Questions about the trail?

Are you interested in hiking the INT? Are you German? :)

Not to make anyone paranoid, but I'm able to see stats on the people who visit this page, and I've discovered that there's a decent amount of buzz about the INT taking place on web forums around the world. Many of those forums mention this blog and the main INT website. And those forums also point out that there's not a whole lot of information out there right now regarding the trail.

That's true, and it's mainly my fault. I'm at the end of my first semester as a doctoral student, and life has been really busy. But never fear -- I haven't given up on my original goal of enabling non-Israelis to travel along the Israel National Trail. I'll be visiting my brother and my good friend Greg -- the three of us hiked the trail in 2006 before building the website -- so we can discuss how best to update the website. Demand is growing, and we want to step up our game, so to speak.

I've also found a lot of interest here in Greater Boston regarding the trail and have made some friends who want to help me work on the data book and organize tours for non-Hebrew speakers. Mainly, we'd like to help people facilitate their own trips by giving them advice, helping them make contact with people in Israel who can help them, and help them obtain the best equipment. So things are moving along, even if it's not yet apparent on the website. Hopefully soon it'll all be visible.

Until then, I'd like to invite anyone who's considering hiking the trail to contact me at scrabineau at hotmail dot com, or comment here on this blog. We also have a forum on the website where people are discussing their upcoming trips and finding hiking partners. I realize this is only useful for English-speakers, but I hope it will be of help.

Good luck, everyone, and please get in touch -- we'd love to help you!

Where has Shay Rabineau been lately?

You know, John Lennon once sang that life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. That's a great-sounding line, but what does that really mean? That when you're making plans, you're not living? Or that most people spend time planning something other than "life," i.e. the afterlife? I don't know, and I could probably spend all day trying to work it out, but I'm not going to. Do you know why? Because I'm busy making other plans.

So I guess that must mean life is happening. And it's happening in Massachusetts. Why am I posting it on this Israel National Trail blog? Because the two -- my recent move to Greater Boston and Shvil Israel -- are related in several ways.

In February, I found out that I had been accepted to Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. Depending on who you are and where you live, you may not have heard of it, although when I'm feeling insecure about the fact that I just left a pretty-well-paying job, a comfortable home, and a great group of friends in exchange for a temporarily poverty-stricken life in the world of academia, I remind people (or post on weblogs) that the school is ranked number 31 overall (that's just below the Ivy League, folks) among all US colleges and universities, public and private. And it happens to have a great Near East and Judaic Studies Department, and in that department it happens to have an Israel Studies Center.

I've just gotten started, and I have a long way to go, but despite the hard work, it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. But interestingly, the INT is a big part of how I ended up here. Shoot, I've paid enough in airfare alone to pay for a whole college education (well, maybe a year of college at Brandeis); it makes sense that now I'm going to try to make a career of it. It's also possible that the INT will figure into my studies in some way, or that during my inevitable study-related trips to Israel, I'll get to spend some more time on the trail.

As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure that as I continue to travel there, I'll continue hiking the INT and writing about it. The main questions now are exactly where and exactly when. But those choices are not mine; I'm a slave of this system now. It's like John Lennon sang in another song, "And now my life has changed in oh so many ways/My independence seems to vanish in the haze."

And then, didn't he say, "But every now and then I feel so insecure?" Hey, did I mention that Brandeis is ranked number 31 among all US colleges and universities?

Back from the Negev

It's a beautiful night out here on the Great Plains; the moon is shining and the windchimes are chiming gently and I'm all hopped up on a ton of caffeine I drank because I was trying to get some work done and now I'm paying the price for it. That's terrible for me, because I have to work in the morning, but it's great for the millions of readers who hang on every word that's written on this blog, and who have been hanging for something like more than half a year. Delusions of grandeur, you say? Well, me and my boys just walked across the desert, yo.

Really, we did. On March 16 we flew to Tel Aviv via JFK -- seven of us, mostly from Oklahoma, with the exception of fellow former Hoosier Dan Bruggeman, who joined us from Virginia -- and arrived in Israel to find that half of the group's luggage was missing. Since our luggage consisted of, uh, our backpacks, which contained all the stuff we needed to get across the desert, that was bad. The El Al security dude at JFK had preemptively warned us that not all of our stuff would make it onto our flight, supposedly because American Airlines, our domestic carrier, didn't get our stuff to the El Al terminal in time for the security check.

So we got in at noon and spent a lot of time kicking around that strange Baggage Claim limbo world, where you're not on the plane, but haven't gotten out into the normal world yet, and where it's eerily silent between flights, and unclaimed suitcases rotate morosely on the belts, and people like us fill out forms, knowing the forms will do nothing, and that we'll have to find our bags, somehow, on our own. How do we know this? Because it happens every year. That's right, world -- from now on I'm flying Continental.

We filled out the forms and left the terminal. Brent Avery met us out there with his wife Tonya and his friend Mark. They had vehicles enough for everyone. Before leaving, I bought my second Pelephone (see some other post on here about how I ruined the first one when I swam in the Jordan River with the phone in my pocket) and exchanged some money at the painful rate of something like 3.4 shekels to the dollar (the first time I visited Israel, in 2001, the pre-war dollar was soaring at five shekels [Hey, boss, can you start paying me in Euros? Just kidding -- I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, but anything purchased overseas is far from it]).

Mark and Brent had a car and a van, into which we loaded ourselves and our partial provisions, and headed to Tel Aviv to kill time before the next flight from New York came in, which would hopefully bring the rest of our gear. It was cooler than I was used to; in the past I've always traveled in Israel in the summer. But the drive was essentially the same: a hazy ride down the highway, with palm trees, flowering bushes, billboards, and tan and grey Israeli architecture blurring by in the windows. Then the city: shady trees, paved brick sidewalks, red-and-blue buses, people walking everywhere, stopping and going.

I guess the caffeine is wearing off; this story is getting tedious. Let me cut to the chase: our stuff came in on the four o' clock flight and we high-tailed it south from the airport as soon as we got everything in order. By then it was basically dinnertime and we didn't get to Mitzpe Ramon, the northern terminus of our hike and the INT's southern hub (bustling metropolis that it is). We picked out a campsite on the edge of town -- a building site out of the glare of the city's orange lights. Seriously, that town is completely orange at night.

While the guys were setting up -- putting down groundsheets and laying out sleeping bags -- Brent and I drove a little further down the road to stash 80 liters of water in the desert, about a day's walk down the trail. We had to do this because there were no reliable water sources between Mitzpe Ramon and Moshav Sapir, and Sapir was more than 40 miles away. The cached water would then last us, hopefully, the remaining two days' walk. 11 liters of water per man -- that's about 23-24 pounds of additional weight in each man's pack, but we had to do it.

Brent and I drove down into the crater of Makhtesh Ramon, pulled off the highway, drove down a gravel road, and tried to find a good place for the water. Turned out there wasn't one, so I halfheartedly put it all behind a bush. But man, 80 liters of water takes up a lot of space. In the end the cache of water was just about as big as the bush itself. But we were tired and Brent and Mark still had to drive two more hours to Eilat, so we headed back to Mitzpe Ramon. All of us prayed together; Brent and Mark took off; and the rest of us went to sleep.

We got up before sunrise, packed, and walked to the crater rim as dawn broke over the desert. It was a good beginning. Over the next ten days, we crossed 144 miles of rough terrain, comprising the southern half of the Negev Desert. Along the way, we recorded more than 180 GPS waypoints, marking road crossings, trail junctions, water sources, resupply points, and so on.

We also had fun and met interesting people. We climbed over mountains, walked into towns at the tail ends of our food and water supplies, and sat in front of moshav grocery stores, slugging back whole bottles of nectar and chocolate milk. We met great people -- lots of young Israelis out there going and discovering their country for themselves.

There's a lot more to the story, of course, but I spent way too much time telling the beginning of it. Suffice to say for now that we finished at Ein Netafim, a natural spring several miles north of the trail's terminus at Taba, because the IDF had closed the southern section of the trail due to security issues. We took taxis into Eilat, the resort city on the shore of the Red Sea, and stayed at the Shelter Hostel, where we enjoyed great hospitality. We walked downtown and ate giant hamburgers. And on March 31, we flew back to America, back to our homes and jobs -- back to cool nights on the Plains.

If anybody out there is reading this right now in some dusty desert town, drinking a cold drink before pushing back out into the wind and sun, enjoy those mountains for me and all of the rest of us who wish we were still there.

But when you get home, don't get carried away and drink a huge coffee beverage when you know you have to go to work the next morning.

Israel National Trail Data Project

Several months have passed since the last post on this blog, and a lot of things have happened. I'm proud to announce that we've established the Israel National Trail Data Project -- a volunteer effort to create English-language resources for the INT. As many of you are probably aware, there is a great shortage of English-language information regarding the trail. To that end, we established the Data Project, which will spend the next few years creating data books, guidebooks, and maps.

You can view our progress via our newly-renovated website. While you're there, register on the site so that you can post on the forum. It's a great place to ask questions, give and receive advice, and find partners for hiking the trail. It will put you in touch with Americans and Israelis who have traveled on the INT, and hopefully provide a good starting point if you're interested in trying your own hike.

As we work on existing resources and create new ones, the website will be continually updated. We've already made numerous changes over the past few weeks, and new posts are added to the forum every day. Soon, we'll have a preview of the data book (a stripped-down guide for backpackers that gives a landmark-by-landmark description of the trail) and the first draft of the INT Preparation Guide, which provides all the information a thru-hiker needs to get from the doorstep to the trailhead.

We're very excited about the changes taking place at israelnationaltrail.com and we look forward to seeing you on the forums!

Negev Photos

I should have done this a long time ago, but here's a sampling of pictures from the Negev portion of our hike. I'll be posting again soon with more photos, my upcoming plans involving the INT, and info about my newly-born daughter, Ariella, whose story, to me, will always be tied to my walk through the desert. Pictures of her are forthcoming, too. Meanwhile, enjoy these.

(Above) The first Shvil Israel sign, showing the route north from Taba

(Above) Greg and me at the beginning of the hike, with Red Sea in background

(Above) Me, feeling somewhat fatalistic, in a cave near Wadi Gishron

(Above) Chase and me, north of Shehoret Canyon, with INT blaze in foreground

(Above) The lights of Aqaba and Eilat, viewed from our mountain campsite

(Above) Me atop Bema Timna

(Above) Sunrise at the Bedouin work camp at Park Timna

(Above) The depressing "hike of the flies" toward Moshav Faran

(Above) Waking up in Faran's central lawn

(Above) Hitchhiking, and not getting picked up

(Above) On the northern rim of Makhtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater)

Postscripts

It’s December and it’s been almost six months now since we finished hiking the trail. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote in my journal, there at the Hayarkon 48.

All our junk was at our friend Omer’s house, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember which building Omer lived in. I knew the neighborhood, but wasn’t sure which apartment. The Pelephone never dried out, so I had to keep calling him from the payphones in the bottom of the youth hostel. For some reason he wasn’t answering.

Meanwhile the whole country was on a state of alert because Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, had been kidnapped and was thought to be held in Gaza. Omer’s best friends, Imri and Ray, were about to be shipped to parts unknown to take part in the nationwide effort to save the soldier. Omer had just gotten out of the military, so he was off the hook, but we still needed to find him, because Greg was due to fly out.

We walked to Ray’s apartment and visited with his mother and grandmother, and tried to find out from them how we could get a hold of Omer. They fed us cake and watermelon and we had a great time, but they couldn’t really help us.

After a fruitless day, we got up on the morning Greg was leaving and started canvassing the neighborhood. I saw a man walking down the street and I accosted him. I asked him in Hebrew if he knew Omer Tal, and the guy said yes – he was his father. He pulled out his phone and called Omer, who was somewhere in Tel Aviv on some kind of weird errand. He couldn’t meet us just then, but his dad took us to the rooftop storage room where all our stuff was being kept. We thanked him profusely before hauling everything back to the Hayarkon 48.

Then everything became a whirlwind. Greg took a taxi back to Ben Gurion Airport and returned to the States. It was a sad goodbye. Chase and I picked up two girls from our church’s college group the next morning at the airport. The four of us spent the day roaming Tel Aviv and getting things ready for the rest of the group. I went to the airport to pick them all up but was interested most in my wife Amanda.

The group took a long time to get through security because several of them had visited Lebanon and Syria the previous summer, and therefore posed a security risk. But finally they came and I was united with Amanda again after about five weeks. That night I secretly rented a room at another hostel so that the two of us could spent our first night alone together. We sneaked over there after the group went to bed, and I kept the lights turned off so Mandy wouldn’t see what a roach-infested hovel the place was (I was on a tight budget). We didn’t sleep much, and that was fine. In the morning we rejoined the group at the Hayarkon 48.

