Our Trip Down South (and I don't mean Miami)

After all our visitors in December, we thought it would be great to end off with a real vacation. Something we just did not have time for until now. We planned to go with the Steinmans on the Mitzpeh Ramon portion of their trip. We headed off on a Sunday morning, heading south with Moshe in the lead. We had walkie talkies so we could hear Moshe's running commentary from their car. We headed south and made some stops, one at a nature reserve and the second near Sde Boker for a hike in the wadi.

We were having a grand old time until Darrell decides to walk on the edge of some major hill, which from my viewpoint was the edge of the grand canyon...........and worse yet, he had David right beside him. I heard my voice saying , get down from there..........and when he said it's nothing..........I heard someone else's voice hysterically screaming and crying that he better get down from there right now if he cares anything about me............I felt my heart beating out of my chest and realized that the second voice was also me and everyone was staring at me ...........okay , Darrell said , we're getting down!
We went on with our hike and Moshe decides to take all the kids through these cracks in the wall ......he points at Golda and I and says "you two stay here!"..........well, I never! The Chutzpah........okay, we say, like we even have a choice! The kids reappear later on in the wadi only to disappear again into some other crack in the wall. This time Golda's other voice appeared and stated in no uncertain terms that there would be no more cracks in the wall for our kids!!! The kids reappear laughing and having just a grand old time! We continue on and bump into a big group of kids, maybe B'nai Akiva or maybe a school tiyul. Where are you guys from Ned asks?.............oh anachnu me kfar Pinas they answer. I am not going to elaborate on this story too much except that there was a lot of laughing ........a lot of laughing and red faces!
We continued on and moshe gave us most interesting explanations about the vegetation and flash floods etc. Suddenly we pass a group of the girls and Avital grabs my arm and says..........I think that was Liran Dembitz, you know from my class in grade 4 Netivot! Say hi , I said, we'll wait! No, she passed already. .......well some of the girls heard Avital and called out to Liran who came back and she and Avital had a little reunion.........in the middle of the desert, in the middle of some Wadi, Avital bumped into an old classmate! Where are you from Avital asks..........."don't laugh" Liran says.........."I'm from Kfar Pinas".
We finish our hike and make our way to Pundak Rimon near the machtesh Rimon. We come out of the Wadi and get a lift up to Sde Boker memorial with the bus of kids from you know where. On the bus kids were singing and laughing and it was nice. The youth here are somewhat outstanding and it was fun to get an inside view.




We arrived , checked in, and ran to go swimming. First though we had to light candles it was the last night of Chanukah. They had a lighting for all the guests and had a table set up for those who wanted to light their own. As we walked into the lobby , we hear our name being called and look up to see cousins Reena, Elliot, Jacquelyn and Marlon, sitting in the lobby. What a shocker......way out here in the middle of nowhere! We spent a few minutes and lit candles and then the kids wanted to swim, we would see the cousins at supper hour........Another, small country story.
We had supper.......absolutely phenomenal food there, by the way!! We hung out in the lobby and the kids hung out together. Yonatan and David played pool with Marlin and we got to catch up with Reena and Elliot. We went off to bed as we were getting up early for a day of hiking in the machtesh. Or so we thought........David woke up in the middle of the night, heaving ....big time. Next morning, when i woke up, Darrell walked in from Minyan and was looking white, no green, no white. Within minutes he too was heaving in the bathroom. Oh, my Gd. I was surrounded. Well, I went to have breakfast with those left standing and let the gang know what was happening with us. It was in the dining room where Yonatan started to feel sick and I quickly sent him back to the room. He too was soon heaving! Well needless to say we did not make it down to the machtesh. I got a late checkout and let everyone continue what they needed to finish and then I packed the car and loaded my sick soldiers, each armed with a plastic bag on their laps. I drove out of the pundak.........Darrell , should we stop somewhere and just get a view of the machtesh? No, No let's just get home. Okay and off we went. It was a good thing I armed them with bags. We found our way back to the yishuv , all my sickies climbed into bed and fell asleep. We didn't get to the second half of our trip with the Steinmans but we soooooooooooo enjoyed the first part and thank them for the great time!!!
COME BACK AND VISIT SOON!!