Barrage of Rockets...and Visitors

According to this article, it was a record February for tourism in Israel. We did our best to contribute to the record—hosting three sets of visitors in approximately a one-month time frame. It was great fun to travel the Holy Land with my parents, Nicki’s sister and our brother in law, and our good friends from college—all who came to visit Sammy in February & March.

It wasn't only visitors barraging Israel this month. More than 200 rockets were fired upon Southern Israel a couple of weeks back (initial details here) in response to Israel assassinating a jihadist terror leader who was apparently planning a massive attack along the Egyptian border. Fortunately, however, Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system was in full force.

Here’s my limited understanding of how the defense system works (more detail here): When a rocket is launched from Gaza by the terrorists, Iron Dome senses the projectile and determines where it is headed. If it is likely to land in an area deemed as sparsely populated, then no action is taken. If Iron Dome determines that the rocket may land in a populated area, the system triggers audible warning sirens in the potentially affected areas. It then fires an “interceptor missile”, whose goal is to destroy the rocket mid-air before it can wreak havoc on the already-determined populated areas. Each interceptor missile costs approximately $50k (USD), which is why the system is selective based on population.

As a citizen, this means that if you hear a siren it means that there is a good chance that a rocket is coming towards your neighborhood--and you have approximately 45 seconds (if you live in Ashdod, for example) to one minute (if you live in Beersheva, which is a bit farther from Gaza than is Ashdod) to run for a bomb shelter, assuming an Iron Dome “miss”. My co-workers commented that in the past, they’d hear a rumble each time a rocket “hit”, but now they mostly heard a “poof” in the air—a sure sign that Iron Dome was working.

Living in Tel-Aviv, we are out of rocket range from Gaza, so the impact on our lives was minimized to commuting to and working in the rocket zone. That being said, it seems that very few rockets are aimed at the town in which I work, even though it is within 15 miles of Gaza. Apparently the terrorists aim for cities with larger populations.

My dad informed me that during the “escalation(s)”, Israeli law prohibits gatherings of more than 500 people. I confirmed this with my co-workers, who clarified that the rule applies to gatherings in non-fortified buildings. Apparently the stairwells (among other areas) of our offices are reinforced as shelters, so we were without excuse. There are similar laws for schools. Schools within 0-7km of Gaza were open for business, since they are all fortified. Schools located 7-40km from Gaza were all closed, however, since they’re walls are not reinforced. This was evidenced by a large number of kids accompanying their parents to work that week—I could barely find a place to sit and eat lunch in the cafeteria!

In other news, we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Purim in early March. Purim is a celebration of the defeat of Haman’s (advisor to King of Persia) plot to destroy the Jews as recorded in the Book of Esther. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave President Obama a decorated book of Esther during their meetings earlier this month (details here)—a nice Purim present probably used as propaganda to remind Obama that the Persian (Iranian) threat has a long history.

From our vantage point, Purim seemed to resemble Halloween. Many kids (and adults) dressed up in costumes and attended parties. At work, I was donned with a clown hat after stepping off of the shuttle bus and then enjoyed eating triangular-shaped treats which I later learned are named “Haman’s ears”. I also learned that when the name “Haman” is read in the synagogue during Bible reading, Jews use noisemakers and “boos” to block out this apparently pointy-eared villain’s name from being heard.

And now, some pictures. We covered so much ground in the last month that it’s difficult to know where to begin. I’ll start with some pics of our visitors…then a Sammy update. Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to add some details about our many adventures, including some of the "new" things we've now seen.

Sammy was in heaven with so many visitors (and so much attention). Here he is with his Grandpa and Grandma Baumer reading one of our, uh, I mean his favorite books.

 Here is Breanne, Travis, Nicki, and Sammy on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. That's the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem Old City in the background. It was quite windy.

Here's Sammy standing in his playpen/bed. He's been pulling himself up and standing (aided) on a daily basis recently.

 This is Chad and Jessica standing in the Jordan River at the site where Jesus was baptized, just north of the Dead Sea. That's the country of Jordan on the far side of the river. I hope to write more about this soon--it was a meaningful place.

Some middle-eastern men on our balcony? Chad and I honed our bargaining skills while picking up these Palestinian keffiyehs while touring the West Bank.

 More proof of Sammy standing...

 He's also getting into EVERYTHING!

 Here is Sammy celebrating St Patrick's Day...our "Little Charmer".

Dead Sea - Day 3

I neglected to finish blogging about our first Dead Sea trip (back in January), so I’ll do a quick picture tour to close it out. Here is the view from our hotel in En Bokek looking out over the Dead Sea on our last day.

