2 . In 2008, I traveled to a remote region in southwest China to tell the story about the Nu River. The word “Nu” means “angry” in Chinese. Here many ________ lived in the mountains along the narrow river. There were ________ bridges over the river and most people from the villages had to ________ it by zip lines (滑索).

I went to a place closest to a town on a market day. When I got there, a stream of people was already crossing over the ________ waters of the river. They did it ________ or in pairs. Some of them even went with ________ in their arms, such as chickens and pigs. I even saw a goat.

With a camera around my neck, I hooked onto the return line and moved forward until I ________ midway above the river. The waters did look angry below me.

Hanging over the river, I ________ people crossing until those waiting to return home became very ________ . I pulled myself back to the roadside to let them pass, and then hooked onto the line again for another try. Suddenly, I saw a group of people were heading toward the zip lines with a ________!

“What’s the angle? “I asked myself, as I ________ my position. I wanted the river waters in the picture but that was not easy to do. Before I could check all the ________ they tied a rope around the cow, hooked it on the line, and gave it a push. Kicking its legs in the air, the cow ________ the steep line above the angry river.

I reached the line’s end just as the cow closed in. For a second, my camera was in the cow’s face. The view was ________ —completed by the angry river below.

Nowadays, these zip lines have been ________ by modern bridges and government housing projects have been designed to encourage the people to move down to the riversides.

4 . Like many young people, Jessica wants to travel the globe. Unlike most of them, this 25-year-old is doing it _______ . She and her husband have spent the last two years traveling the world, stopping everywhere from Paris to Singapore. It might sound like one long, expensive _______ , but the couple has an unusual way to make their travel _______ .

They’re part of a new form of the _______ economy: an online group of house sitters. Throughout their no-cost stays in _______ homes, they feed pets and water plants in the homeowner’s _______ .

It’s not all sightseeing. The two travelers carefully _______ their trips, scheduling their days around the pets that are sometimes difficult to _______ . But house sitting also offers a level of _______ they can’t find in a hotel. “It’s like ________ at a friend’s house,” Jessica says.

The couple has a high ________ rate in getting accepted as house sitters and they always go beyond the homeowner’s ________ . For Jessica, that means ________ plenty of pictures of happy pets, keeping the house ________ and leaving a nice small gift before heading to the next house. “You want to make the homeowner feel that they made the right ________ ,” she says.

7 . I've always loved mountaineering (登山) and the mental and physical challenges that go with it. This time the peak (山峰) of Mt. Whitney is my ______. There are quite a few ways up to the big mountain, but we ______ the traditional one at last, almost 12 miles to the top.

I decided to make this trip less about ______ and more about the climb and my personal journey with a friend. Thinking about it this way, I decided to carry only one camera to ______ the course, but it still added 3.2 pounds to my backpack, which ______ 2.8 pounds without the camera equipment. Fortunately, climbing with a friend ______ sharing the weight, keeping our packs a little lighter. Therefore, we ______ reached the top just two days later. This particular trip was prepared for a personal trip on purpose to get to the peak and enjoy the breathtaking ______.

Climbing such tall peaks ______ every aspect of you, as a nature photographer. It can test both your physical strength and photographic ______. Can you imagine being 14,000 feet up, ______ the thin air of the high-altitude (海拔) environment while also trying to be ______ with your compositions (作品)? That’s what we were doing! And that’s the joy that comes with climbing Mt. Whitney as well.

Like any other ______ in nature, there are risks in mountaineering, though, Extreme altitude and the unpredictable (无法预测的) weather will test even the most ______ climber. Despite the fact, mountaineering for me is all about the experiences, which makes me live to the ______.

8 . We had just come back home after a big trip. My 5-year-old boy, Baldwin, couldn't _________ to share our stories with his grandmother. Our final _________ is the Appalachian Trail, one of the longest footpaths in the world. We finished the route without any _________ in 209 days. The _________ was really hard work, but full of fun. The landscape along the way was _________, with green woods and wild animals like kangaroos. My husband and I had little time to _________ our own physical pain from walking so many kilometers, but tried hard to keep our little boy happy and excited. When we were tired, we got to eat Skittles, a colorful sweet treat, to make my son_________. We slept in a tent, _________ at 5: 30 in the morning and walking all day. Talking with other hikers along the way prevented _________ and brought extra joy.

My son was even several months __________ than “Buddy Backpacker”, a boy who once held the record for the youngest person for the route. We had been hiking __________ my son was two years old. We took every opportunity to go outside and __________ the world. It may seem like an impossible activity for a child. However, it turned out that he was strong enough to __________ it. My son's trip earned __________ from Dale, the oldest person to hike the route. He said, “It's going to change his life forever. Baldwin has gone through some hardships, making him stronger. This challenge contributes to his social and __________ development. He will smile through his life.”

9 . My husband and I booked a fall foliage (叶子) tour up the Hudson River. We were really excited to see all the changing colors of the leaves in their full glory.

It was a beautiful day. We were a little ________ since none of the leaves in our backyard seemed to be changing color. But we ________ that as we motored farther north, it would be a ________ story.

However, through the whole trip, there was only the occasional sight of yellow and orange. It was not the fall foliage tour we had ________.

Our whole family ________ where we were and we had to prepare to face their ________ about the trip when we returned. How were the leaves? Were you disappointed?

If I tell myself that the ________ was all about the color of the leaves, and complain about money wasted and hopes ________, I will have had a truly ________ day. But if I tell myself that I had a beautiful day out on the Hudson River, had some ________ time(even on a boat filled with passengers), and came back refreshed, then it was money and time ________.

________ I couldn’t change the surroundings and I couldn’t make the leaves suddenly change color, all that was left was to change my ________.

So the honest answer is that while there was some initial (原来的，最初的) ________, we ________having a great day. I love being out on the water.

10 . Before our round-the-world trip we always thought that in Peru visiting Machu Picchu would be our most amazing experience.

Although Machu Picchu is simply indescribable, it _________ out that a totally improvised (即兴的) adventure gave us a much stronger _________. When we were staying at a Couchsurfer’s place in Cusco, we _________ him whether it would be _________ to visit a real Quechua village.

He said we could _________, although we would have to find it out ourselves since these Quechua _________live quite far in the Andes. _________, there’s no public transport to get there. In the end, we got very lucky. While_________ for transport, we found out that the local doctor and other social workers were going to _________ some of these tribes and they let us join them.

We were __________ happy because we had the chance to stay in a Quechua community. We __________ about their traditions, saw the colorful clothes they wore every day and __________ their daily routine for some time. We often had to use __________ to communicate, since most of these people don’t speak Spanish, only Quechua. This is one of our most interesting travel __________ and a real heart-warming experience that we will never __________.