It was a good trip; me and another guy drove the group all over the country and we toured the various Biblical sites. We spent most of our time in the north. One night, though, me and Chase and one of the other guys from the group drove back down to the area around Kiryat Gat, along the northern fringe of the Negev, and took the rental car off-road to Ibrahim’s tent. He met us there in the dark fields and we sat around a fire, drinking sweet tea while his white-robed father played the World Cup on the radio, and while the low thump of artillery shells rolled like thunder from Gaza to the west. Israel was punishing Gaza for Hamas’ kidnapping of the young soldier. Ibrahim left a few days later for Romania, where he had been accepted to a university. “I will miss the sheeps,” he told us very seriously.

On the day we left the north, about an hour after we pulled out of Haifa, Hezbollah began shooting rockets all along Israel’s northern border. The places I wrote about in this journal – Nahal Amud, Tiberias, Nazareth, Kfar Giladi, Kiryat Shmona, and many others – were hit. In the place where the rabbi from Tsfat told us of his paranoia regarding Arab attacks, 12 soldiers were killed when a Katyusha rocket fell in the middle of their group and tore them to pieces with shrapnel. That happened in the very parking lot where we’d slept.

Our group spent the first days of the war sitting in hotel rooms in Jerusalem, calling our parents at intervals and suffering through a severe attack of dysentery. One of the girls who’d been in Greece just prior to the trip had evidently picked up a bug, and we’d all caught it. The good doctor who visited us and diagnosed us recommended that since Amanda was pregnant, she should visit the emergency room at the Hadassah medical complex on Mt. Scopus.

I took her over there late at night, and there I saw the face of my baby for the very first time. It was a blurry ultrasound, and Amanda was only 10 weeks along, but there the baby was, big as life, moving around while we watched the screen through tears. I will always treasure the grainy printout, with the words “Hadassah – Jerusalem” in white along the top edge.

The airport stayed open despite the war and we caught our flights out from Tel Aviv. Before leaving, we picked up the baggage we’d kept in lockers at the Hayarkon 48, but Chase and I forgot that we’d hidden our hiking sticks up above a light fixture in the storage room because we couldn’t fit them anywhere else. So our trusted sticks, covered all over with scars from the hike, stayed in Israel. But we haven’t given up on them; it’s possible that we’ll go back next year to discover that they’re still there. Note to readers: Please don’t swipe the sticks if you happen to visit the Hayarkon 48.

After all this, Chase and I found ourselves again in Oklahoma, much thinner and darker than we’d been when we had set out. I sat at my office the first day with a cup of Coke in front of me, poured over ice, and fizzing there in the glass as I gazed in wonder. Never again, I vowed, would I take a cold drink for granted. Only Chase understood this; often in those ensuing days I looked to him as the only other person who could comprehend what it was like to have felt such freedom, and then to return to a normal life.

Slowly, though, we settled back in, and did our best to focus on our work. But I dreamed about Israel every single night for weeks on end. Sometimes I was on the trail; sometimes I was in Tel Aviv; sometimes I was alone and in danger. And I always woke up, happy that Amanda was by my side in the dark, but weighed down with something that felt almost like homesickness.

A couple of months after the hike, Amanda and I woke up to hear the phone ringing at about five in the morning. It was still dark and Amanda picked it up. Then she handed it to me and said, “Someone’s speaking Hebrew.”

“Shalom,” I answered. “Shay medeber.”

“Yaa Shay,” came the response. “Abu Abdullah medeber.” It was our Bedouin friend, the ringleader of the work group at Park Timnah in the Negev. He asked me how I was doing and I told him we were all doing well. I told him that the rest of the hike had gone well and that we had finished safely. He expressed great relief at this. I told him also that while we were in the Negev, I had found out that my wife was pregnant and we were going to have a child. Abu Abdullah wished blessings upon me, Amanda, and the baby, and wished us all peace. I returned his blessing and went back to bed feeling as though a ghost voice had spoken to me from a strange world that no longer existed. Remembering that such a world did indeed exist, and that Abu Abdullah was sitting out in the Negev somewhere, squinting into the sun, unsettled me and made me long for the trail once again. I couldn’t fall back asleep.

Amanda and I found out that our baby was a girl. In the beginning I had thought that the child would probably be a boy, but I wasn’t sure. And any sureness I had waned by the time we had the crucial ultrasound. So the child I had learned about on the rocky hill above Shizzafon Junction in the Negev was a girl all along; what would we name her? In the end, we decided that nothing would be more fitting than Ariella – a Hebrew name that means “lioness of God,” and that bears a great deal of personal significance for Amanda and me. Ariella Annalise Rabineau will be born sometime around the beginning of February, Lord willing, and we cannot wait to see her with our own eyes.

Chase has drifted in search of a goal to sustain him now that the Israel hike has been crossed off the list. He vowed never to leave another hitchhiker standing on the side of the road, and thus far he has made good on that promise and has met lots of interesting people. In addition, he decided to try hitchhiking himself, and got a ride from a guy who ended up staying at Chase’s apartment and then stealing a bunch of his roommate’s stuff. It was a bitter reminder that in many ways, Israel is safer than America.

Stung by this endeavor, but not jaded, my brother embarked on a new adventure: living in a van. He bought a 1989 Ford Econoline for a thousand dollars, took out the seats, replaced them with a homemade bed and cabinets, and moved in. He’s still in the process of boxing up his stuff from the apartment, but as of a week ago, he sleeps in the van on a nightly basis. Soon he’ll be completely self-sufficient, drifting from parking lot to parking lot, showing at the YMCA, and showing up every day for work, hopefully, in clean clothes. It’s an experiment-in-progress. Note to would-be robbers: Don’t mess with him when he’s in the van, or you might taste the cold steel of the machete whose sheath he bolted to the ceiling right above his bed for quick access. He’s also got a shotgun in there.

Greg went back to America and hit the local speaking circuit, doing gigs at the Rotary Club and so on. He’s kept the main israelnationaltrail.com website up and running, and he hopes to use it as a source for English-speaking backpackers who want to go hike the Shvil Israel. Now he’s back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, teaching kids about history and religion. The Israel hike continues to provide valuable information regarding both.

Amanda and I got to see Greg and his wife, Kelly, when we were in Indiana for Thanksgiving. Greg brought a bottle of the Pear Cactus Apple nectar we craved so often while hiking, and as is our custom, we split the ration three ways and chugged it on the spot. It was good to see my friend again and I know he misses the hike as much as I do.

The icing on the cake, and perhaps the most interesting postscript to this whole thing, is that me, Amanda, and Chase all got kicked out of our church because of what we believe about the Torah and its relevance for followers of Jesus. It’s a more complicated situation than I can explain in a forum like this, but I’m happy to personally answer any questions. Suffice to say that it was a stunning and unexpected twist in our lives that stemmed in part from our travels with the college group, and I’m still trying to understand it.

But here’s what I learned when we were doing all that walking in the hot sun: Life has a way of being really terrible. And if you dwell on that, you get depressed and wish you could just die and get it over with. That’s how I felt sometimes in the desert, anyway. But if you calm down and accept the hard things, and set about finding ways to make it past the obstacles, the whole endeavor takes on a sort of bizarre beauty. And then, at the end of the day, when you’re exhausted and wonder why you’ve put yourself through all that, you actually laugh, and revel in the joy of having gotten through it. The next morning, you wake up armed with the knowledge that this is a game you can win.

So you keep walking and your body gets thin and tan and sinewy, and your feet harden and your eyes turn to slits and you move lightly and quickly, and all of the simple things you once took for granted are as valuable in your mind as they really are. When you finally hold that cup of cold water, the crows’ feet etched in dust along the corners of your eyes only makes your smile look that much more sincere, and your burned-brown skin makes your teeth flash all the whiter when you laugh the rich laugh of a free man.

Thank You, Lord, for letting me walk that walk. And please stay by my side as I keep walking with Amanda and Ariella. Amen.

6/29/2006 -- The worst kind of desert

6/29/2006 Hayarkon 48 – Tel Aviv 12:15 AM

It’s after midnight in Tel Aviv and I’ve been having a hard time adjusting to the culture here. We’re so used to the trail. Greg and Chase seem to be loving it; I’m already getting tired of being in one place, tired of the party people, and tired of feeling lonelier here than on the trail.

Yesterday – I guess date-wise, it’s two days ago now – we woke up much earlier than normal (about 6:00 AM) because of the people we were with. We exchanged goodbyes and took pictures, and headed off in opposite directions.

Most of our last day was along roads, so it didn’t take too long. It was still early in the morning when we got to Nahal Senir, but before that, there was a gas station, so we decided, as usual, to stop and get some juice. Actually, Chase saw a McDonald’s and wanted to get something more for breakfast, but it was closed, so as we crossed the parking lot to the gas station, we saw Shimshon sitting outside at a table, reading a newspaper.

We talked to him for awhile and compared the weights of our packs – his was incredibly heavy, because of the typical Israeli retinue of unnecessary gear. He was going to take two days to go slow and finish at Mt. Hermon; I think the whole thing will have taken him 63 days total. We laughed and said goodbye.

The trail took us to the exit of Nahal Senir National Park, but we weren’t supposed to go in that way. But we didn’t want to miss anything, and we all felt a grave sense of injustice at having to pay to hike part of the trail. So we shoved our packs through the revolving gate and got reddish grease on ourselves, and proceeded into the reserve.

It was an amazing amount of water to us. It would only have passed as a rushing creek in the States, but after even the North, it was a sight to see and we took almost the first opportunity to get into the water. It was fast and freezing cold, and little silvery fish swam against its current, rolling and flashing as they went over the rocks. Chase really wanted to try to spear one, but restrained himself.

We rinsed out our shirts and continued going the wrong way up the trail, against the flow of at least a hundred army kids, students, and tourists who, annoyingly, tried really hard not to get their feet wet and resented our presence.

Finally the blazes led us to the entrance of the park and the employees caught us and told us we had to pay. So we got the Shvil Israel discount – at this point our skin and clothes did all the talking, and we continued up the road to the Lebanese border overlook.

That seemed like a weird no-man’s land, with green Israeli fields ending at a double barbed-wire fence, and the rocky desolation of south Lebanon rising up to the north. You could easily see the line. The trail turned right onto a long stretch of cow pasture, where we met two guys just starting the trail.

Next was Tel Dan Nature Reserve, where Chase and I recognized the false altar location from the opposite side. We crossed a low barbed-wire fence and thus broke into our second national park in one day. We showed Greg around, but frustratingly, the park was fully of people, so the tail end of our hike involved us getting herded around like cattle behind lots of Orthodox girls.

We caught the trail again outside the gate of the park – we didn’t pay this time – and it led us along a sunny, paved, flat road. It was the exact opposite of where we had begun. To finish the hike, I read Psalm 121 to the guys while we walked. Then we turned into Kibbutz Dan, where the last blaze led us to the last big trail sign and map, and that was it. We took a couple of pictures, then cut out through the kibbutz to the highway, where we walked back to the same gas station by Nahal Senir. This time, the McDonald’s was open, so we ate a late lunch, then hitchhiked to the central bus station at Kiryat Shmona, and settled in for the long ride to Tel Aviv, via Afula.

From the central bus station in Tel Aviv, we walked all the way to Jaffa, then to the Hayarkon 48. We put our stuff away and then crossed the Tayelet to the Tsafoni beach restaurant, where we watched Spain versus France in the World Cup, ate dinner, and smoked Bedouin L&M cigarettes alongside the Mediterranean, in honor of the Abus at Park Timna, who couldn’t be with us to enjoy our moment of victory.

I walked back to the Hayarkon 48 by myself, to try to get hold of Mandy. The lobby was loud, with people coming and going all the time. To me the place felt lonely; there was one person I wanted to talk to and she wasn’t answering the phone; I called the Buzz as well and only reached Ali. It wasn’t till 2:00 AM that I finally got hold of her, and she felt far away.

At the beginning of the hike I felt like I was exchanging my familiar world for a place of danger and desolation. But now – and this is by no means a new or original thought but it’s true nonetheless – I feel the exact same way, but with more conviction. This city is such a place of desolation, where all fleshly needs can be fulfilled, but where one is unable to find the stillness of the forest, or the humility that comes from self-sufficiency. And by self-sufficiency I really mean stepping away from the things that we think sustain us, and offering ourselves into the hands of God, trusting that He will provide. Here, it’s very hard for me to reach back to the feelings I felt just over a day ago. I feel myself being pulled back into a system.

Like I said, none of this is a revelation; I’ve felt the edges of all this before and it’s not new, but now the thoughts are solidifying and I’m seeing it as law, not theory. T.E. Lawrence wrote something about how the desert is not so much a place where men hear or create new things, but more as a place from which a man returns with what he brought with him – ideas whose extraneous parts have been stripped away, leaving only a clear vision. I pray that the Lord will help me, even though I now struggle, and make it clear what exactly I was supposed to learn from this.

6/26/2006 -- Song of Ascents

6/26/2006 Tel Hai/Kfar Giladi 10:29 PM

This morning we went to the store to get breakfast and to resupply. It was a great breakfast, but we got out really late – 10:00 AM. We got out of town and hit the trail, and I promptly missed a blaze. Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been a problem, but there were two red trails, and we got on the wrong one. We made a long descent, only to get to a road and realize that we were far from the right path.

