Elephant Mountain

Yesterday, we had a family adventure. We always try to go on some kind of outing on Saturdays. This week, Dad decided we are going to climb Elephant Mountain! The kids responded with a resounding, "Daaaad!" Hiking in 95 degree weather with 100% humidity didn't really appeal to the kids, but they reluctantly came along. Page and the older kids had been before and remembered you take bus #1. All six of us got on the bus with no problem. Getting off at the right spot is the tricky part...we got off a little too early. Anyway, we had to ask four different people in our broken Chinese and their broken English (we call it "Chinglish") how to get to Elephant Mountain. After about half an hour we finally got to the entrance of the hiking trail. By this point we were already drenched in sweat, and we were not following Philippians 2:14 which says "Do everything without complaining or arguing."

We have discovered typically when you hike in Taiwan, you don't have dirt trails to walk on. Instead you have thousands of stone steps, like a huge stairway that twists and turns and goes up the mountain. Some steps are very shallow so you have to take two or three at a time to move at a somewhat normal pace. Other portions are very steep, and your legs burn so much you think they will fall off by the time you get to the next level. It is great exercise, and the trails are very shaded and cool. Sometimes you even get to experience a nice breeze.

Back to our story...we eventually made it about half way up the mountain, and then we decided we needed to turn around and go back down for the sake of our family harmony. Looking back we decided we did pretty well for our first time with the whole family. As you can see from the pictures, we were able to look out over Taipei and pray for this great city where we have been sent to serve. Keith says just the two of us will go back in a few weeks and go all the way to the top. Wade says he may come with us. We will see...The other three say they will be glad to stay home and watch a movie in our air-conditioned apartment.