the ride...

I love the perfect imperfection of this shot….  At our first lunch stop just after we pulled away from our dear church community and launched into this journey. This pic was meant to introduce "Brody" The Road Trip Owl.

Right after he mentioned that he and Joel traded one of their shoes after church this morning (they had the same shoes but Joel's are a bit older and a bit smaller and now they have equally awkward "pairs" to remember each other by).  

easiest baby carrier ever….  oh how we love these two!

we got stuck behind one of these for one of the 45 tunnels in our first two days on the road.  It happened to be one of the longest tunnels (probably at least 8 or 10 km) and we got to go 20km/hr with him….  I can't remember ever feeling so claustrophobic in a tunnel before!

peace in the back seat

Literally:  The Great Wall Mouth

This is it.  We recognized the patches of wall we saw alongside the freeway and knew it must be this (the town we stayed in that night is famous for being near the last fort of the great wall) but we never expected we'd drive straight through it!

passing by

and he said he didn't fall asleep...

oh this girl!  What a treat she is!

Yipee for an earlier finish than we expected this day!   Got to feed pigeons at a park in town to celebrate a quick day on the road:)

The last and longest day we decided to pass up our planned stop and push farther towards our new city.  So exciting to come into the cultural lands that we love...

And we got to spend the night at this cool lodge that is being managed by one of Matt's old language tutors.

What else do you do in the desert for a wiggle break?

And about two hours after this stop…. we arrived….