Mace Trip to Israel 2017

Arrived home about 10:30 a.m. on Friday, October 27 to a beautiful, sunny Columbus, Ohio, and as you might surmise, there's no place like home.  We felt a burst of energy so picked up the mail from vacation hold, got some groceries, and happily recovered Gracie Lou Freebush Mace from the kennel.  She wasn't quite as wired as she usually is and we expected her to be after nearly two weeks at "the spa", so we were grateful for that.  And, she got a good report noting that she really loves to play fetch (and yes, she's in the professional league in that largely unknown sport). Late afternoon and we started to sag.  A quick dinner and things began graying out during the ABC Nightly News with our fave, David Muir.  Managed to stay, mostly sleeping, in my chair until 8:00 p.m. (3:00 a.m. Tel Aviv time) before crashing and lights out in about 14 seconds or less. Slept pretty much straight through until 4:00 a.m. and then awoke, fully refreshed.  Got up, made cof...

Upon arrival in Toronto yesterday about 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), we had a mighty disappointment to learn that our flight to Columbus was "cancelled" for lack of a crew.  Because of my job and its travel requirements, I know this is sometimes an unexpected occurrence so just need to buck up and get it figured out.  Tour leaders Aimee and Dave Walton jumped into the lurch, got it all sorted out for the group, and the mood visibly lightened when Aimee said while passing out the tickets (paraphrasing) to "Be thankful as there are a lot of people in the world who don't have a bed to sleep in tonight".  She is just soft as a comfortable shoe and I mean that in the most complimentary way. By bits and pieces we straggled into a nearby Radisson for an overnight.  Most of us elected to keep our luggage at the airport so as to not have to recheck it Friday morning (which it is as of this writing), so that confined me to using one of the complimentary razors there.  These al...

Shortly after 7 a.m. our bus rolled from the hotel toward the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, bound for the Dome on the Rock.  This is one of the holiest Islamic shrines in the world, initially completed in 691 AD and built on the site of the Roman temple of Jupiter Capitolinus , which had in turn been built on the site of the Second Jewish Temple which was destroyed during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  The Dome of the Rock is in its core one of the oldest works of Islamic architecture.  The rock also bears great significance for Jews as the site of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son. The site's great significance for Muslims derives from traditions connecting it to the creation of the world and to the belief that the Prophet Muhammad's "Night Journey" to heaven started from the rock at the center of the structure.  From here, Muhammad climbed a ladder to heaven and conferred with Jesus, Moses, and Eli...

Today (Tuesday) had a leisurely start at 8:00. . . .that Itai is a taskmaster!  We left the hotel and headed straight for Holy City, with our driver, Anwar, letting us out at the Garden of Gethsemane.   While I'm sure it is much shrunken in size from Jesus days, there are at least two trees there that date back to his time.  These olive trees are amazing in that they hollow themselves out as they age, with the shoots on the outside extending the tree over time.  And, of course, we know that this is where the disciples fell asleep while Jesus prayed and was eventually arrested Of course there's a church at the Garden of Gethsemane - the Church of All Nations (the Basilica of the Agony).  It is built over the rock on which Jesus is believed to have prayed in agony the night before he was crucified.  While it was built intentionally very stark inside (hence its name), we stayed a few minutes there and gathered our thoughts for the day ahead. From t...

The morning started with a beautiful sunrise over the Dead Sea viewable readily viewable from our hotel room, and off we went for the day.  Itai told us that the area we were leaving was actually adjacent to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Who knew we'd spent the night so close to the most wicked place on earth in biblical times? We headed north along the Dead Sea, retracing our steps from the prior day, and back past Masada.  In the brilliant sunlight, you can see the Snake Path - the  winding trail leading from the bottom to the top.  Some members of our group actually hiked up this pathway successfully - apparently earlier in the day yesterday at least 4 people broke various limbs trying to do the same thing, so fortunately none of group befell the same outcome.  I've included this picture, though, to show what that pathway (the Snake's Trail) was like. The Dead Sea was even more grand in the early sunlight than in the fading light of yesterday's late a...

