Update!

Day 7- farewell king Solomon, hello Masada and Dead Sea

Our earliest start yet, this morning we boarded the buses at 7:15 and said farewell to Jerusalem and more specifically our home away from home for the last 7 nights, the King Solomon Hotel. I recommend the KS if you're looking for a clean, family-friendly, well located and moderately priced hotel. The pool is basic but with a great view and one of the only complaints I heard is they charge 60 shekels ($20) daily for wifi (free across the street at cup o Joe). They're also very tolerant of 30 kids aged 3-16 racing around the lobby and playing "elevator tag" every night.

After a 90 minute bus ride through east Jerusalem then out to the Judean desert we arrived at Masada, the site of King Herod's mountaintop palace  more than 2,000 years ago. While Samantha and many of the adults on our trip fondly (?) remember hiking the steep and extremely hot trail on high school or college trips to Israel, today there's a squaw valley style cable car that transports 40 people at a time to the top or down in less than 3 minutes. Kids nowadays don't know how easy they have it!

Many structures built from rock still stand on the mountaintop, including a synagogue and bathhouse. In addition to hearing the history of the Roman siege of Masada we took in the absolutely  incredible views to the Dead Sea and the Desert. A highlight was at the close of the tour when our entire group gathered on the south end of the Masada, overlooking majestic rock cliffs, and our shouts in unison of "never again" bounced back to us in crystal clear echoes...the kids couldn't get enough of it and  a shout of "Go Giants!" was even heard echoing through the canyon.

A 10 minute bus ride then took us to the Dead Sea entry point, home of the famous "floating" due to the fact it's the lowest elevation on earth and the water has a very high salt and mineral content.  I've always heard and read about how cool it is to float there but somehow I missed the warnings of what the super-salty water can do to your body (which is why you can't "swim", splash, or get it in your eyes). I had  a pleasant 3 minute float before assorted parts of my body were stinging and I was sprinting up the dusty hill for the cold water shower (ahhhhhh). Samantha had more success than I did, probably because she is so sweet and it balanced out the salt (awww).  The boys witnessed a few of their friends not having much fun so they didn't make it in this time -  but now they have something to look forward to next time.

One more 10 minute bus ride took us to the Ein Gedi nature reserve and the Nahal David waterfalls. While we didn't see much nature due to the 100 degree temp, the hot and dusty hike was a perfect warmup for the cool and invigorating waterfalls ahead. This was a lot of fun for the group as most kids and adults took turns standing under the falls, taking pictures and cooling off. After one more change of clothes and snacks we were back on the bus for the 3 hour ride to the north, where we're staying on a kibbutz for the next three nights. 

The Kibbutz Gonen is great.  Each family has a nice little cabin with a full kitchen, bathroom, spa tub,etc. Dinner tonight was in the kibbutz dining room and the pack of kids took off early to start a soccer game with a few of the Israeli  kids who live here...they played until well after dark, following a Breathtaking sunset along the mountain range to the west. The terrain here feels similar to Napa, so it's not surprising that tomorrow we're going wine tasting!