We didn’t want to make the ascent all over again, so we went t the road and tried to hitchhike back to the top. Two people stopped, but neither would take us. Finally a bus came and we got on. So at 11:30 – an hour and a half later – we started all over again.

Because of our late start, we ate lunch at 1:20 PM under a big, spreading tree. I didn’t know if we’d make it to the end of the map, as we’d hoped, but none of us really cared. We left again at 3:30 PM.

The route from that point was easy – all road, mostly through the woods up above Kiryat Shmona and the Huleh Valley. The valley was beautiful with its lakes and fields, with corps planted in perfect circles, all greens and blues and browns with no space wasted. Before us, to the northeast, lay the Hermon, and paralleling our path to the east was the wall of the Golan Heights, all hazy in the afternoon heat.

We met a hiker going the other way, but he was a bit of a jerk, so we didn’t spend much time with him. He had a radio playing; I’m not sure how long he’ll last on the trail.

As we got near to Tel Hai and the end of the map, we reached a spring in the KKL forest. This was good because we were all getting low. We drank deeply and refilled, and now were in a position to camp out wherever we wanted. We decided to go into Kfar Giladi just to get something to drink, and then go and spend our last night out in the woods.

So on the outskirts of town, we dropped our packs and hid them in a tunnel. But there were other hikers in a parking lot along the road into town, and they flagged us down. It was a kid in a cowboy hat, actually; we told them we’d stop by when we came back.

We bought peaches, mint lemonade, and a chocolate milk for me, and walked back out. There were actually four hikers in the lot; two brothers, a sister, and the sister’s friend. Moshe, Tzemach, Hodalia, and Avital were their names. The siblings’ father was also there – a Sephardic rabbi from Tsfat. Avital is religious; she’s from Jerusalem. The rabbi was doing his evening prayers when we came down the hill.

The kids were fun to talk to. Moshe and his sister Hodalia speak decent English; Tzemach doesn’t speak very well; and Avital speaks perfectly because of her British father. They were all full of questions about the trail; it’s actually the girls who are hiking. The rabbi father is worried, so Moshe and Tzemach are going with them for awhile. I have a feeling the dad might shut the whole thing down; he’s paranoid about the Arabs.

He fought in the 1973 war, and grew up here in Kiryat Shmona, just down the valley. He remembers when the Syrian lines were right here in the valley, and he fought in the Golan and in the Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. He seriously wants the U.S. to make Israel the 51^st state. We laughed at first, then realized he wasn’t joking.

After he left, we ended up just getting our stuff and cooking in the parking lot with the kids. They had lots of questions about why we came here as Christians, and why we do what we do. Actually, it was really amazing; I could tell that what we were saying was really throwing them for a loop. We talked about Sabbath, etc., and me and Chase’s last name, and even about Jesus. I talked with Avital about a lot of stuff and she was hard to read; I could tell she was fascinated but it was almost too much for her to process.

I really connected with Moshe and Tzemach. I’m not sure if we’ll really end up keeping in touch, but Moshe works at a place called Nir Burger in Tsfat, so I might go up there when we’re here in the north with the college group.

So things didn’t go as I’d planned – sleeping in the woods, smoking cigarettes in honor of the Abus, way back at Timneh. But at the same time, it is fitting, because none of this has ever been about nice little stories, or happy endings, or easy conclusions. Everyone in this country is tied up somewhere in the beauty and conflict and stress of everything, and the lines never get drawn too clearly. Hiking the Shvil Israel is not about any of that, anyway; it’s about the people you meet and the lives that touch you.

I feel tonight like I have become a part of this country in some small way. When you walk across a place and get to know it, you feel like maybe you have some kind of stake in it. I love Israel and I am going to miss her when I leave.

I’ve thought about calling the book Song of Ascents, because what I’ll remember about all the walking will not be the easy, flat parts, or the downhills that did little but hurt my knees. I will remember the ascents – all the way from that first hill going out of Taba, above the Red Sea, where the desert was nothing but an enormous, frightening mystery to me. I’ll remember the climb up to the hilltop from which we watched fireworks over Aqaba, and my anger that the struggle never seemed to end, and the immense gratification I felt at being at the top and seeing everything from up above.

I’ll remember the hill I climbed at the end of the day at Shizzafon Junction, where I listened to my messages and called Mandy and found out I was going to be a father – that hilltop where I lay in bed that night and looked at the stars in wonder, knowing that one had been lit for me, according to God’s promise to Abraham, and one had been lit for my child.

I’ll remember the tough hike up Mt. Tabor, when I looked at my feet in the dust and dirt and felt that I was finally beginning to identify with Jesus, in all His brokenness and humanity. And the long, slow climb that dropped off all at once to the Kinneret. I will remember the ascents because they remind me of the steep road to righteousness that Rich Mullins sings about – the same that Jesus promises to those who follow Him:

And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach…

I suppose the ascents are the times when I feel weakest, and most likely to fail, and I must think about good things if I hope to reach the top. Along the easy parts it’s too easy for me to forget how small I am and how badly I need the hand of the Most High to carry me.

A few nights ago I was reading the Psalms and I found one that sums up how it’s been this whole trip – how I’ve found myself needing the Lord in the desert. I couldn’t ever have said it like the Psalmist in Psalm 121:

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
The LORD will guard your going out and coming in
From this time forth and forever.

But this psalm is not about me or my hike; it is about the people of Israel. A few minutes ago, Moshe asked me what I was writing, and I told him I’d been keeping track of everything that had happened along the trail. He rolled over in his sleeping bag and asked, “Now you are writing about us?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m writing about you.”

Thank You, Father, for all of this. Please keep Mandy safe and let her know that I am safe tonight. Please protect our baby; I’m worried that – Lord, please keep the baby safe and secure. Lead me into this new season of my life just as You have on this trip – not without challenges, but with the strength to meet the challenges You put before me.

בשם ישוע המשיח --

6/26/2006 -- Ramot Naphtali

6/26/2006 Ramot Naphtali 6:52 AM

Yesterday we left the meadow in front of the Field School at 8:30 AM. We all slept pretty well because the mosquito coils did an awesome job. Our hike started off fast; even though it was footpath, it was a slow, even descent, and we moved quickly. We walked through some huge pine forests that reminded me a lot of the Upper Peninsula. These must have been some of the oldest forests we’ve seen.

Our goal was to get to Dishon – about a 16k hike – by lunch. Our food supply was pretty much gone. We ate the peach fruit roll to tide ourselves over for a late lunch, then got to Dishon at 1:30 PM. But the problem was that Dishon was at the top of a mountain, and we were at the bottom. So we sprawled out on a paved road, under the shade of a small tree, and ate the last of our food supply (noodle cups). It wasn’t enough and we were all still hungry; we just laid there till about 3:00 PM.

It took us awhile to really get going because we missed the place where the INT broke off the red trail as footpath, so we had to backtrack. Then it took us forever to climb a hill, because we all felt weak. Also our water supply was low.

Finally we hit gravel road and passed some farms, and some kind of training ground for tanks. Up the ridge, a van stopped and some guys asked if we needed water. They filled our bottles with cool water while the teenage girls in the back yelled at us. The guys worked for the KKL, and I told them I’d been enjoying their forests ever since Ya’ar Yatir [the woods north and east of Arad]. They were nice guys. I seriously am going to look into working for them somehow.

About another half-mile later, the van came back and the guy gave us half a big candy bar and said, “Energy boom!” and the girls went by with their faces pressed against the window. We ate the candy bar without a second thought, and prayed a blessing over these gracious people.

Eventually the road took us to Ramot Naphtali; we tried the back gate first but it was locked. Once we came around to the front, we made a beeline for the store. En route, I talked to the lifeguard at the pool, and he said he’d let us in if we wanted to swim or spend the night on the grass. At the store, we got two 1.5 liter bottles of juice, and immediately finished them both. Then we bought food for dinner.

The pool guy was still around, so he offered to show us where we could sneak into the pool. On the way, there was a bearded guy sitting in the grass in front of a building, laying tefillin. He said he also was doing the trail, going north, and he invited us to come stay the night over by him. So after we saw the hole in the fence, we went back and ate with him. His name was Shimshon [Samson in English] and he’s sort of a hippie, New-Age type who came out of Orthodox Judaism.

He speaks English well because he’s technically been on a tourist visa for the last 12 years; his family moved here when he was 6 years old. So he’s 18 now and has no plans to enter the army; he doesn’t want to take orders from anyone but himself. He’s been on the trail for 63 days, alone.

Shimshon was really interested in America and in Christianity. He seems really open to it. I think we need to call him when the team is in Jerusalem. He’s actually going to be in the States, too, in a month or so, I think. We told him he needs to come visit the middle of the country. Greg really wants him to see Butler [our hometown in Indiana]. It was funny; Shimshon was fascinated with Butler.

We ended up using the pool only for its bathrooms; Chase and I sneaked in in the dark. Then we ended up sleeping on the basketball court because we were afraid of another Alon ha-Galil sprinkler experience. So now I’m sitting on the court with birds everywhere. Greg and Chase are at the store, buying breakfast. And the plan today is to go 20 km – then only 10 km to Tel Dan the next day.

6/24/2006 -- The dude at Mt. Meron Field School is a jerk and I don't mind telling the world about it

6/24/2006 Meron Field School 7:59 PM

Today’s hike continued through the Meron Mountains – a slow ascent through mostly sunny meadows and a few fields, along a 4x4 road. As we got closer to Mt. Meron, which is covered with radar domes, antennae, and satellite dishes, two guys passed us from behind. Chase asked where they’d come from, since they were wearing no packs, and they said they’d come from up where the big dome was. Chase said, “Oh yeah, what is that?” One of the guys looked at the other and said, “Hm, what is that?” Chase said, “Oh, it’s secret.” And the guy said, “That’s a good guess.” We said goodbye and the intelligence guys moved on.

Our water situation didn’t really improve, even after we got to a picnic area at the top of Mt. Meron. The water faucet was broken and none of the families we talked to offered us anything. So we continued on the trail around Mt. Meron.

We descended slowly down the mountain. It was after 5:00 PM when we arrived at the spring on the map where we hoped to find water. But the spring contained only a puddle of green water; our last hope was the Meron Field School, just to the west of the trail.

We saw a fenced complex with a gate and assumed it was the school. When we addressed the guys inside and saw that they had machine guns, we knew it was a base. They told us to go just down the road to the Field School and we could stay there. But they also said they could give us drinks from the Coke machine if we had change. We had 12 shekels – just enough for 3 nectars. They were freezing cold and we were happy for awhile.

At the Field School, the place was gated off, with no way to enter, and no guard in the guardhouse. There was a phone number on the gate, but we had no phone, and the phone on the gate only beeped. So we set up a campsite for the time being. A VW Golf pulled up to the gate and it opened. I told the guys I could run and get to the gate before it closed. I didn’t try, but they said there was no way. So we waited.

The car came back out while we were eating, and I waited till it was gone. The gate was closing. I ran really hard and made it with time to spare. The gate opened back up when I stepped through, though, and someone came down the road, yelling. I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the gate, so I came closer and he yelled again. Finally I said I couldn’t hear him and he said, “Don’t enter!” So I stepped out.

I yelled and asked if he spoke English and he said no. So I told him in Hebrew that we were hiking the trail. I was going to tell him we only needed water, but he cut me off and said in English, “This is not a problem for me. It is a problem for you. If you want to talk, there is a phone number on the gate.” The gate closed and he walked away.

So it didn’t go so well. Greg and I walked back to the base and a kind security guard filled up our bottles from the faucet. Still, I feel horrible because I hate being yelled at, especially if I can explain my behavior.

So now it’s 9:05 PM and we’re laying under the fly with two mosquito coils burning. They seem to be working. Chase built a fire and the coals are smoldering just outside our entrance. The kids at the Field School just quieted down and the crickets are chirping.

Father, draw near to me. I’m lonely and I miss Mandy and wish I could talk to her. Please keep us safe tonight and give us good rest.

6/24/2006 -- Breakfast with the Chasidim

6/24/2006 Harei Meron 1:14 PM

It’s a fine Sabbath afternoon. We’re at the point now where we can just do a map a day, and still finish on the 27th. The good news: today’s map is only 8 km, so our Sabbath can be more of a Sabbath. We’re taking a long lunch break and resting because we haven’t had a full day off since Jerusalem.

Last night we didn’t sleep well. Our campsite was just outside the back gate that goes up to the cemetery outside of town; along the fence was apparently a highway for animals. Dogs were barking all night up in the hills, and one apparently wild one ran past our tent and out a hole in the fence. Then we heard snorting and grunting and digging on the other side of the tent. Wild pigs. We didn’t see them, though. Then the dogs found out about the pigs and we almost found ourselves in a battleground. After that the mosquitoes came out, but they only kept Chase awake.

