It’s a Small World

It feels like a month instead of only 60 hours ago that we were “four good-looking devils” eating an all American meal at the Brookings Perkins. I’m not sure what we did that triggered the jolly lady walking by to refer to us as good looking devils, but apparently that’s how Heath, Seth, Zach n…

And so our trip has dripped it’s way to an end. Literally it dripped all afternoon, not enough to soak us but enough to keep us rather damp. The sun was shining in the morning so we struck out for the Old City and did the rest of the Rampart Walk that we hadn’t done…

While the supporting parents shout from the balcony, our boys are dashing around outside trying to help a couple guys keep their construction sight from blowing away. It’s vicious windy out and unfortunately these guys had left several pallets of styrofoam concrete molds sitting at the national park across from us. Styrofoam pieces are flying…

We saw a bridge in Jerusalem that had some decorative lions on it and someone had kindly stuck masks over their noses. Very thoughtful. Today started early because we didn’t want to fight traffic going into Jerusalem. We had an 8:45 tour at The Western Wall tunnels and hoped to visit the Dome of The…

I’m sitting at a wobbly metal table outside Schnitzel Dominos, our favorite eatery in Kfar Kasem. It’s a local joint run by Arabs that are surprised and tickled that we’re back. Traffic is roaring past, a constant stream of customers comes for their schnitzel and everything is foreign. Several plates of neon pickles grace the…

Say what?! There we sat at a checkpoint between the West Bank and Jericho and these chic girls with Uzi’s were telling us there was no way we could leave the West Bank. “I’m sorry, Israel doesn’t want any more tourists”. We explained patiently that we had only stayed in the countryside and visited Herodium…

We woke up to gorgeous weather and a big hiking agenda. If Palestine doesn’t want us at the main religious sights we will happily take the path less traveled! We also woke up to an email from Expedia saying we needed to call and change our flights asap. We worked on that intermittently but haven’t…

Yesterday evening we passed a man carrying a bloody dead rat and hissing at invisible dangers. In between he’d clutch his ankles, perhaps feeling snakes tangling around them. It was different. Today our focus was Timna Park. That’s a fabulous park full of hiking trails, old copper mines, climbs, bike trails and a full scale…

I sat on the balcony at sunrise this morning and watched a rain storm move across the valley. There was occasional lightning and gusty storm winds. Bliss… Today we headed to the desert to wander in spirit with the Israelites! It rained most of the way to Be’er Sheva, where the sun peeked out and…

We gave Johns a list of options to do today and instead of picking and choosing they said “we want to do everything “. Ooookay. Can do! By starting the morning at 5am and staying strictly to our schedule we were pretty sure we could pull it off. And we did! Yay! We started with…

So where did I get the misguided impression that Boeing Dreamliners were supposed to have more leg room??? It was heresy. Not only were my legs incredibly cramped, but it seemed like the lady who repeatedly“whistle sneezed” behind me was practically in my ear. And talk about a plane overloaded with camaraderie. All these large…

Tomorrow we leave. There’s 2 million things to do and what am i actually doing? Sitting in my recliner and trying to figure out how to do a travel blog. I have no idea if its a great idea or totally stupid. All I know is that if I can eliminate the hours and hours…

Thanks for joining us! Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton