Ther Great Wall of China!!!

The history of this wall is AMAZING!!! I was trying to find a year that this wall was built and there is no exact date. According to many web sites it dates back to the "Spring and Autumn Period", which is 8th century BC. (722BC and 481BC) Roughly corresponds to the 1st half of the Eastern Zhon Dynasty! However, the wall as we see today was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). STILL... OLD OLD OLD and NO words or pictures can really give you the true mouth dropping, awe inspiring feeling when you are there! This is at the bottom of the "Juyong Pass". Grannie did great to get to that part and she was done! It is quite the cardio workout!

Donald and I made it up to that first tower. I'm telling you...it was tough!!! It didn't help that it was crazy hot and that I had pooped the ENTIRE day previous and was dehydrated before we even began the hike! :) This picture does not do it justice as to how steep it is, plus the steps are not uniformed in height. You will have a 3 inch step followed by an 18 inch step, so you can't get in a rhythm. Like I said it makes for a heck of a cardio workout.

This is us with the wall behind us after a bit of hiking. I WISH IT HAD BEEN A CLEARER DAY FOR YOU TO REALLY SEE THE WALL...it was amazing. We didn't have one blue sky day the entire trip. With the humidity and polution combined it was hazy the whole time. (Or we can just blame it on Donald since every trip we take with him it looks like this or worse...Grand Canyon, Mt. Mckinley, Sedona, you name it). You can see Ana thinking what we were all thinking..."what the heck are we doing on this steep, hot, wall...who's dream is this and why?" I took it VERY slow and told Marc, Ana, and Donald not to wait for me and they took off. About an hour later I find Donald at the top of the 1st tower and he wasn't in good shape. I wish I would have taken a picture, but I seriously thought he was about to die so I didn't want to take the picture and people wonder why I wasn't helping him vs watching him die! I think he had heat exhaustion. His eyes were rolled back in his head and he didn't even know I was there. I moved him to an area with a breeze and gave him more water and he finally came back around. We ended up making it to the "Hero Station" and got hero cards for our accomplishment! Looking back now...it was totally worth it, but MAN what an experience!

Marc on the other hand was GONE! He was far beyond us and had a 25 lb kid on his back! He was with one of the other guys on our tour and they made it past five towers (beyond the tower in the upper right corner from two pictures back) but ran out of time before getting to the top. He said he kept telling Ana it was a father/daughter mission! :) She kept saying she wanted down and was making up every excuse to get down. I guess when she said she had to pee he told her to go for it because he was already soaked with sweat and stinky...what was pee gonna do! But she really didn't...just another excuse to get down!

This is him coming back down and barley able to stand up...Ana is asleep on his back! I'm telling you...this was an amazing ordeal! Gotta hate it and love it all at the same time! After the wall we stopped for a huge lunch and Marc was a bottomless pit. He had worked up quite the appetite!