This morning we got up when we got too hot from the sun beaming in. After we packed, our plan was just to go to the bathrooms and fill our bottles and then see if the Delek station had opened up. But while we were down there, feeling awkward among the staring, milling crowds, a nice lady came and told us they’d be serving breakfast at 10:00 AM. We didn’t plan on going, but then an old man said they were serving breakfast immediately in the Ohel, where they had the whole fish last night. And then the lady came back and confirmed what he said. So we decided to check it out.

It turned out to be a huge pot of hot beef stew with potatoes and beans. We each ate a bowl and I had a Turkish coffee as well. Then the old guy came and insisted we eat more. I told him we’d already eaten, but he dished us each out a bowl – filled to overflowing. “Tachol,” he said. “Yesh harbe!”

Greg and Chase couldn’t do it, but I finished off the whole bowl. “Eat whatever they put in front of you,” Jesus said. Later I felt strongly that I should talk to him more, but I couldn’t find him. I believe he was one of very few people of peace among the ultra-Orthodox in Meron. He also brought us a bottle of grape juice, for which Chase especially was thankful.

So now we’re 5k into our 8k hike and we’ve eaten lunch. We’ll probably go farther, but it’s nice to have a bit of a day of rest. Our only problem now is that we don’t know where our supplies will come from. We have a day’s worth of food, and don’t know where there’s water. On the map, there won’t be any towns for awhile. So we must be sustained by His hands. Father, take care of us, just like You have been.

6/23/2006 -- Fair Meron

6/23/2006 Meron 10:02 PM

We all slept really well last night and didn’t get up till about 8:00 AM. We ate breakfast and tore stuff down and left at 9:09 AM. By then the kids from the yeshiva were long gone; Chanan was leaving just as I was going to the spring to wash up a little, and despite our conversation last night about how sad it is that people trash stuff so badly here, he drove off and left all the kids’ garbage.

Since we covered lots of ground yesterday, we hoped to get to Meron tonight. But that meant hiking 15 miles of footpath, with no road. And it became obvious from the start that it would be mostly uphill; Meron is just across the valley from Tsfat, which is way up high; we were still below sea level.

The trail went through Nahal Amud, which is a beautiful sort of ravine, with high cliffs on both sides, full of caves. But before long, we had a hard time paying attention to the scenery because the trail was all choked with thorns. It was terrible, and went like that for what seemed like miles.

None of us were feeling very good. We carried about 5 liters of water each, because we didn’t know about the reliability of water sources along the way. We’ve been 10 days without a full rest day, and it’s beginning to show. If I were to do this again, I’d try to time it all out so there’d be no walking on the Shabbat; then I’d not only avoid hypocrisy, but also be more in the rhythm of the land.

We crossed under a highway, and the thorn situation got better. Before that, though, we stopped for lunch on a shaded hillside, next to an old, creaking windmill. We saw three turtles there, because there’s an old natural spring on the hill that’s not on the map. Our lunch was simple but good: noodle cups, Bissli, and plums. Then we slept till 2:00 PM.

Like I said, the thorns got better, but then the trail started going up. We met two guys on bikes, which was ridiculous, given the terrain. They want to do a cross-country trip, but they had no water, so we gave them a bunch of ours, because we were more sure of finding water up ahead. We didn’t talk much; we just began climbing.

By 4:30 PM we were all feeling dead. We each ate 2 more plums. Then we started getting low on water. Greg ate a Snickers bar. It just seemed like everything was difficult. We didn’t think we could make it to Meron, but we didn’t want to have to camp out in the woods, with all the mosquitoes. The gorge was deep, with no good places to set up, but we didn’t know what might present itself. At a trail junction we contemplated going to Tsfat for the night, but we decided instead to press on toward some pools, shown on the map.

The valley was really beautiful; it was by far the most lush place we’ve seen. Old, broken towers and stone buildings stood deserted, perched on the hillsides and surrounded by vines and trees. An old water-channel followed the trail. Obviously the valley used to be inhabited; I wondered why not now.

Eventually, the Nahal became a true creek, and water was gushing and pooling down in the bottom of the ravine. This still seems novel to us. We needed to fill our bottles, but the water was still too far down. It’s a good thing we didn’t try, because we heard some kind of grunting down in the trees below. Then we heard heavy footsteps, and the sound of something big crashing through brush.

Chase was immediately sure it was a wild boar. I love his imagination. I doubted it at first, but then we heard it some more, and I couldn’t think of what else it could be. We threw some rocks down in its direction, hoping to flush it out so we could see it, but it just growled at us, so we continued down the trail.

We didn’t know what the “pools” were going to be like, but we didn’t want to miss the chance to fill up water, so we stopped at a good place further on and Chase went down and filled Nalgenes, straining the water through a bandanna while Greg and I sat at the top, filling Platypus bottles and iodizing the water. First time we’ve purified water.

Not too long after that, the mosquitoes began descending in swarms, so we started moving fast. It’s amazing what Greg can do when he’s motivated. He was in the front, and we flew. Before long, we eventually got to the pools, but by then the trail was still uphill, but it was much more open and smooth. It was 7:00 PM and we decided to get to Meron.

So we hit it hard. The only eventful thing was that Chase and Greg saw a wild boar cross the path up ahead of us. All they could say about its size was that it was bigger than any of us.

We got to the road at 8:00 PM, exhausted after 15 miles of struggling and climbing. The road to Meron was a climb, also, but we were inspired by the sign for the Delek station ahead. Once again, juice was our motivation.

But when we got to the Meron junction, just past the town, the station was closed. Our only option was to go into Meron, but it’s a religious community, and it’s Shabbat. Everyone was out walking to services.

Right after we entered the gate, some kids came and closed it. I asked the oldest one if there was a place to stay for the night, and he said, “Come with me.” We followed him up and up through the town, passing religious families with strollers. It felt a little awkward. We felt like strangers; more so than at any other time so far.

Yosef Chaim was the kid’s name – Lord, bless him – and he led us to the top of the hill, where there’s a tent with food, and lots of places where people go to pray. At the very top was some kind of a homeless shelter; the men there had set up tents on some kind of balcony. They obviously didn’t want us there, so Yosef Chaim led us out to a parking lot that overlooked the whole complex. He showed us where other people were camping, and told us we could go to the tent to get some food.

We decided to try it, so we went down to where guys were handing out bowls of what appeared to be some kind of soup, and bottles of something called “Super Drink.” I got in line for us, and Chase said, “Man, those are whole fish in bowls.”

Sure enough, they were. It was a red soup with a whole fish in it – each person got one. We didn’t want any, but I got a blue bottle of Super Drink, which turned out to be blue pop. We took it back to our spot at the top.

As we began getting out some of our remaining food, and older guy sitting at the next picnic table brought over some food – meatballs with peas and a big challah bread. It was very kind of him. Father, bless him as well. Later, he brought us some watermelon. So it’s two free dinners for us in a row.

At his suggestion, we moved all our stuff to a move private place. We found a spot out here by the back gate of the town and set up the fly to block out the white streetlight. I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to sleep.

6/22/2006 -- Kids with guns

6/22/2006 Ein Nun (North of Tiberias) 11:27 PM

Today: We left Chof Kinneret-Yarden at 7:00 AM and got to Tiberias by 11:00 AM. We walked around and ran errands – got money, looked for internet, etc., and ate lunch at Big Ben’s. What I’ll remember about that will be the cats in the ceiling, the pretty waitress who played lots of dramatic love songs, and her lousy service.

We got groceries and headed out at about 2:30 PM. We took a cab back to the trail – we’d walked Highway 90 to Tiberias instead of Shvil Israel – and got out at Upper Tiberias. From there the trail slowly rose until we got to Har Arbel, which looks like a hill, coming from the south, but the north side drops off hundreds of feet. We went down the cliff side, using ladders, etc., and then got to our goal – a gas station on Highway 90 – at about 5:30 PM. Not too bad.

After getting cold drinks – I drank 1.5 liters of grapefruit drink – we filled our Platypus bottles for tomorrow’s walk and decided to keep going till we found a campsite. At about 7:00 PM, a guy in front of a small store near the highway told us about a spring up ahead where we should camp. So we found it – it’s a big pool with a stream flowing both in and out of it – but a guy was already there with a bunch of stuff set up, apparently for a large group.

His name was Chanan and he was the set-up guy for a group of yeshiva students from Petach Tikva who are doing the Israel Trail in portions. We had tea with him and talked. He’d lived in Gush Katif before the pullout. It’s amazing to see how much that hurt him. Finally I can picture that people just had to pack up and leave the homes they loved. He began tearing up when talking about it.

We set up our camp and I helped Chanan set up a few things. Tonight we’re sleeping under a fly in the hopes that our mosquito coils can solve the bug problem. But so far there are none. Lots of bats around, so I guess that’s why.

The group arrived late – after dark – but Chanan had invited us to eat dinner with them. So all these kids – Chanan said 60 or 70 – came down, all noisy and everything. They’re all 9th and 10th graders.

I started talking with Avi, one of the young guys working as a guard. He speaks almost no English but he really seemed to want to talk. I also talked to Nechemya, the teacher who leads the group – all in Hebrew. He thinks that what we’re doing is awesome, and he’s fascinated that we’re not Jewish. He told me how the yeshiva is doing all this intentionally, how different kids in different age groups do different parts of the trail. So by the time they finish, they’ve seen a lot of the country. I thought that was really cool.

Nechemya was almost moved when I told him about what we’re doing and why. He asked if I would say a few words to the kids after dinner. I said yes but dinner didn’t end till about 10:00 PM so I didn’t get to do it.

But we ate and I talked to Avi while Chase and Greg talked with an English-speaking Indian guy named Levi. Avi’s really typical on the outside – just looks like a typical young guy in Israel. But during his time in the army, he got hit by a piece of shrapnel from a grenade, in a terrorist attack that killed his commanding officer and, I think, two others. It was a tough conversation. He spent two months in the hospital.

He also shot and killed a terrorist who had killed 8 people, I think at a checkpoint. He even showed me pictures on his cell phone. Shot him twice – once through the eye and once through the forehead – at 70 meters. The photos on his cell phone were gruesome.

Anyway I’m exhausted but I feel like tonight I learned a lot. Chase and Greg really connected with Levi, and actually got to talk, and that was good, especially for Greg.

I’m glad I met Avi. He gave me his phone number in case I want to talk more about his war experiences. Lord, I know I’m by no means perfect; I pray that they saw You through me tonight. Cause Avi to ask questions and follow You. Amen.

6/21/2006 -- Pragmatic exhibitionism

6/21/2006 Sea of Galilee 7:36 PM

Our plan today was to get to the end of the map we started last night. We had to walk 25 km – about 15.5 miles – to get to the Kinneret. Our goal was to get up at 5:00 and start at 6:00; instead, we got started an hour later.

That was partially because we couldn’t sleep at all last night. Well, Greg could, but that’s normal. I didn’t like the campsite much even when we got there; it was basically the corner of a field, next to a water source for wildlife, full of cow piles, and close to the intersection of two roads. Plus nearby there was a bunch of chairs and a mattress that it looked like somebody occasionally uses. None of us really liked it but it was getting dark and we needed to cook.

So we ate Couscous Ben-Gurion, so named by Avihu, with some spaghetti sauce that we bought in Nazareth and transferred to a water bottle at the Fauzi Azar. I keep it in one of Greg’s old socks, just in case it leaks. Anyway, while Chase was cooking, I called Dad to tell him Happy Father’s Day a day late. It was good talking to him and Mom, but it’s hard because they can’t get too excited about all this, because they’ve never been here and they don’t know how to picture it in their minds yet.

The mosquitoes descended on us as soon as we lay down to sleep. I spent the better part of the night completely inside my sleeping bag, roasting to death, and breathing through a piece of fabric, with dozens of mosquitoes buzzing around and landing on my covered-up face. It was maddening, even though I wasn’t getting bitten. I also started getting paranoid about our proximity to people.

A vehicle drove through the field next to us at about 2:00 AM, and of course I was awake. I had vivid images of wily thieves, etc., and I lay there silently, listening to twigs snapping around me – probably animals going to the stream. But Chase wasn’t immune; at about 3:00 AM, he whispered, “Shay, are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Something is just to the left of my head. I can hear it; it’s been there for like an hour.” His head was completely inside his sleeping bag because of the mosquitoes.

He was afraid it was a snake and I assured him that nothing was there. Still, he didn’t believe me; I told him the noises were probably bugs under the ground cloth; I’d seen ants down there. Finally he jumped out of the bag and away, but then I wouldn’t let him turn his light on because I was afraid the person across the dark field would know we were there.

So I only slept soundly from about 4:00 AM to 6:00 AM, and then we left at 7:00 AM. Our hike today consisted mainly of a long, slow ascent along dusty gravel roads, in full sun. Today’s hike was more like the Negev, temperature-wise, then anything else so far. But still, it wasn’t too bad. We’ve gotten really strong on ascents, so we made good time.

Around 9:30 or 10:00 AM we needed water, because we were at the tail end of yesterday’s supply. We ended up going to a farm near where the guidebook said there should be a spring; the farmer told me where it was, and that the drinkable water came from a tap on the east side. The spring turned out to be a big basalt-and-concrete cube, covered at the top, with cow troughs along the sides. It looked dirty but we needed it, so we filled our bottles, not bothering with chemicals. I suppose that if one of us gets sick, we all will. I did look through the hole in the cover of the reservoir, and a thick film floated on top of the water. Oh well.

The road kept going up and up toward the ridge that finally drops off toward the Kinneret. We walked past an enormous field of sunflowers. And when it ended, near the top of a hill, a pipe was spitting water out onto a concrete slab. The water wasn’t drinkable, but I rinsed my feet in it and poured it in my hat and on my head. Then I turned around and two other hikers were standing there. They were Americans who didn’t have much personality. I don’t think they’ll do much more of the trail.

Just a few hundred meters further, we got to the top of the ridge, not expecting it at all, and the land fell away before us, and there was the Kinneret, hazy and blue like a mirage.

The descent took forever and we ate lunch under a big tree on the way down. We only took an hour break, though, because we wanted to get to Deganya Alef, which we heard had a private beach that was open to Shvil Israel hikers. Rivka told us that. We also wanted juice.

We lost the trail and took gravel paths down, but we picked it up again and followed it to the Jordan. At our first real sight of it we took off our shirts and swam. Chase and Greg jumped from a rope swing. I realized that I’d forgotten to take anything out of my pockets, and the telephone was submerged and soaked. I’m scared that it won’t work anymore. Lord, please let it dry out. Still, I think I will remember this time, swimming across the Jordan River, for the rest of my life.

We got out and walked to Yardenit [tourist baptism place on the Jordan River], where they gouged us on two bottles of Prigat Orange Drink (14 NIS – twice what we paid at an Arab shop on the way to Nazareth two days ago), so we blew 28 NIS total, but it was cold and delicious. We sat among white-robed tourists and gulped.

Finally we hiked out to Highway 90, where I remembered a store near Kibbutz Ma’agan. But the entrance to Deganya Alef appeared first, so we went in to check and see if we could stay there. We found a store and bought more juice – apple this time – and a nice girl, who stopped being so nice once she knew I was married, advised us to go out to Highway 90 again, where it met the Jordan, and stay at the Kinneret-Yarden Campground. So we got more juice still, and left.

The campground was trashed and deserted when we got there, but a dude and his girlfriend showed up in a car, and they said it didn’t open till tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:00 AM. But we told him all we needed was a place to stay, so he said we could, and charged 10 NIS per person. Not bad. As soon as he left, we swam. Chase tried to fish.

While he did that, I resumed my quest to find that store. I walked probably 1.5 miles down Highway 90 before finding it. I bought a Pear Cactus Apple nectar, a Strawberry Banana nectar, a huge plastic container of grapes, and some mosquito coils, just in case. I could have gotten other things, but we still needed fuel, so that meant we’d have to stop in Tiberias tomorrow anyway. And we still have lots of Couscous Ben-Gurion.

When I got back, it was probably 10 minutes shorter to just swim across the Jordan than to walk back. But I didn’t want to get my clothes and wallet wet, so I left them and put the fruits and juice in a tied-shut plastic bag. I stripped to my boxers and swam it while Chase sat on the other bank, fishing. The bag stayed afloat, but water got in, so I didn’t feel comfortable repeating the process with my wallet and clothes. So I swam back across, after the police boat passed, and put my clothes back on and walked. So now I’ve swum across the river four times today, and I’m tired.

Now Chase is making the couscous pasta over a fire he built. He never caught a fish. It’s all right; the Kinneret is beautiful and gentle, and we feel at peace.

6/20/2006 -- Transfiguration

6/20/2006 Near Kfar Kish (Galil) 8:54 PM

Today we left the Fauzi Azar at about 9:00 because we needed to pay Gabi and check out. We chugged two cartons of nectar, filling all our glasses and drinking at the same time to ensure even division of the precious juice. This is our custom. I also had a coffee, which was great. I’ve decided that I love the Fauzi Azar and I’m already looking forward to the time our college group will be spending in Nazareth.

We bought some Cheerios and milk on the way to the bus station and ate till the milk was gone. We kept the Cheerios. Then we walked to find the number 3 bus that Gabi recommended, but at the stop he gave us, it appeared that there was no number 3. So we went to the central bus station and they said we needed number 20. After a long while, we found the stop, got the bus, and got dropped off at the exact place where the trail crossed the road, just at the edge of Nazerat Illit. It was perfect. Thank You, Lord, for keeping such a close watch over us.

We walked for awhile along a 4x4 road, and then a thorny footpath. I’m wearing sandals for the rest of the hike now (the boots are in my pack) because I like the idea of walking around the same way Jesus and the disciples did. And I’m understanding why Jesus had nothing nice to say about thorns and thistles. There are these blue-stemmed ones that look really cool, but when one of its spines hits you in the foot, the spot almost goes numb from the sharpness of the pain. I seriously wonder if it contains some kind of poison. I hate all the thorns that grow up alongside the paths; when they’re all close to the edge, they make walking miserable.

Jesus talks a lot about roads and plants and walking and paths. These are all worth looking up in the concordance at home. But I see now that the New Testament is sort of a great road story – the gospels, at least. It’s like a constant road trip with Jesus, going to the festivals, moving from place to place.

And my feet get filthy by the end of the day. I have terrible tan lines and my toenails are all full of dirt. But it’s true – at the end of the daily walk, all I have to do is wash my feet; the rest of me is clean – mostly.

Anyway, at the footpath’s junction with a road, we met three Russians who were very impressed with what we were doing and gave us an Israel Mega-Atlas. That was all I could make out from the Cyrillic on the cover. That’s the second atlas we’ve been given, but I couldn’t read all the crazy writing. It all looks messed-up to me. Plus the book was the size and weight of a dictionary. I put it against a rock on the trail, not too far from where we met the guys, and thereby bequeathed it to any Russian hiker who may pass between now and the next time it rains. It should be awhile. A good example of good-intentioned people.

We ate lunch in a JNF pine forest – ramen cups – and continued. I often sling my pack over just one shoulder to let the sweat on my back dry. It’s so humid up here, I can often take off my pack and wring tons of sweat out of my shirt. It’s disgusting; I could fill a cup.

We got to an Arab village at the foot of Mt. Tabor and a man let us fill our bottles at his faucet. Then his wife came out and offered us cold water. We accepted, of course, and filled our Platypus bottles. It was a blessing, and I wished blessings upon her and her house as we left. She thanked us.

Lots of tourists were boarding buses at the base of Mt. Tabor. We got orange drinks and then proceeded up to the top. The trail was steep, but I think we only stopped twice, and once was when two Israeli hikers passed – a guy and a girl from Petach Tikva. Their packs were huge, as have been most of the packs we’ve seen people carrying. Like Rivka’s pack, for example: she had a cookpot you would use at home, and some glass glasses for tea. To me this is crazy. I can’t see people like that making it through the Negev.

Anyway, our ascent was sustained and fast, and I think we’re becoming really strong hikers. At the top we visited the Catholic complex and took some pictures, then proceeded around the top of the mountain on the Shvil. I can see why people think the Transfiguration happened on Mt. Tabor. It’s really high, and different from all the surrounding hills. But if I were the disciples, I’d have probably been complaining the whole way up. It’s funny to me that Jesus would spring these hiking trips on his guys. Not that they didn’t get a great surprise at the top. We didn’t see Moses or Elijah up there.

The descent was the tough part. Greg’s feet are mostly better, but downhills hurt his feet. And my sandals don’t have the best footing, so I slip easily on loose dirt and leaves. It took forever to get to the bottom. When we did, we’d finished the day’s map, which was 18k, but we’re trying to do at least 20k per day now, to get to Tel Dan. So we did about 4k more, till we got to this campsite along a strange green creek. The ground is covered in straw and cow chips, and the birds in the eucalyptus trees squawk at each other in the most annoying way. Oh, en route, Chase got some plums from an orchard; one was really good, he says. I love my brother.

Now the call to prayer is echoing eerily from the mosques in the valley. Lord, give us safe, peaceful rest tonight as we prepare to hike to Deganya tomorrow. Give us favor at the kibbutz. And let Your word speak to us now, as Chase reads. I love You; thank You for all of this.

6/19/2006 -- Fauzi Azar

6/19/2006 Nazareth 11:41 PM

It’s late, but I know I need to write. Today we set out from Alon ha-Galil and busted it pretty hard to get to Nazareth – 15k by 12:30 PM. Much of that was an uphill walk. We actually didn’t get to the Fauzi Azar until about 1:30 because we had to take a bus from Meshhed (north of town), then call Maoz [our main Israeli contact for the trail, and proprietor of the Fauzi Azar Inn] from the central bus station and get directions – through the market and to the White Mosque.

Nazareth’s an interesting town because almost none of it existed during Yeshua’s time; it’s all built up now. And it’s a mostly Arab city, but even here, there seem to be big – and yet somewhat harmonious – discussions between Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs. You hear church bells and calls to prayer. It’s what Jerusalem would be if there were no Jewish presence.

At the Fauzi Azar we hooked up with Gabi, the guy who runs the place and who speaks little English. He guided us to a laundry place, so we dropped all that off. We went back and showered, and then I lay on the bed and read Graham Greene’s The Tenth Man until I fell asleep. At 5:30 me and Greg went through a bit of a fiasco trying to get shekels, but in the end it was OK. We got the laundry at 6:00, got Chase, and at about 7:00 PM we were at an Arabic restaurant called Tishreen, where we were all thoroughly charmed by a sweet waitress who was astonished at the amount of food we ordered, and even more astonished that we all got dessert. The total tab was like 215 shekels, but it was the first time, I think, that me and Chase and Greg all just laughed and laughed together, like friends, so it was worth it.

After we got back, I met up again with Gabi and this guy called Marcos or something from Montreal, but originally from Guatemala, and whose dad is half-Jewish. He’s volunteering at the Fauzi Azar this summer and speaks good Hebrew, for only having studied 2 years. I like him a lot and we got along famously. The three of us went down to a restaurant with a bunch of plastic chairs, nargilehs, and TV sets, and we watched Tunisia versus Spain in the World Cup. While there, I met a young married couple from Haifa named Dror and Lili and it was great talking to them too. We all smoked the pipe and laughed and watched the soccer game.

I have this feeling here, tonight, that I’m really in a foreign country, where it matters very little to the people that I’m an American. Tonight I had to play by their rules – not my own – and I liked it. All around, you see Brazilian and Argentinian flags, as well as a few French and German, marking the affiliations of all the soccer fans. And it’s such a big thing that I have no choice but to let myself be washed along in the tide of it.

But I wonder what Jesus thinks of what’s going on in this town that bears the name of His home. I found out from Gabi that he’s a Christian, and all his friends at the TV place are Muslims. It’s not always smooth; everyone basically just does their own thing and leaves it at that. It’s not really talked about. But from the way Gabi hushed his voice and talked quickly in Hebrew, I could tell it’s not something he really wanted to touch.

It’s after midnight now but the town is still alive, probably in part because of the soccer game. Clouds are rolling in from the direction of the sea and they are an orange fog in the lights of the city. My initial impression is that I could live here, I think, but maybe I’m just comforted psychologically by the nominal, yet familiar, Christian presence here in the city. Still, this is a place where Yeshua is talked about, so I believe our time here will be very interesting. Now, Lord, please help me sleep.

6/19/2006 -- Rude awakening

6/19/2006 Alon ha-Galil ~8:00 AM

So I wake up at 2:00 AM to see a black head rise up from the ground at Greg’s feet, atop a long black neck – like a cobra getting ready to strike. And then, all of a sudden, I hear a loud hiss – and water starts shooting out of its mouth. The sprinklers have turned on at the soccer field.

We stuck a Nalgene bottle over the one at Greg’s feet, but we were still getting the spray from the other sprinkler heads. We hurriedly shoved everything in our packs. Me and Chase and Avihu got all the stuff together while Rivka and Greg scouted out a new place to sleep. They chose the basketball court.

We all got settled down. Avihu was cursing the kibbutzniks under his breath, while Rivka was trying to tell him for the thousandth time that this is not a kibbutz [communal settlement], or even a moshav [collective farm], but Avihu doesn’t see the difference. This is a discussion that began when I asked them why they don’t bother making the pizza stand kosher.

All of us met at the highway junction yesterday at the bottom of a hill. Rivka flagged us down and we yelled back and forth in Hebrew over the din of traffic. Finally we switched to English. She asked if we were from here and we said no. She asked if we were Jewish and we said no. “But you’re doing the Shvil Israel? Then I have to come talk to you!” We came up the hill to meet them, then we all hiked down.

