Mountain Trip 2: Tibetan Olympics

Sorry to all of my followers on the past two weeks of silence.  I have been either busy or in the mountains.  I just returned yesterday from my second trip into the Himalayan Mountains and Grasslands.

 Here is a picture of one of the nearby temples we visited.

Here is the largest of the temples.  It is undergoing a remodeling job.  All of the temple's roofs are painted in gold.  They are quite a site with the sun reflecting off of them.

 This was the closest we got to a shower.  It is great not having to care about what you look or smell like all week.

Later in the week we met up with a friend who took us to his uncle's nomadic home.  It was almost a two hour car ride and hike out to the remote location..

After arriving we climbed one of the nearby mountains to get a good look at the valley.  His uncle owned over a 1,000 yak, 1,000 sheep, and a 100 horses.  It was pretty cool seeing them all over the valley.

This is my trademark "Mountain Conquering TM" pose.

We arrived at the top just in time to watch the sun set over the rolling mountains.  It was indescribably beautiful.  So much so that we all wanted to try and hold it.  This picture pretty much describes my trip over here.  Beholding the Son.

Andrew wanted to pull off the action hero look.

After that we headed back down to the valley to enjoy a delicious meal and an evening of laying beside the fire talking with new friends.  Following this our hosts popped a tent up for us and we battled the cold night.  It doesn't matter what month you are up here.  When the sun goes down it gets pretty cold.

The next morning we had ourselves a little Tibetan Olympic Games.  The first event was wrestling.  A favorite of mine.

Andrew fighting for control while all watched with bated breath (I found out that there is a great controversy in the academic community over bated breath vs baited breath).

The next event was "River Jumping."  We just did it in a field marking the furthest jump in the dirt.

This event held the closest competition of all the events.

I was not one of the finalist.  Let's be real, my body is not designed to fly through the air.

 Wǒ de xiǎo péngyǒu (My little friends)

Due to time limitations we had to cut the games short and only do three events.  The final even was the 40 yard dash.

I am proud to say that USA took home gold in all three events.

This is me walking by faith across the Bái Hé (White River) neighbor to the famous Huáng Hé (Yellow River).

And this is me barely keeping my head above water.  I feel like both describe different parts of the "walk."

It was a great trip all around.  We were blessed with safety and the freedom to go where we needed to go.  The next few weeks I will be back in the big city.  Thanks for following.