Mar 1 - Mar 3 Mitzpe Ramon - part 1

 Mitzpe Ramon is often translated as a crater. The only problem is that this translation is wrong. It's more a machtesh, and because I waited months to write this post, I forgot what the difference. 

Bright and early Sunday morning Shauly, Adir, and I headed to the car rental place to pick up our car. 

So let me teach the first thing that happens when two Jews meet each other -- we play what is called Jewish Geography. One person asks the other, where are you from and the next question is ... do you know so and so. More often than not the whole six degrees of separation is closed very quickly when a connection is made. So of course, as soon as the woman from the car rental place heard I was from the US, she wanted to know from where. I said VA. (We are a small community ... who knows any one here?) Surprise! Turns out she was related to the rabbi who works for Chabad at VCU!        `

Originally my plan was to pick it up at 9am and leave immediately after getting it. However, lesson in Israeli bureaucracy of any kind ... nothing involving an office of any sort will go quickly. Suffice it to say, I think we left by maybe 1pm??? We did stop to pick up lunch to eat in the car, and saw some gorgeous scenery along the way.

OK, I admit it. I'm a baby! I enjoy seeing the Hebrew on the trucks. I mean, what do I expect to see ... English??? But still, I loved catching pictures of the Hebrew on the trucks.

There are several Ikea stores in Israel ... we will explore this more later.

And yes, still a baby! I enjoyed seeing Shauly drive "so fast".

We stopped in Ein Avdat for about 15 minutes. I have to say that it was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. I called my husband and said, "I AM STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD AND IT IS SO GORGEOUS!" The pictures do not do it justice. Sadly, we only had a few minutes to take it in because our late start. But that's OK, because now it's added onto my "next time I come list".

We arrived at our hotel and right across we discovered 770! How exciting. Now, if you don't know what 770 is, I'll tell you. Lubavitch World Headquarters is located at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, NY. We fondly refer to it as just 770. What's super cool is that all around Israel, you will find several buildings that are built using the original design plans from the building. There is one in Jerusalem that I posted a picture of on my first trip in 2016. What was so special about that was that they got permission to use the same bricks, when the building codes in Jerusalem say all buildings must be built with Jerusalem stone. 

The shliach was sitting outside, so we went over and introduced ourselves. He got Shauly and Adir to join them for mincha, and then we went back to our hotel to search for where we wanted to go for dinner.

That evening, we had a treat. Mitzpe Ramon is in the desert, so you have the best views of the stars at night. I had booked us a star gazing tour. We met up with the tour guide in the evening. It was really spectacular. Living in the city, we sometimes see a few stars at night. This time, the entire night sky was light up and it took Ira a few hours to go through the stars with us. At the end, we got to look through a telescope and see the moon set. Who even knew that the moon sets nightly? 

Monday, Mar 2 was our jeep tour with Liav Levi from Desert Shepherd. He was awesome! He came to our hotel to pick us up, and he gave us much more than just a tour of the desert. 

Liav and Adir (he's in the shape of Israel - use your imagination)

Some cool rocks that are at the bottom of the machtesh.

Wild flowers that were in bloom -- just gorgeous!

To be continued ....