They’d heard there was someone at Alon ha-Galil who liked to help hikers, and they were going to hitchhike. They wanted us to come with them, so we did, even though we’d already walked past the place. We went back through the junction and easily got two rides to the top; Avihu took the first and Rivka came with us.

At the entrance to the yishuv, which had a pizza stand and some picnic tables, we tried to get a place to stay, but all we were offered was the soccer field. Rivka was offered a shower. For such a plain, unassuming person, she’s good at scoring free stuff. Anyway, they couldn’t eat the pizza because it wasn’t kosher, and that’s how Avihu got started on kibbutzniks.

We got some RC Cola and took it back to the soccer field and cooked a kosher dinner there. Tomato soup, with potatoes from our stew the night before. Rivka made this couscous-shaped pasta with onions. Avihu didn’t eat much; he’s got a stomach problem, so he’s only eating rice, he says.

It was great talking to them. They’re excited about our book and website, and they think Americans would be interested in the trail. They’re definitely the type who get it.

We all slept soundly until the sprinkler incident. Then, this morning, Rivka and Avihu headed out at about 6:30 AM. Upon leaving, Avihu hung up some of my stuff to dry, and route in chalk on the basketball court, “See Y in [doodle of Western Wall],” which means “See You in Jerusalem.” Both of them insist that we come visit them when we come to Jerusalem with the group in a few weeks.

Our experience with them has been great and I look forward to building a friendship with them – especially Avihu. He’s big into Rabbi Nachman. We talked last night a little about what we believe and it didn’t seem to shut him off at all.

Father, be with us and give us speed as we hike to Nazareth today.

6/18/2006 -- Tiredness

6/18/2006 Alon ha-Galil ~10:30 PM

Tonight we’re sleeping on a soccer field with our new friends, Rivka and Avihu. We met them at the end of the trail; they’re going south, trying to make it to Jerusalem within the next couple of weeks. Both of them are religious, but they’re by far the nicest and warmest Israelis we’ve met along the trail. Avihu is a crazy, goofy sort of guy who wears a kippa and says a blessing before eating anything. We cooked dinner using their utensils, to make sure the meal was kosher.

It’s been a good day but I’ll have to finish this early in the morning. Thank You, Lord, for this encounter.

[Added 6/30: Also today – Arab farmer, clean spring, pool with fish]

What I didn't include in this journal entry was a midday encounter with a kind man who helped us find water during the middle of the day. He was an Arab farmer who was well-acquainted with the area, and he led us to a spring that flowed up slowly from a stone-lined hole and flowed out into a dirty stream. The water from the spring was clean, though, and we drank from it on our hands and knees, cupping our hands to our mouths like Gideon's soldiers at Ma'ayan Harod.

The man told us the spring contained "the best water in Israel." We'd heard that before about other springs, and this wasn't any different from the rest. But it was clear and cold and we were thankful. As usual when meeting people from rural areas, we had to speak in Hebrew and I had to act as translator. He spoke and walked quickly, and led us for a good mile or so until our paths diverged. We never saw him again.

The trail followed the dirty stream and I walked in it for awhile in my sandals, fascinated by the abundance of flowing water. Later we came to a deep, clear pool, dammed and mortared long ago, and full of big fish that Chase desperately wanted to attempt to spear. It was a beautiful scene, ruined only by the dude swimming around in his underwear. If it weren't for him, we'd have gotten in the water ourselves; he showed no intention of leaving, so we continued on, finally reaching Alon ha-Galil at sunset.

6/17/2006 -- Gunfire at Armageddon

6/17/2006 Issafiya ~9:05 PM

We’re sitting in our campsite on the northeast slope of the Carmel ridge, just down from a town called Assafiya or Issafiya or something like that. I don’t have an English-language map out. We bought some potatoes, tomatoes, an onion, a red pepper, and some garlic powder at a little market as we entered the town, and then we cooked a stew on the Cat [our homemade alcohol stove built from two cat food cans]. The stove performed well as always. I’m amazed.

It’s a beautiful night. The cities of the Jezreel Valley and the rolling hills of the Galil are spread out before us; orange and white lights are twinkling down below. The air is cool and moist, with a thick smell of pines. Chase is snapping sticks for the fire he just built; crickets are chirping down the hill; and to the south I think I just heard a burst of machine-gun fire.

Last night in Ein Hod was not the most pleasant. The food was good and they were all watching the World Cup in the bar, but afterward we slept in a park right inside the entrance to the artists’ colony. People were going in and out all night, talking and occasionally noting our presence. The ground was sloped and bugs bothered us all night. Greg, as usual, slept heavily through it all.

Most of my nights, I sleep lightly and don’t get much deep rest. I’m almost always the first one up and moving, and because of this journal, I’m usually the last one asleep.

We dried our stuff out in the sun – the moisture here is still a novelty for us – and got out at 9:00 AM. It was almost all footpath today, and one of our most strenuous hikes so far. We spent most of the time ascending the Carmel ridge. Actually, it was a series of ascents; some through very uneven and thorny terrain, up on the sides of ridges, and some along watercourses that involved boulder scrambles. Occasionally the trail leveled out at the top of a ridge or in a valley between them, but those were few and far between.

Our lunch stop – at 11:40 AM – occurred when we got a little off the trail and found a cool sort of half-tunnel cut a long way through the ridge of limestone bluffs along an ascent. We took refuge from the sun in the cool overhand where water dripped from hundreds of tiny stalactites. Before long, though, we were cold from the shade and the breeze on our soaking-wet shirts. It’s frustrating here because on the ascents, you’re in the sun, sweating till your clothes are soaked through, but it won’t dry off because of the humidity, and often, the lack of wind. So we sweat less overall, I think (because we drink less water, this is my hypothesis); but we’re wet all the time from sweat. Chase likes it; I don’t.

All day we saw some beautiful places: a dry watercourse that is obviously gushing with water and filled with pools in the spring; a wide, green valley, surrounded by mountains covered in green trees, with white limestone cliffs and bluffs interspersed, where, in the very middle, along a dirt road, an Arab family was eating an early dinner, seated at tables, complete with tablecloths, and with a man in a cowboy hat presiding over the meal. That place reminded me very much of Philmont country; green mountains against blue sky.

In one of the few places where we hiked along a road, Chase noticed something moving up ahead. It was a huge, shiny black snake. It never got completely straightened out, but I estimated its length at between five and six feet. It was apparently trying to shed its skin. We watched it for awhile and got fairly close as it slowly scraped its way along the gravel. Greg got pictures, and then it got scared of us and dragged itself into the brush at the side of the road. That’s seven snakes we’ve seen now. Chase notices most of them.

Now long machine-gun bursts are coming up out of the valley. I’m wondering if a base is down there, or if exercises are going on. Down in the Negev, it seemed impossible to escape the military presence; up here I’ve almost forgotten.

Our hike ended when we suddenly hit a road, and found ourselves in a town, with a market on the other side of the street. We promptly eliminated a bottle of our new favorite drink – “Pear Cactus Apple” – and then resupplied our completely exhausted food supply. In two days, now – Nazareth.

6/16/2006 -- Shabbat Shalom

6/16/2006 Ein Hod 9:14 PM

[written in Hebrew: Shabbat Shalom]

We got out of Zikhron Ya’akov at about 11:20 AM. Kobi and Michael dropped us off at the junction and we started. The first part of the day was beautiful; we hiked along ridges and had beautiful views out over the Mediterranean and eastward to the hills and ridges along Mt. Carmel. Most of the hike was through the woods, and it included footpaths that involved scrambling over rocks, and through dense vegetation. We loved it.

For lunch we sat in the shade and ate these bourekas-like things that were greasy and contained onion and mushroom [Kobi and Michael kindly bought them for us before we left Zikhron Ya’akov]. They were good. Later, around 2:00 PM, we walked through an orange grove and found some big, ripe oranges. We got four of them, then walked up the road and ate them in the shade. They were awesome.

The route eventually joined a footpath again and we went through old ruins in the forest, including a mosque with a cistern. Whole cities lay collapsed and abandoned in the underbrush.

Eventually the path went out in the open and got rocky. Big rocks, unevenly shaped and spaced, and full of holes. We saw two snakes; Chase saw a smooth brown one and we all saw a shiny black one as it thrashed through the weeds and out of sight. I thought it looked 2 ½ feet long; Chase thought it was bigger.

We got to the park’s ranger station place just after it closed at 4:00. We got there at 4:45. So we missed out on buying cold drinks. We decided to bust it to Ein Hod before sunset.

But from there the trail got hellishly thorny. It really was unbelievable. We had to walk really carefully and slowly. The trail stayed just up on the low part of a long hill, going along the side, just above a road.

We ended up finally getting on the road and hiking peacefully through a banana plantation, then up to Ein Hod. We found a restaurant and ate fries and chicken wings, so now we’re happy, full, and sleepy.

6/16/2006 -- North

6/16/2006 Zikhron Ya'akov 7:05 AM

Yesterday morning we got going a little late, as I suppose has become our routine, and dried everything out in the olive grove. We started walking at about 9:00 AM and promptly got off the trail because of a blaze that had been covered up by weeds. That's become by far the most annoying thing about the trail now.

The hike out of Jerusalem was beautiful, but once we got out of the mountains, it wasn't that interesting. We went up and down some hills and through some more old War of Independence sites, like the place where they laid the pipeline to run water back to Jerusalem. But other than that, it was road walking, through rocks and trees, all the way to the Armored Corps museum in Latrun.

At the place where the trail met Highway 3, we walked down to a gas station and a big convenience store. There, Greg accidentally dumped most of a Platypus bag right into his pack, and soaked his sleeping bag pretty well. We got drinks and ate lunch there too before heading back out. The sandwiches we ate weren't very good, and all the soldiers eating there in the restaurant didn't seem to be in the mood to talk to strangers. A guy outside, though, with orange ribbons all over his bag and a kippa on his head, was very encouraging and said he'd done the trail for 2 weeks last year. One of many "Kol ha-kavod"s.

From Latrun the hike was mostly hot, flat, and boring. We passed through some construction sites and found ourselves in a large, cactus-filled olive grove with car roads all through it, and with no trail markers. Just when we thought we should turn around, we saw a group of hikers sitting in the shade under a tree. So we assumed we were going the right way.

They've been on the trail for 5 1/2 weeks, going south to north. They haven't skipped anything, but still, they're taking a long time. Their packs were huge, and looked heavy. Only one of the girls -- it was two girls and a guy -- wanted to talk; the others laid there under the tree. But the girl was nice and we got her e-mail address so I can contact her later about their hike.

I forgot to mention in the previous entry that Maoz called the other day with a guy who's writing an article on the INT for Cycling magazine. He's riding a bike down the trail and wants to interview hikers. I'm going to talk to him again today -- his name is Todd. And speaking of Todds, Chase found out last week that Todd P. [his neighbor; name censored] crashed a car into his bedroom wall. But according to Daniel [Chase's roommate], "it's just sort of dented inside."

After we met the thru-hikers, we started walking again, but remembered that we hadn't seen any blazes, and we knew we should quit heading west, lest we run into Highway 1. We needed to go north; I could tell that even from my rudimentary map. The thru-hikers said, "I don't know how you can navigate using that map," but then, as we stood trying to figure it out, they went walking by in the wrong direction.

We waited five minutes, so as not to catch up with them and be awkward, then decided to follow, just to see. Before long, we passed a small work camp on the right that consisted of two semi trailers with two guys sitting outside. I asked them if they knew where the trail was, just as a car pulled up and Chase asked the driver for directions. The guys didn't know anything; I gave the guy in the car my map and he said, "I don't know how you can navigate using this," and asked where we were going. To make it simple, Chase said, "Tel Aviv."

That started a whole conversation in which this guy was completely fixated on Tel Aviv, even though we told him we didn't really want to go to Tel Aviv; we wanted to walk along Shvil Israel. "But this way does not go to Tel Aviv," he said.

"I know; it goes to Petach Tikva," I said.

"But that is not so close to Tel Aviv," he said. "If you want to go to Tel Aviv, you should go out to this road and hitchhike."

This went round and round, culminating in him offering to drive us east to a wadi that led to a road from which we could then hitchhike to Tel Aviv. I politely declined the offer and he left. We still knew nothing, except that the trail lay east of us.

As we were about to leave, the work camp guys I'd spoken to in Hebrew invited us up for coffee. One was a thirty-five-ish guy from Moldovia with a gold tooth; the other was a skinny, gray-haired Romanian who spoke broken Hebrew mixed with some English and talked constantly about how great Romania was, and why we had to go there, and how much rain there is, and how beautiful the girls are, and so on. They gave us a bottle of ice right before they got picked up by someone. They were strange, but very kind.

From there we went back east and picked up a possible INT route, but then basically bushwhacked along roads, heading in the general direction of the Tel Aviv skyline, which we could see in the distance through the haze. At one point we flipped a 10-agorot coin Chase found on the ground to decide which road to take. But we were still west of the INT; eventually we figured out exactly where we were, just south of Moshav Gimzo. By then we decided to just take roads, rather than bushwhack through waist-high thorns and thistles.

