left and right, moving around for the best shot. I'm not paying attention to anything else. Then I hear...

"Hall-oh? Hell-uh? Hall-oo?"

And I turn around.... and this is what I see:



So, what do I do? I smile and wave and give them a thumbs-up. I hear I am going to be on the cover of some China-published magazine or submitted to National Geographic or something...

Apparently, I heard later, my bright shirt and "yellow" hair contrasted very well with the red rocks behind me. Hmm... In the states, when I wore this shirt, most people say, "Wow.... umm... that's.... uh.... bright."

I guess it was a good color in China :)

You'll notice that our "official" photographer is there (in pink on the left), but who are those other guys? Amateur photographers from the area who were there to take pictures of the colors at sunset...

At least until the pale foreigner showed up. (Note: There WERE other pale ones there! Not sure what was so special about me!)

They seriously followed me around all over the place taking pictures. I was gracious as long as possible... And they were very sweet. For the first 30 minutes...

Be on the lookout for pics of me, or Mike and me, in all those Chinese magazines you read!

We love you guys! More pics and stories to come :)
M+A