0 to 10,000

For the first time ever I had a weekend to get out and see some scenery while in Taiwan. On Saturday Lucas, Heath and I drove from sea level straight up into the mountains to about 8,500 feet. From there Heath and I decided to ride tiny folding bikes the remaining 1,500 vertical feet to the summit, which was about 7km.

We figured this would take about a half an hour. It took an hour and a half with around 20 rest breaks. Apparently the body doesn't like going from o to 10,000 feet in the space of a few hours and then engage in intense cardiovascular activity.


Start of the climb:


Climbing:


One of many rest breaks:


Nearing the top:


Summit:


Summit marker:

Apple picking

A bunch of us went apple picking just before Halloween, but my sloth has prevented me from posting pictures until now. The plan was to drive to the orchard and feast upon whatever tasty baked-goods they had for breakfast, but whoever was responsible for the baking at Kiyokawa Orchards was sick that day so we went elsewhere in search of food.

This orchard had a beautiful view, but no baked goods other than cookies and by this time we needed something more substantial:


Luckily this little town had a train-themed diner called the "Trails End" that had plenty of greasy fare AND there was a Halloween parade about to begin.



After the parade we picked apples... lots of 'em:

'Bama

Halloween

Kathryn was a bag of jelly beans and I was a lumberjack. We got invited to a party and were told to bring cameras for a scavenger hunt. Little did we know the scavenger hunt involved leaving the party immediately to roam around the city for two hours looking for certain costumes and photographing them. Kind of defeats the purpose of a "party," right? We thought so too, so we walked to the nearest tavern, took up seats at the bar and let our quarry come to us.

While deer hunting in my youth I would always end up paying too much attention to the book I had brought along to ever see deer. And so it was at the bar. Just replace "deer" with "costumes" and "book" with "beer." I bet there are a lot of joke hunting shirts involving puns on "deer" and "beer."