Day 2 -

Okay, its becoming obvious. I’m getting old. We have all seen that guy that is nodding off and stealing catnap thru the day, right? Well I’m it.

Wow. We got our usual 6am wakeup call and are meeting for breakfast in dining room at 6:30. By the way, no sausage, ham, or bacon on the buffet. Its Israel afterall! Then we all grab our things and meet at the bus by 7:30 for departure. By the end of day and arrival at hotel (6pm usually) and dinner at 7, I am nodding off into my dinnerplate!

Today was another wonderful day. Weather is simply beautiful here. Cool crisp mornings, followed by warmup at midday, then back to evening cool temps. We are located on the waters of the Galilee, so everything here is lush and beautiful, compared to other parts of Israel. Our guide is Mark Sugarman, an American who moved to Israel 37 years ago. He has dual nationality status as does his daughter. Mark is devout Jewish. Although he doesn’t necessarily agree with all Christian views, he is very open and is the ideal guide for our trip. Today, Mark took us up to the very Northern parts of Israel, known as the Golan Heights. Golan Heights belonged to Syria until the war of 1967. We traveled thru the Heights, learning about the importance of Golan and Galiliee to Israel (Galiliee is major source of fresh water to entire country).

Various stops thru the day to view Mt. Hermon and see glimpses of Syria and Lebanon border. We also had opportunity to see the source of the Jordan river and its path thru some of the national parks here. Thru the day we made stopovers at Bannia, Dan, and Hazor, each are biblical sites with centuries of history. What is probably the most amazing to me is the history. Afterall, this country has over 10000 years of history, compared to the US with a mere 200. Hazor, for example has evidence of over 21 different civilizations being built upon one another, all in the same spot! (this is known as a “tel” by geologists).

Thanksfully the day came to a close, we are all worn down, but will be ready for another day tomorrow. I believe we will be taking a boat across the Sea of Galilee tomorrow and visiting the city of Caupernaum on the North Shore. Several folks in our group have also asked to be baptisted in the Jordan River, although it is supposed to be ice cold! Will be interesting since its gonna happen at 8am in the morning!

I’ve uploaded some pictures finally. They are on my facebook site. Here is the link to them, for those that are not “facebook family” yet. And again, a brief map of our journeys today. By the way, we switched day 2 with 3. there was a bike race in the area that would have made travel inconvenient to Capernaum.

Love to all and God Bless…….Dave

Map of the sites
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113407999173617109556.00045f8c9a7c58a580b31&z=9

Photos on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50690&l=80f9c&id=578079683