22 September 2012

I got up quite early this morning and drove over to and up Nakhal Shlomo, turning left at the first major tributary (I think it's called Nakhal Rakhavam, or something like that). I drove up to where the road started getting rough and then parked the car and walked from there. A little ways up, I came around a corner and saw several soldiers on the ridge across the little valley ahead. I think the Egyptian border is somewhere in or just the other side of the next valley, and the fence is probably not yet finished in that area. Anyway, I just continued on the road I was on up to where it goes over a pass into the next little tributary of Nakhal Shlomo (whose name I've completely forgotten). From there, I walked a short distance up to the ridge on my left. The view was nice from there -- I could see the tower on Har Yehoram, the Jordanian mountains to the east, and a view into Egypt to the west and south. Of course, I could also still see soldiers patrolling on the far ridge. It's a beautiful, geologically interesting area but quite desolate. From there, I walked back, passing a Hummer full of soldiers that was coming up the road just before I got back to my car.

For lunch, we went to Greg at the Ice Park Mall. David had a toasted bagel sandwich, and I had their Labaneh salad, which was really a slightly fancier and much larger version of typical Israeli chopped salad. It was good, but nothing that special. We both had small ice-cafés and dessert -- I had a little round cheese cake, and David had a personal-size apple pie (which actually tasted quite American!).

This afternoon, I wrote new posts in both my other blogs. Click here to read about Iranian incitement to genocide, the Obama administration and Israel, and ignoring what politicians SAY. Click here to read a letter my mom wrote to her parents on September 18, 1951 (4 days after her 34th birthday and more than a year before I was born).

This evening, we went over to Moshe and Bob's (3 doors down from us) to visit and to try out Moshe's new electric piano (the one we brought down here to him last week, from his parents' place in Netanya). It was fun to try out the instrument, and before we left another of Moshe's friends who is a pianist came by. He played a couple of pieces for us, and his rendition of the famous first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata was really lovely.