13 hours!

We made it!  Y'all, it was a looooong day but such an incredible drive.  I don't think I knew there could possibly be so many mountains.  We drove in and through mountains the entire trip.  I bet we went through 40 tunnels - the longest was 2900 meters (that's almost two miles!).

I didn't feel like taking too many pictures, and it's almost impossible to capture that kind of scenery with a camera, but here are a few....

We drove together with another family we know - such a sweet provision, especially considering we personally know only two families/individuals who have ever done this drive.  And this family (who drove up at the beginning of the summer) was driving back down and we drove together.  Soooo nice to have another friendly set of wheels on the road. {Yes, they have a big bus, it's a big Dutch family and they need lots of seats!}

Our lunch stop was a small dirt road that we spotted.  We pulled off and parked about ten feet from the roadway.

I'm not sure who was more surprised... Lydia, hopping out of the van to see an elderly gentleman grazing his cow and goat, or the elderly gentleman, who wasn't quite sure what to do with the sudden influx of blond curls and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. 

The view from our lunch site looking back towards the road

Seriously, it was gorgeous.  The whole trip.  Rare billboards, few exits, occasional gas stations, light traffic (for the most part). 

Our kids?  SUPERSTARS!!!  They handled it better than I did :) 

I took the headrest off my seat to take this photo - check out Lydia's face, looking out the window ...... she and Julianna had a blast counting waterfalls, and there was even a little waterfall right up the dirt road/path where we stopped for lunch and we washed our hands and faces in the freezing cold water!

The last few hours got long.  But we were treated to a gorgeous sunset. 

In these final hours we had dropped down into a valley..... those are rice paddies in the foreground.  We also saw a lot of corn, and tobacco, (lots of agriculture and terraced fields) and cows, pigs, horses, chickens, goats. 

So, while I'm glad to NOT be in the car today, that was one road trip WELL worth taking!