Another view—those are the Jordanian mountains on the East side of the Dead Sea.

For some reason I like to take pictures of street signs. Perhaps because it “proves” we were there. There is also something about seeing a street sign to Biblical places such as Be’er Sheva (sheva is “7” in Hebrew, can you guess what be’er is?...check your Bible’s reference guide under “Beersheeba”).

This is “Wadi David” at En Gedi, where David hid from King Saul.

1 Samuel 24:1 After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the Desert of En Gedi.”

It is on one of the nearby caves that David spared Saul’s life by only cutting a corner of his robe. En Gedi is an Oasis in the hot & dry desert, with natural (fresh) spring water which obviously would've helped sustain David.

Here is the Dead Sea shoreline and a perhaps a sink hole.

And here is an Ibex. They wander around near the entrance of En Gedi National Park--probably because people feed them. It had begun to rain, so we moved on.

This last one reminds me something I saw on my cousin Leanna’s Facebook page imploring readers…DON’T LITTER!

Dead Sea - Day 2

Still catching up on our Dead Sea trip. I blogged about “day one” a couple of weeks back. Now, on to day two.

Sammy woke us up at 6:30—just in time to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea. And, since it was actually the third time he’d woken us up since we’d all gone to sleep, Nicki decided to sleep in a bit longer. So, I went for a quick photo-drive (light is always best early in the morning, you know).

Here is a shot of the rocky landscape just behind our hotel in En Bokek.

And in this one, you can see the tourist town of En Bokek in the background.

Another picture of the rocky landscape. This is looking West from the Dead Sea

A road sign pointing to Masada. We’d be visiting Masada later that day.

Speaking of Masada, here it is from the bottom. Can you see the ruins on top of the mesa? And, the snake path leading up (we opted for the cable car—we had Sam as an excuse, after all).

This is a salt canal of sorts—moving water (and salt) between the north & south sections of the Dead Sea. For the record, we learned that the south section has the highest salt & mineral content (best for floating).

Another view of the land between the two sections of the Dead Sea. This “stream” looked a bit more natural.

Fortunately, there were instructions on how to bathe/swim in the Dead Sea—and we followed them to the letter (except for the last one…it certainly wasn’t hot the day we visited). This is at the public beach in En Bokek. Our hotel’s “private” beach was closed—not that it mattered.

One critical component for any Dead Sea bather is to lather oneself with the mineral-rich mud—a natual mud wrap. And for us fair skinned types, the mud doubles as a sunscreen—not that you’d need much at the Dead Sea. Along with the super-low elevation comes an extra thick layer of atmosphere, filtering out some of the sun’s damaging rays.

A non-muddied Russian woman took this picture of Nicki and I (cropped for blog based on request). Then, she said some things in Russian and we figured out that she wanted to pose with Nicki—so I took a picture of the two of them with the woman’s camera. Our new friend was not the only Russian at the public beach in En Bokek. In fact, we seemed to be the only non-Russians.

Here’s Nicki floating in the Dead Sea--nature's spa.

And here she is again—this time, doing a stomach float. No, she is not laying on a sand-bar…the water really is that buoyant.

A view of the Dead Sea from our hotel room in En Bokek. Not bad!

In the afternoon, we visited Masada, a cliff top fortress rising 400m above the Dead Sea—and most certainly a terribly hot place to live during the summer months. Built more than 2000 years ago, the site is famous for the Jewish Zealots who chose to commit suicide, including killing their wives and children,  rather than to surrender to Roman invaders in AD66.

Here’s a view of Herod’s “Northern Palace”. Yes, Herod “owned” Masada for a while.

This shows some of the mesa-top ruins with the mountains of Jordan in the background.

And here is the Dead Sea as seen from atop Masada. Yes, it was a beautiful day.

Another view of the Dead Sea from Masada—this time with an Israeli flag and some fellow tourists. We met a group of South Koreans who were visiting the Holy Land. Sammy was quite a hit with the Koreans while descending via the last cable car ride of the day at 4pm.

Speaking of Sammy, here he is back at our hotel. Lately he’s been uttering sounds such as da-da and nah-nah. Nicki and I are split as to whether or not he’s purposely saying “words”—I’ll let you guess which one of us is sure that his first real word is dada J.

Dead Sea - Day 1

With ten years (yes, 10!) of marriage under our belts, Nicki and I decided to head to the Dead Sea for a couple of days to celebrate. Having been there, we can now officially say that we’ve “got friends in low places”. At an elevation of 1388 ft below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth. It is also one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water—with over 10x the amount of salt as the ocean. Oh, and the water contains lots of minerals, too.