Yes, that is what the Dead Sea is . . . . deader than a doornail.  And that is where we ended up our day at a beautiful hotel right on its shores.   But first, how'd we get here after waking up for our last morning in Tiberias. A 90-minute drive from there to Jericho happened first, with our first stop on that drive being at Yardenit on the Jordan River where the faithful gather to be baptized.   We got to this particular spot (I'm guessing there are others) at 8:00 a.m. just as the doors opened, and the crowds were already starting to swell.  The Jordan River supplies the Sea of Galilee on its north end where all the good fishing is, and empties from it at its south end on its trek toward the Dead Sea.  At this place are apparently regular baptisms, and thankfully no signage that said "John the Baptist was here!", but they were selling bottles of water clearly marked "from the Jordan River" as a substitute. And, apparently you can line up ...

If I said we only did three sites today, you'd think we had it easy.  Yet, we were delighted to trudge into the hotel at 4:50 p.m. and promptly dive into bed for a nap before dinner.  This tourism stuff is darned exhausting! We started the day promptly at 8:00 a.m. with a drive south, much of which was along the border with Jordan with line of sight to Syria even further in the distance.  Our guide, Itai, gave us the history of the relationship with Jordan beginning with its roots as a gift from England to the Hussein family for fighting with them against the Turks.  And I thought Cheryl was extravagant (occasionally)! Our guide, Itai, explaining the layout of Bet She'an National Par We eventually arrived at the Bet She'an National Park which houses the spectacular ruins of the glory that was the Roman and Byzantine city of Bet She'an. Around 1100 BC, Canaanite Beit She'an was conquered by the Philistines, the enemies of the Jews for centuries until K...

On Friday, October 20, the sun rose to find us in Tiberias, a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Established around 18 AD, it was named in honor of the 2nd Emperor of the Roman Empire.  Our hotel (Emilys) is pretty nice, and since we arrived after dark last evening, we had no idea what lay outside.    One of our first acts upon awakening was to throw open the curtain on our small balcony and, voila, outside lay the Sea of Galilee.  All around this area is where Jesus circulated in his active years, and performed many of his miracles.  Today was our first day to visit these sites. The first stop after a wonderful breakfast (and quite a bit different than eating at Bob Evans, e.g., no meat) was Tabgha.  Per Wikipedia,  it is traditionally accepted as the place of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and the fourth resurrection appearance after the crucifixion.  Specifically we visited the Churc...

  Today was a long day but surely ended in a very nice way.  It began at 7:30 a.m. with a drive to Caesarea, a coastal "city" built by Herod the Great to honor himself.  Herod was a Jew placed in control of this area to ensure that the population was managed without incident, and apparently he did a fine job of this as he drove zero unemployment through his building program, and Rome was happy with his efforts.    Originally constructed as a magnificent harbor to ship and receive goods to and from Rome, it suffered gradual destruction from earthquakes and many different civilizations who attacked it and destroyed it a number of times (as evidenced by the photo of our guide holding up the various entities who conquered it through the ages).  An interesting footnote for the visit was the unearthing of a stone dedicated to a Roman prefect who assumed leadership of Judaea in 1 AD (following Herod) - one Pontious Pilate, of...

We forget how torturous these long flights can be, discounting the short, one-hour hop from Columbus to Toronto.   Even the 4+ hour layover there didn't seem bad as we enjoyed a leisurely lunch and each other's company before departing Toronto about 4:30 p.m. EST. Rather it was the 10+ hour flight from there to Tel Aviv that woke up the echoes of other long flights (e.g., 16 hours to Hong Kong).  And, it wouldn't have been too bad except it seemed like one flight attendant was determined to bump my arm in my aisle seat every time she passed by . .  ."no sleep for you!" I think I heard her murmur.   Cheryl and the rest of the female contingent - Mary Lee, Cathy, and Mary - seemed to do pretty well catching some Z's but I'm guessing mine totaled about 1 hour in a fractured sort of way. Things were looking up, though, when the plane started descending over the Mediterranean (always so blue and made me think of father-in-law Ray Creamer and his navy days ...