Aug 15

It was fun to see this cool family again quickly before we headed out.  The day started out rainy and cool. I actually needed my fleece and zipped rain coat, at least on the downhills. 

Catholic Church in a tiny town

This farmer was growing corn and some kind of tree together in one field. 

The last small uphill before miles and miles of downhill. 

There were 3 shepherds, 3 dogs and a large trip of goats. The dogs were attempting to roust some small animal from among the rocks, while the goats looked on from above. 

This is the first large body of water I have seen. It is the Guanting Reservoir.

We attempted to ride along the lake, but were foiled by an electric plant. The road on Google maps looked like it went through, but ran on the utilitiy's private road. We went up an unpaved/ unfinished road and that led to a track, which led us to a very raised road (to get up on it otherwise, we would have had to go back probably 10 or more miles). The result was that we were perfectly situated to pass through 3 tunnels with a cumulative mileage of almost 2 miles. It turns out Marian detests tunnels, so we walked them together. There was a raised sidewalk, but the noise was dreadful and the ventilation fans were mostly off. I pulled my ear plugs out, but the fumes gave me a headache in the end. 

We shared the road with huge trucks and rattletraps all the way to Xiaonanxinbaozhen, making for a pretty unpleasant ride. Silver lining; we did see more of the towers Marian thinks were ancient signal towers.