At the moshav a police jeep sped toward us and screeched to a halt. Its Ethiopian driver, upon finding out what we were doing, gave us hearty handshakes and said "Kol ha-kavod lachem!" It's cool sometimes to feel that people are cheering you on. Even the thru-hiker girl said she felt proud that foreigners are coming to trek through Israel.

Around the moshav we decided to finish the section, and then hitchhike to Tel Aviv from the highway we'd be crossing. From Tel Aviv, we'd be able to take a bus up north from the central station. We knew it would take two more days of boring walking to get to Tel Aviv, and decided the time would be better spent in the north.

At the road we began hitchhiking along the on-ramp to Highway 1. An Orthodox kid and a soldier joined us. The soldier suggested we go to the bus stop and take a bus to Tel Aviv. We agreed, but the bus was to Ramla, via Lod. But we looked at the map and saw that from Lod we could take the train north, to Binyamina, and get close to the INT.

We took the bus and got off too early in Lod, and had to walk maybe half a mile to the train station. Along the way, in front of a crowded kiosk, a lady asked me what we were doing with these backpacks. I told her, and a guy from the store next door cut up a watermelon and gave us each a huge slice. "Kol ha-kavod," they said. So from there we walked along through the town, eating and dripping with watermelon juice as people passed. We reached the train station just as it got dark.

The train ride took an hour. It was strange, leaving from the same place where we'd stopped en route to Jerusalem from Kiryat Gat. We arrived at Binyamina at about 9:30 PM and had nowhere to stay, and hadn't eaten any dinner. I asked a guy in the bathroom about youth hostels; he and I walked out to the parking lot to ask his father-in-law. Along the way I talked to the guy about the trail. He said it's becoming a phenomenon here, replacing the traditional trip to India or Thailand. He was nice, but his father-in-law offered no help, save advide tha twe go to Zikhron Ya'akov and stay at the hostel there.

We walked out of the station and decided to walk out of town north to the INT and find a camping spot. I noticed as we passed the bus stop that a pretty girl was there talking on the phone. Then I remembered that I left my staff in the bathroom at the station. As I turned to go back, the girl started talking to Greg and Chase.

When I got back, Greg and Chase were getting into a little van thing and they were waiting for me. Turns out it's the girl and her family; she asked them if they knew anyone we could stay with, and they said we could sleep in the backyard.

They're nice people. I still haven't gotten the mom's name, but the dad is Kobi, and the girl is Liv, and her brother is Michael. She's in the military, doing intelligence work. Michael is 14 and speaks excellent English after having lived in Redmond, Washington for six months last year. They all lived there and seem to really like America.

Liv is the typical Israeli of her age; a little aloof and seems to know everything about the world, or at least has a strong opinion. Michael is a lot like Imri [a friend of ours in Tel Aviv] and tries very hard to make people happy and comfortable. He's learning guitar and I helped him tune his old, beat-up classical guitar. Then he played "Let It Be" and I played "Mrs. Robinson," looking at chords from the Net.

We cooked our dinner on their stove and ate and talked. Kobi made us each a liqueur drink before bed and Liv showed me her map of the Carmel region. She's interested in what we're doing because she used to lead youth tours in this area, and likes nature and hiking.

We set up camp in the backyard a little after midnight. The dog chewed up Chase's hiking stick pretty badly. I think he's bummed out a little.

Michael locked the house up because they had a thief recently. He told us we could knock if we needed to get in, but we've been up for two hours now (it's 8:00 AM) and don't want to wake them up on their day off (it's Friday). So we're letting out things dry out in the sun, and trying to hold our urges to pee in the backyard.

This house is gorgeous -- the nicest I've been in in Israel. It sits on a ridge overlooking the Mediterranean. The parents are both scientists and do a lot of R & D work. Kobi went to Oxford; Mom went to the Technion. It's a little intimidating, being around a family like this, but so far it's been fun. Today Mom is driving to Haifa; we're hoping to get a ride with her out of town to the point where the trail meets the road.

I called Mandy and she won't be going to Indiana like she hoped, because Paige [my sister] got mono again, and that could be bad for the baby. So she's a little down, but she'll be staying home next week instead, hopefully relaxing before the group from the States leaves Oklahoma on the 29th. I don't feel ready for that at all; Father, please prepare my heart and my mind.

Pause and update

For anyone who's new to the blog, I'd like to quickly explain once again how this thing works. In June of 2006, I hiked a big chunk of Shvil Israel, the Israel National Trail, with my brother Chase and my friend Greg. Lately I've been posting the journal entries, so that's why the posts shown below seem to be a strange succession of backwards dates. Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to continue entering my journal entries all the way through the end of the hike.

And for people who've been reading, thanks for checking back. Feel free to comment! Since I installed a counter a couple of weeks ago, I've discovered that lots of people are reading the blog every day, and I'd love to hear where you're from and why you're interested in the trail. If you have questions about Israel, the trail, or backpacking in general, you can post a comment or send me an e-mail at scrabineau [at] hotmail [dot] com. I look forward to hearing from you.

The past few months have been good for all three of us. Amanda and I found out we're having a daughter; she's due in February and we're giving her an Israeli name. Greg is back in school, teaching kids about history and religion, and telling them about Israel as seen from a rocky, thorn-choked footpath. And Chase has been experimenting with putting lessons from the trail into practice in his everyday life.

Recently he drove back to Indiana and picked up every hitchhiker he saw, as a result of a vow he took in the Negev to never leave a person he saw helpless on the road. So far he's made good and he's met a lot of interesting people along the way. A few weeks ago he actually tried hitchhiking himself, just as an experiment. To make a long story short, the experiment ended when he and his roommate got robbed. But neither he nor I want this to dampen our idealism. In Israel we caught a glimpse of a better life and we want to duplicate it here.

More and more we are becoming convinced that hospitality is one of the highest and purest expressions of love for our fellow man. And as believers in Jesus, we believe it is imperative that we offer help to people who need it. It would be hypocritical for us to think otherwise, since we so often found ourselves blessed in Israel by people we did not know, and who had no reason to help us.

All of this has caused me to do a lot of thinking. Once put into practice even in a small way, the ethic of hospitality trickles out into every other aspect of life. It is an ethic inconsistent with violence, anger, or hatred. It implies the validity of nonviolent resistence, civil disobedience, and peaceful responses to angry provocations. It causes me to question my everyday behavior toward people, and even my views on politics and war.

So I suppose it would be possible to say that the hike is still changing me, still affecting me, and I'm sure it will continue to do so for some time.

That's the update. More journal entries soon.

6/14/2006 -- Back to Eden

6/14/2006 North of Mesilat Tzion 9:18 PM

Tonight we’re in the woods west of Jerusalem. We left the city at about lunchtime today after a long process of taking buses from the Petra to the central bus station, then back to the Petra to get the cell phone, which I forgot, and then back to the bus station, and finally to the 183 bus that took us out to Tzuba, a little mountain town west of the city, where the INT merges with a road.

We hadn’t planned on staying in Jerusalem yesterday but at check-out time, after Chase and I had everything packed, Greg showed up and said he wouldn’t be staying in Jerusalem an extra day after all because Kelly didn’t like the idea of him splitting off on his own. So he said he’d go with us.

We didn’t want him to have to do that, because he still had things to see and some shopping and mailing to do. So we made the spot decision to stay at the Petra another night. I didn’t like it, but I thought it would be a lot better than Greg having to miss out. Besides, it was already 10:00 AM, and for us all to leave at that point would have taken forever.

So Greg went to mail some stuff and Chase and I laid around, then went downstairs to the Arab market and got some fruit and ramen. While we ate we met this guy from Utah named Andrew; it was his first day in Jerusalem. We took him under our wing for the day.

Greg got back and we all went down to the City of David and walked Hezekiah’s tunnel. Then we hit Shorashim and talked with Moshe for awhile. Andrew went to the bathroom and we told Moshe to keep an eye on him. Turns out he’s basically a disillusioned Mormon. Chase ended up having a good, long conversation with him last night.

Gabriel had mentioned in passing around lunchtime that two people from Oklahoma had checked in, but I didn’t think anything of it. But before Hezekiah’s tunnel, I happened to glance at the guest list and saw two names: Zachary Winters and Lane Koenig. I couldn’t believe it.

So when we got back to the Petra, Gabriel told me they were in the lounge upstairs. So we went up and there they were. It was a crazy reunion, because it’s been a semester since I’ve seen Zac and a year since I’ve seen Lane. We talked awhile about their recent engagement, then went to the Arab market to get food. We ended up eating cold falafels for six shekels.

Then we walked to the Supersol up in the New City and bought alcohol and food for the next part of the hike. It was good talking. Back at the hostel we talked some more, and then Zac slept on the roof with all of us.

This morning we didn’t head out till about 8:30 AM, when the Tourist Information Center was open and available to tell us how to get back to the trail via the bus. Before leaving, Zac and Lane prayed for us, and for me, it was much needed.

I think the spiritual atmosphere at the Petra, and in Jerusalem in general, was just getting to be too much. I haven’t been in the Word enough; hopefully tonight I can read. But now that we’re out of town, I already feel better, and closer to the Lord. I love Jerusalem, but it’s great to be back out here.

The hike was neat today. It took us through the hills that surround Jerusalem to the west, and that were all planted with pines by the JNF (KKL). This forest is older, dating from the late 1950s, I think, so it actually reminded me and Chase of the U.P., with all the rocks and underbrush. It’s beautiful.

These woods have plaques every so often in memory of the people who were killed in the Holocaust. We visited a cave that houses a B’nai Brith shrine to the dead. It’s amazing to me that the Jews are adept at making war, but in the aftermath, their inclination is to plant gardens in the ashes. It’s almost as if something in the heart of the Israeli people is bent toward restoration, toward turning deserts into gardens and bringing Eden back.

Up on the ridge that overlooks Highway 1, up where there was bitter fighting during the 1948 war, each hill came at a steep price. And even now, on the hilltops, there are plaques and markers and displays telling about what happened. But in each place, it’s obvious that people have worked hard to make the land beautiful and to be good stewards of what they paid so much for. I hope and pray that the Israelis will never come to take the land for granted. It’s the biggest testament to their actual Biblical claim, I think, that they try to take care of what belongs to them.

Down at the crossing of Highway 1, we went to a gas station and got juice and refilled water. Then we hiked another kilometer or two and found this old abandoned road up above an olive grove. Chase cooked couscous and we ate heartily, and then he built a fire and I called Mom and Dad. That was good, just to hear their voices and let them know we we’re OK.

6/12/2006 -- Petra Hostel

6/12/2006 Petra Hostel – Jerusalem 9:45 PM

[See previous “O Jerusalem” post on weblog]

We just talked with Gabriel, who runs the Petra. I talked to him about the lady I saw on Ben Yehuda Street tonight, wearing the white robe that said Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh ["I Am Who I Am"] in Hebrew. She was waving the golden scepter at someone, and everyone was telling her she was crazy.

Gabriel knew exactly who I was talking about and mentioned it to the crazy lady who wears a tallit on her head and is on the Internet all the time. She carries a bookbag, a plastic sack, and a stuffed lion, and spent eleven hours online yesterday. She is somewhat paranoid and kept freezing up the computer. Right now, as a matter of fact, she’s saying that “they” warned her about the phrase “paper moon.” Gabriel says that she claims to be the “real Jerusalem.”

She just told me her “full name” and I wish I could have written it down. Gabriel’s giving her a hard time with questions about the lady in white, and asking “Who’s the true Jerusalem?”

She’s claiming legitimacy based on the fact that she was healed of her cough today at the Wall. She said she had a bad cough because she was poisoned. Now she’s saying some woman tried to steal her identity with a “paper moon,” which involves having a baby.

Gabriel points out that this woman here, “the real Jerusalem,” has a special cup – a silver cup – and the lady in white has a scepter. This lady comes back by saying that she actually has a scepter, too. No, she has two scepters.

In 1999, Gabriel says, they had the prophet Elijah staying at the Petra, as well as a Messiah and a Christ. He said the “Christ” was the most interesting because he would make these big proclamations and warnings. He said God would judge Jerusalem and the Petra Hostel because they didn’t accept him. But he ended up going back to California.

Right now, the “real Jerusalem” is talking to me about good people and bad people, and now Satan keeps trying to destroy her. She keeps going back to how people have done horrible things to her. I wonder if something happened to her that messed her up or scared her. At first I wanted to laugh at her, but now I just feel sorry for her. I don’t understand what drives people like this to Jerusalem. Over and over – she’s obsessed with identity, and people “trying to be her.” I think she thinks she’s some kind of Messiah, but she’s unclear about what that means.

I just want to be a countenance of Jesus to her. I want to offer comfort, but there’s little I can say. She just asked me a question, though: “You keep a journal?” I asnwered and talked to her for a second, but she’s back on the loop. People going to hell for eternity, God destroying all the evil, etc.

