22 December 2012

Last night I slept really well and didn't get up until a little late. So I didn't go for an early-morning walk.

We decided to go to Ein Avdat again today. This time, we only went to the lower entrance. The original plan was that David would walk with me a little and then sit in a chair that I would carry with us. But when we actually got there, he decided to stay in the car, which I was able to park in a spot that would stay shady.

This time, it was cool instead of hot there, of course. The sky was partly cloudy, and the cloudiness increased a little during my walk. For quite a bit of the walk, I was also shaded by the high, steep cliffs. I wore a light jacket, and most of the time I left in unzipped to avoid being too hot.

Not surprisingly, there were quite a few people there today. I think all of them were Israelis, too, since Hebrew was the only language I heard anyone speaking (not even Russian, which one would usually expect to hear!). There was one large group of people with some kind of developmental disability. Some of them seemed somewhat unstable and therefore a little fearful in the narrower spots, especially when near the water. Of course, they had many counselors there helping them.

The canyon is absolutely stunningly beautiful! There are steep cliffs on both sides, and pools of water that reflect the whole thing dramatically. There was a beautiful tall waterfall with only a little water coming down it into a deep and tranquil pool. I didn't go on the bypass trail to the top of the waterfall and beyond, which started with steps carved out of one side of the canyon. I was running out of time, and the aforementioned group was going up that way, so I knew I'd have to wait quite a while to get up there. That's where I'll head on my next visit, because I'm sure there's even more beauty further up!

I started editing the pictures I took today, and they came out really well. Tomorrow, I'll try to write more about the canyon and post pictures, all on my old blog. Watch this one tomorrow evening for a link to that.

After returning home today, I finally got around to installing the new memory I had bought into our newest Mac. It turned out to be very easy, so now that machine has 16 GB of RAM!