A low point on our trip (guilt-free salt!)

At 420 meters BELOW SEA level, the Dead Sea is not just bouyant, but bath-tub warm, sandy bottom and a kind of barely-soup color. This "au natural, no frills, beach-spa" moment was a wonderful break after a gruelling 2 hours at Masada.

While the hands-free, toes-up "float" looks so easy, challenges include:

1. HOT HOT HOT sandy beach to get to and from the water
2. Brutal (like instant blindness) if you get the water in your eyes or on your face (as our friend Jack found out!)

3. Getting upright once you are floating: (no joke!) When the water is this bouyant, it takes a couple of trys to figure out and rehearse how to get your legs down and your body up right again!

Question to ponder:

Spf of Dead Sea mud?
-(Very hard to keep the sun tan lotion on when you can't
touch your face and the mud "sets" on your parts.)

Microbe content/factor of the mud
- Besides the obvious abrasion effect of rubbing (very
fine) sand-on-skin, what exactly lives in this stuff
that leaves your skin so soft and clean?


What else to do but play in the mud when the forecast calls for sunshine, 46 degrees and no chance of rain!

Israel in July

In November 2007 we received the wonderful news that the daughter of our dear friends, beautiful Leeor, was to be married in July. Leeor means "light" in Hebrew, and in her short 20 years on the planet she has not just brought the gift of light, but spirit and brilliance and much energy to all whose lives she touches. Given her family lives a short 3 hour jaunt up the then snow-filled highway, I carefully penciled the 2008 date (wedding on a Wednesday?) on our summer calendar. Little did we know then that Leeor and Ohad's nuptials would spark an amazing (and much unanticpated) month of travel and adventure for these 27 year marriage vetrans.


"The wedding", papa Michael informed my Frank, "will be in Israel...in Haifa to be exact. AS father of the bride,I have been told to show up, pays the bills and not ask too many questions. I would love it if you could come."


The highway on which we were to "jaunt" took on a whole new world of possibilities!

Old Town Albuquerque

Celebrating 50 in New Mexico

When Frank asked he where I wanted to spend my 50th birthday, I told him I thought Paris was a pretty good idea..... You know... "Paris in spring time!" Turned out to be completely out of the question, mostly because it ssssoooo expensive and takes too long to get there. (Teachers have 6 days of Spring vacation.) So we (I) decided on Santa Fe, a place my cousin Susan Muriel always said she adored.... (so much she actually got married there!)

WestJet flies direct Calgary to Albuquerque and we started by spending 2 great days acclimatizing to the dry, brown, sandy climes. To start the day off, we found our way through a maze of museums, and decided on the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. http://www.cabq.gov/museum/ which has a fabulous collection of bronzes on the outdoor gallery. The absolute best thing is that the museum is right beside Old Town Albuquerque, the Museum exhibits local, regional, national andinternational exhibitions centered around art and history.

The large young man that checked us into our airport hotel was friendly and wanted to know exactly where we lived in Calgary. Turns out he spent two summers learning to wrestle with the Hart family "home" which is just 5 blocks from Strathbury Circle!