Great Wall of China

We drove for about an hour in the taxi through some small villages in the mountains. Then we hop out of the car and get on one of these!! A ski lift! I couldn't believe it. I guess I thought we would just walk up to the wall. I didn't realize the wall was on the mountain tops, which makes sense, of course. We actually took this picture on the way back down, so this is why it's darker than the rest. By the time we left it was getting dark and it was COLD and foggy.

Here is Ike. The man should run marathons! He's not much taller than me, but he can really move FAST. He knew we were pressed for time and wanted to make sure we got some pictures before it got too dark, so he moved even faster than normal. It was a work out, for sure!

How incredible is this? The building behind us is a watch tower, and you can see them spaced out along the wall. The watch towers were where the soldiers lived. I can't imagine how cold those buildings must have been in the winter. The holes along the sides of the wall and on the tops of the towers were for shooting arrows.

It's hard to get a shot that gives you an idea of the vastness of the wall. It just goes on and on and on, all along the mountain tops. It truly is an amazing wonder of the world. It was very foggy, and the mountains were beautiful.

This is one of the little "arrow shooting" holes along the wall.

Just a neat picture of the mountains through an opening in the wall.

This is inside one of the watch towers.

Another shot of the different watch towers.

One last great picture! Sarah was a trooper, of course. She really liked the ski lift and laughed and giggled all the way back down the mountain. She is very wiggly when she's excited, so I had a death grip on her and Dave kept saying, "Do you have her? Do you have her?" because she was so wiggly!

P.S. Wanted to get these last China pictures posted today, will try to post some homecoming pictures tomorrow. For some reason blogger is really slow tonight.

So we stood on the Great Wall on Friday afternoon, flew 12 hours, crossed the International Date Line, arrived at LAX on Friday afternoon, and slept in our own bed on Friday night, MST. How's that for a busy Friday??? :)

Last picture of Ike helping us at the Beijing airport. The terminal is huge and very cool. Sarah is very photogenic and likes to see the picture in the camera window after it is taken. She is sitting in the luggage cart. It was the perfect size for her. :)