清晨

Let all the earth fear the Lord;

let all the people of the world revere him.

For he spoke, and it came to be; 

he commanded, and it stood firm.

a great trip

I have been to the Great Wall a number of times in the past five years, to several different parts of it and in various types of weather. Indeed it is an amazing place, and I've taken more than my share of pictures to try and capture that.

 Last week's trip, however, beats all the others. 

Amazing weather. Beautiful scenes. Great memories.

Liz's three brothers visited us last week, and one of the things they wanted to do while they were here is to hike and camp on the Great Wall of China. I'm not an experienced hiker, and I much prefer paying to sleep in a bed rather than sleeping on rocks for free, :) but this was a great experience. 

In terms of navigation, hiking there is relatively easy. After all, it's a wall. You can see where you're supposed to go, so it's not exactly easy to get lost. 

In terms of climbing...well, it was pretty hard at times. But worth it. Totally worth it.

Another bonus of the trip, maybe the biggest blessing of all, was the chance to get to know Liz's brothers a little bit. I hadn't actually met two of them before last week (cue sweaty palms), so hiking together was a good, not-so-scary way to spend time together. ;) It was a gift to spend that time with Liz and her brothers, who will soon be my brothers too.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

We got dropped off here...and began walking towards the wall. 

And we found it. : )

 The view from our campsite. Not bad, eh?

Some of us set up camp; others watched. And I took pictures. 

Next up: a few pictures from the following morning.