Heading North

On Tuesday, we headed up to the Galilee. That's my cute, blue car that I got to drive. Just forget about the fact that it's French, and it was a cool, push-button-start car. We had to cut our time in the Galilee short. Wednesday was Rosh Hashanah, the Israeli New Year, and we had been invited along with the Dukes to celebrate at the Maoz's house. Despite our rush, we got everything in. We walked all over Solomon's fortified city, Meggiddo. We sat in the stable mangers and climbed down into the water shaft tunnel. At least this underground water tunnel was dry.

From there we drove up into the Golan Heights to Caesariyya Phillipi. There we saw the "Gates of Hell" where Peter confessed Jesus as the "Christ, the Son of the Living God." There were quite a few idol niches and temple remains to climb around on and then a hike over the river and through the woods to Herod Phillip's palace. I assured the hikers that there was no uphill on the hike. And there wasn't...after the straight up staircase and plateau we had to climb up to at the very beginning. Oops.

The coolest place by far, and unfortunately, the one we squeezed in last, was Nimrod's castle, an old Muslim and Crusader fort. We had just an hour to run around and explore all the peaks, lookouts, secret passageways, lower level rooms, and descending staircases that lured us into their stony depths. It was so cool! And out of the three or four times I've been there, this time was my favorite. We had so much fun running around and exploring. But the time for the park to close had come and we had to run back to the cars and head out. We need to build some castle ruins in Oregon to explore!

Our next and final stop was our hotel in the Galilee. It had a back patio with a beautiful view of the Sea of Galilee. Here, we relaxed, read, ate dinner, and played cribbage - the best game in the world taught to us by the best Grampa in the world. What a perfect way to end the day!