…from the week:<\/p>\n
We’re biking through harvested fields burning piles of cornstalk, avoiding the peanuts spread on the flat cement road that winds between farmland and rows of trees.\u00a0 I am behind, and I come up the incline that spreads into open space ahead of me.\u00a0 The Yellow River carves its wide and deceptively lazy swathe some 15 meters down the bank, opening the sky.<\/p>\n
My pickled feet feel funny plodding their palid path across dark silt sands.\u00a0 The water is cool and seems somehow clean, though covering my cuticles with its silt in seven centimeters.\u00a0 Yep, it’s yellow.<\/p>\n
We are biking again.\u00a0 Now it is the mountain in front of us that rises into a sky closed by mist and pollution, a smattering of rain.\u00a0 Turn over, and over, and over.\u00a0 The climbing gears are necessary.\u00a0 Look at the ground; it’s moving slowly\u00a0underneath you even though you’re turning, turning, turning, burning.\u00a0 Checkpoints.\u00a0 The next pile of grain…\u00a0 okay, good, turn it over… that tree, come on!\u00a0 Come on!\u00a0 Switchbacks.\u00a0 And then, the road levels and you look up and the others are smiling.\u00a0 We are at the pass.<\/p>\n
Arms dark, body white, water dark, sky light.\u00a0 Cold mountain resevoir pushed back against the valley, deep, they say.\u00a0 Too deep to swim; but only if you can’t.\u00a0 Plunge, splash, get the soap… can you hand me the shampoo?\u00a0 This is great!\u00a0 Lean back and let the water support you as you feel the raindrops falling from a sky that was closer than it was this morning into a pool so much higher than sea level.\u00a0 Was it really an accident we stopped here and it started to rain and they had a room?<\/p>\n
It’s after noon when we arrive at the base of Mount Tai, so we eat lunch and try not to pay tourist prices while discussing our next move.\u00a0 Climb the mountain, if it’s not too expensive.\u00a0 We’ll check the west gate to see what’s the story.\u00a0 We can leave our bikes here in the room for $10 total?\u00a0 And equipment?\u00a0 Sweet.\u00a0 Let’s do it.\u00a0 Let’s climb the mountain before the gate closes.\u00a0 It’s a road and stairs the whole way, anyway…\u00a0 Where did we get this energy?<\/p>\n
The sky gray and occasionally drizzling rain, we begin ascending in rain gear.\u00a0 Step after step.\u00a0 Fifteen kilometers.\u00a0 We make it to the stairs after dark, suppertime.\u00a0 It feels like two a.m. and we’re leaving on a fishing trip or something.\u00a0 It’s only 8 o’clock.\u00a0 The wind picks up and the moon is bright through clouds.\u00a0 Step by step.\u00a0 By ten thirty we are at the top.\u00a0 We have a room.\u00a0 We have big thick blankets and plans to get up before the sun, lest it should rise without our supervision.\u00a0 It does anyway, hidden in a big thick blanket of clouds, letting the wind have its way with us.\u00a0 But the former “communist issue” green ankle length coats help our cause, and we take pictures and turn our backs to the blasts.\u00a0 Even conquerors need a warm place and a hearty breakfast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…from the week: We’re biking through harvested fields burning piles of cornstalk, avoiding the peanuts spread on the flat cement road that winds between farmland and rows of trees.\u00a0 I am behind, and I come up the incline that spreads into open space ahead of me.\u00a0 The Yellow River carves its wide and deceptively lazy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drews-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}