Given the Dead Sea’s unique properties, and the fact that the area gets on average 330 days of sunshine (sunshine, mind you, that is less likely to cause sunburn given the elevation) per year—it attracts a lot of tourists. Many of them are Russian. These Russians, and the others, don’t just come for the Sea—they also enjoy taking pictures with camels, hiking in dry river beds called “wadis”, and visiting the cliff top ruins of Masada (see Dead Sea Day 2 – coming soon).

After gearing up (which included putting Sammy in his moose outfit), we left our apartment in Tel Aviv bound for the Dead Sea. On the way, we climbed the hills towards Jerusalem (elevation 2500’). From there, it was all downhill…a drop of almost 4000’ to the Dead Sea. The landscape changed drastically from forested hills to barren desert inhabited solely by shepherds.  

Our first stop was at Qumran National Park, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. After being hidden for over 2000 years, a Bedouin shepherd inadvertently stumbled upon a set of scrolls in 1947—and the rest were found over the next 8 or 9 years. Much of the scrolls turned out to be copies of the Hebrew Bible (aka “Old Testament”) which, incredibly, showed that the books had not been altered over the years. Read more about the scrolls here.  

Qumran is the first stop for many Dead Sea bus tours from Jerusalem. Given this, there is a large gift shop complete with “Ahava” brand beauty products (made with Dead Sea salt & minerals). Nicki wanted to check it out, so we did. After Sammy garnered attention from a sales lady, and the woman found out that we are living in Tel-Aviv and were not part of a tour group, she leaned in and whispered to us that we should NOT buy Ahava products at her store. They are, in fact, much cheaper at the Factory Store twenty minutes down the road. We appreciated her honesty, and figured take her up on the recommendation. After ten years of marriage, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to turn down a good deal on beauty products.

Here’s little Sammy in an outfit from Grandma B. They both like moose! 

This is our first camel spotting. This camel was located at the “sea level” turn-off about halfway between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, luring tourists like us in for a 10-shekel photo op. We decided to take a rain check.

In addition to the Dead Sea scroll caves, the Qumran National Park also includes some ruins. Apparently the inhabitants liked dates.

Here’s one of the Qumran caves in which the scrolls were found.

And here’s a view of the Qumran ruins. Can you see some caves in the background?

Do you know these two? Nicki and Sam posing at the Ahava Factory Store. Those are Dead Sea salt sculptures in the background.

Finally, a literal “Factory Store”—complete with a factory! While I analyzed the manufacturing process, Nicki was busy shopping and Sammy wooed one of the sales ladies. Some of the manufacturing technicians also smiled at Sammy through the window.

Outside of the Ahava factory, we came across this plant. It had some soft and squishy bark, and an apple-like fruit. A man walked by while Nicki and I were studying it—and, in case he spoke English and couldn’t tell, I remarked “we’re not from around here”. He passed without a word. As he pulled away in his car, however, he paused, and out the window warned: “don’t eat it, it’s poisonous!”. We hadn’t planned on tasting this forbidden fruit, but got a kick out of his advice nonetheless. Later we found out that the plant is called a Sodom Apple.

We drove along the Dead Sea shore, but didn’t yet get out of the car to explore. Partly because the weather was gray and windy…and partly to avoid the sink-holes. The Dead Sea is a bit selfish, you see. It takes in water from various sources (see Jordan River), but doesn’t have any outflow. Thus, its size is determined by inflow minus evaporation. And, with much of the Jordan being diverted for irrigation, combined with many 100+ degree days, the evaporation is winning as of late. Given all of this, the Dead Sea is now just a fraction of its original size—which creates the potential for sink holes in the muddy areas which water once covered. You can read more about sink holes and the dire future of the Dead Sea here.

Camels certainly aren’t something we’re used to watching out for while driving. Just for the record, we only saw a few of them, and they were used as props by roadside shops to draw in business. None were crossing the road.

Here’s a salty rock formation they call “Lot’s wife” near Mt. Sodom. Based on some Google search results, this isn’t the only formation with the same name.

Can you guess what this is? Scroll down to find out…

Yes, it is a gigantic pile of salt having been harvested from the Dead Sea.

We spent two nights in Ein Bokek—a seaside tourist town on the Southern part of the Sea. Given our hotel room’s carpeted floors, Sammy was in heaven! He squirmed and rolled his way all over the room, making us realize that our tiled apartment floors need some carpet. Does he appear proud of himself for sneaking under this table, or what?

Have I mentioned that Sammy can sit by himself now? Here’s proof.