Apparently the Petra is a catch-all for lots of the weird characters who pass through Jerusalem. Gabriel is hilariously skeptical of everything this woman says, of course, and she gets really mad. Part of me would love to see all the other characters that have come through this place. Then again, Gabriel himself has started his own religion called “The Followers of Yahweh.” He’s got his own way of following the Torah. So it’s all over the place. Maybe in the water.

6/12/2006 -- Dessert and coffee

6/12/2006 Café Rimon – Jerusalem 7:25 PM

I’m sitting in the place where Mandy and I came on the night I proposed to her. I’m by myself and I feel appropriately lonely. But I’m getting a “Dessert Indulgence” and a double espresso here because I just applied for a credit card that has the Western Wall on it.

Chase and Greg and I spent the day touring the Old City. I awoke at 8:00 AM to the sound of yelling teenage girls – these Arab kids were doing some kind of school thing, I guess, in the building to the north of the Petra. Chase and I got out of bed, still in our dirty clothes, and went down to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to see about Greg going to Mass. It turned out that a group was going from 9:00 to 10:00 AM, so me and Chase took off to get breakfast.

Amanda asked me to say a prayer for her and the baby at the Wall, so that’s where I’m going tonight after I leave this place.

Greg got out of mass and then we arranged to meet Brent and Tonya at Rami’s Pizza around lunch. So we went up to the Temple Institute and looked at things, then went to some shops in the Jewish Quarter. We ate with Brent and Tonya, and they took us back to the Petra to drop off the clothes they brought me and Chase from Tel Aviv. Then we drove to St. Peter in Gallicantu and Brent explained it all to Greg. After that, Mount of Olives, where we parted ways, and me and Chase took Greg to the Garden of Gethsemane, Dominus Flevit, and finally to the Garden Tomb. It was good.

But I think we’re all getting ready for some alone time. We showered at the Petra for the first time since Arad – four or five days – and talked about the plan from here. I think me and Chase will head out tomorrow while Greg stays an extra day in Jerusalem to see Yad Vashem, and get some souvenirs to mail home. Then he’ll hike a day on his own – probably along the beach in Tel Aviv – and finally regain Chase and me wherever we are at that point.

The two of us will probably continue on from Jerusalem and then skip most of the beach portion. We’re both intent on doing all of the northern part of the trail, and I was lobbying to hike the beach rather than the Jerusalem to Tel Aviv stretch. But for the book, I think the latter will be more useful and interesting than the former. So we’ll probably head out by bus or something in the morning, when our laundry is clean and we’re fully restocked for the walk.

My feet are feeling much better and I think I’ve gained some weight back. Being in Jerusalem has been good for me. Last night at the Petra was the best sleep I’ve had since the trip began, and I’m looking forward to another good night tonight. So we should be fully recharged for the departure tomorrow.

Father, keep Greg safe. Help him to leave the heavy things behind. And at the same time, Lord, strip me down as well, and let me continue learning what You want me to learn.

Break my heart for this city and this people! And please answer the prayers I pray at the Wall. Prepare me for the work You want me to do here. Lord You know that to me, Israel feels like the desert we drove through at the beginning of this trip. It just seems too big, too dry, too rocky, and too difficult. And I cannot make a way through it; You must show me the ancient roads and teach me how to walk them. But I want to, Father; I want to leave behind the lusts and frustrations and faithlessness I feel even now, and I want You to shape me into Your tool. I know that there can be pleasure and joy even in the middle of the testing. A slice of orange in a cool bottle of water in the desert – if I have that from You, I know it will be enough.

6/10/2006 -- Honest Ib and the Sheeps

6/10/2006 South of Kiryat Gat ~9:50 PM

I’m about 30 feet from a herd of goats.

We stopped at Kibbutz Dvir this morning and got water just inside the gate. That was all the courtesy they offered. Then we walked to a gas station at the Dvir junction on Highway 40 and I ate bourekas with chocolate milk. I think I was craving fat. We ate there and bought some food to resupply, but since it was a gas station, our resupply consisted of Oreos, Pringles, sunflower seeds, snack mixes, and some instant soup.

The hike itself was boring. Mostly we followed a wadi through some fields. Then we got up on higher ground and went through more fields. On our lunch break we slept under some trees. The highlight of the day almost came at about 5:30 PM when we hit a whole field full of watermelons and Chase took one of the biggest ones, but it turned out not to be ripe. We still ate most of it anyway.

Finally we were getting close to Kiryat Gat and its satellite kibbutzim when a kid stopped us – he was a shepherd – and offered us water. He ended up refusing to let us go to the kibbutz for food and water. He speaks English and obviously was eager to get some practice. We “helped” him bring the sheep back to the tent, and we got the usual Bedouin treatment: tea, food, more tea. This experience, though, has been our most authentic to date. These are real shepherds, living in a real tent.

Ibrahim is 20 years old. He’s one of 24 children and was born to the first of his father’s three wives. He wants to go to America. His brother is in the IDF as a tracker. Ibrahim doesn’t like Bush too much, and he says Israel is all about war. He’s highly respectful of the old Bedouin ways, but refuses to marry his cousin, to whom he was betrothed…[continued 6/11/2006 – 10:00 AM – Lod train station]…when he was born. He’s also traveled to Japan to do some kind of kickboxing/martial arts thing.

I found Ibrahim interesting because he represents the shift between ancient and modern Bedouin culture. For example, when he said his dad wanted him to marry his cousin, he told his father, “No way. No f---ing way.” He says he wants to meet a girl, get to know her, and fall in love. And since his dad has three wives and 24 kids, I suppose Ibrahim is a little turned off by the whole traditional arranged marriage thing.

But he still appreciates the old ways; he said it was an honor for him to invite us as guests. Many Bedouin, he says, have left the old ways; they live in houses, and some smuggle drugs across the Egyptian border to sell in Israel. Many of these Bedouin, he said, would not talk to a stranger who passed by their door. This, he says, is shameful.

We learned a lot about the Bedouin from Ibrahim. He said that every Bedouin should have a tent, a wife, some sheep, and a gun. He said that if we’d approached the tent without him, “maybe the dogs will eat you.” And then, he said, his mother would shoot us.

His brother was sent out at age 10 to shepherd flocks in the Negev by himself, and was so scared, he’d shoot at anything he heard making noise in the darkness. The sheep feed from sunrise to sunset, and they walk all day.

Ibrahim’s mother made a hot cauliflower-based dish, and also some kind of cold soup of goats’ milk and cut-up tomatoes. We dipped fresh Bedouin lafa into them and ate whiel drinking cold water and sweet tea. The mother and the sister (named Yazmin), sat with us while we talked. The mom kept wanting Ibrahim to ask us questions about our walk through the desert. She thought it very strange that we could come from America to do this.

After dinner, all of the sheep gathered into one spot, out in front of the tents and below the brow of a hill, and laid down in one great mass, with a few milling around the crowd. Ibrahim’s father came in a brand-new Isuzu Trooper and we talked with him only for a little while. Then Ibrahim asked us if we wanted to spend the night. We were happy at not having to walk in the dark. They made beds for us out past the sheep herd, near the big bulldozer. We were about 30 feet from the sheep and goats.

I slept well but got a little cold because the blanket they gave me clearly wasn’t designed for a 6-foot frame. So my neck hurts now because I was curled into a ball.

One time I woke up, near sunrise, and a goat was hovering right over Greg, who was fast asleep. I had to take off my hat and move the animals away before Greg got harassed. It was very strange.

Before sleeping, I called Wayne McEntarfer to tell him where we were, and to thank him for helping us out with this trip. I think he got a kick out of the whole Bedouin thing. It was good to make our old Scoutmaster proud.

Ibrahim left early this morning, just as we were waking up. Last night, though, we exchanged numbers; he wants to meet us before we leave for the States. He may be another Mohammed; we may have to return his favor one day.

We had some more tea this morning from his mother, then left at 6:00 AM. We stopped near the kibbutz just south of Kiryat Gat and assessed our situation. 55 miles in the last three days; and more of the same land and terrain all the way to Jerusalem. We decided to take the train from Kiryat Gat to Jerusalem and speed up our journey a little. So we walked to Kiryat Gat, took the train to Lod, and now we’re waiting for the train to Jerusalem. Hopefully soon we’ll be set up at the Petra, showered up, and touring the Old City. Greg’s excited about it and I can tell Chase is glad to be in the holy city again.

6/9/2006 -- Erev Shabbat

6/9/2006 Devira Forest 8:15 PM

It’s hard to tell for sure, but it looks like we hiked 20 miles today. Since I lost part of yesterday’s map at Tel Arad, it’s hard to tell our exact distance. But it looks to be at least 30 kilometers.

We passed Kibbutz Lahav in the afternoon. It had an electric fence. Outside was a Bedouin shepherd, keeping the sheep moving by throwing rocks at them. We passed a happy kid on a braying donkey. That’s about it.

Chase and Greg ate the can of “Dagir,” which Ayman generously gave to us yesterday. Chase loved that it contained “chunk mackerels.” Made in Gaza!

Now we’re camping in a KKL forest, which I don’t think you’re supposed to do. We’re also fairly close to town, and probably close to some Bedouin camps, so I honestly don’t feel entirely safe. But there’s not much else to do; besides, our feet are killing us and we weren’t about to go walking into Devirah.

Father, please protect us and give us wisdom in this unfamiliar territory. Keep us safe and watch over us. We want to honor You on this Sabbath.

6/9/2006 -- Sansana

6/9/2006 Outside Sansana 2:36 PM

This morning we got out at 7:30 AM – later than I wanted, because I had a couple of messages from Mandy and I had to call her. We were tired when we hit the trail because the guard at Beit Yatir was loud with his friends until really late. Only Greg slept well.

We walked a long way yesterday and we’re feeling it today. But we’re doing well; our plan was to get to a place called Sansana, which appeared to be a village that straddled the Green Line. It was about a 15-kilometer walk, we thought, from where we started. We believed it would be an Arab village, based on its location, and didn’t know if it would be safe.

But by lunchtime we still had about four kilometers to go, and all of us were running low on water. Plus we had almost nothing to eat for lunch; we were (and still are) sick of dried apricots, nuts, and raisins. And we never get excited about all the energy bars, which we still have. Sansana was really the only option for a midday stop.

As we got close, walking along the open, sunny road, we came very near to the Green Line, which is now fenced on both sides of a highway, complete with concertina wire and signs warning of mortal danger. We eventually saw Sansana up on a hill an dit looked no different from the Bedouin temporary box-houses we saw outside Dirajaat yesterday. A small road, blocked by a kids’ basketball court, led inside.

Quickly it became obvious that this was not an Arab village, but a religious Jewish settlement. The houses were like trailer-houses, set up on concrete piers. Kids were playing everywhere. Through a fence we saw a woman, and she greeted us kindly. We told her what we were doing, and she told us to come around to the front of the house to get some water.

We didn’t talk much with her; she got busy making ice coffee and preparing fruits and sandwiches for us, while talking on the phone with her friend. Her husband, Eran, came and talked with me in Hebrew. Eventually we all sat out front, after filling our water bottles in the kitchen, and we had a good conversation with Eran.

Obviously the family is Orthodox. Eran wore a kippah, a T-shirt tallit katan, and shorts. His wife is a documentary filmmaker who just made a movie about last year’s disengagement from Gaza. Eran just finished getting his architecture degree and he works in Tel Aviv. Sansana, he said, is a settlement that is going to become more permanent, but after Sharon, the settlers in Israel are not as strong as they used to be. Also, he says there’s going to be a new law giving private ownership of land in Israel. But he seems confident that soon Sansana will be a real city. “It’s hard to raise your children in 40 square meters,” he said.

Surprisingly, it didn’t seem like a big deal to him that we’re not Jewish. The family was actually very warm toward us. I admit that I expected different treatment. I probably listened too much to Abu Abdullah, and to Ayman yesterday, when they said how terrible Jewish hospitality is, compared with the Bedouin.

To my taste, I liked this hospitality better, because it’s very generous, but also more American in the sense that the hosts don’t want to step on your toes any more than you want to step on theirs. They want to make your stay convenient, and leave it at that. So Eran’s wife gave us iced coffee, ice water (awesome), pitas with hummus inside, grape tomatoes, date cookies, brownies, and fruit, all on a plastic table outside in the shade, on a Bedouin-style mat. When we were almost done and Eran had shown us one of the INT topo maps, he announced that he had some things to do, but we were welcome to stay as long as we wanted. “Say goodbye before you go,” he said.

That was fine with us because we much preferred spending the afternoon resting in silence to sitting in someone’s foyer pretending to have an interesting conversation. So now we’re relaxing shirtless and shoeless in the pine forest.

6/8/2006 -- Trees

6/8/2006 Ya’ar Yatir 9:54 PM

Today is the beginning of a new hope for me. This morning I had two fears: first, that we wouldn’t be able to hike 20 miles a day; and second, that few interesting things would happen now that we’re out of the Negev. Both fears were unfounded.

We left Arad at 6:55 AM and the hiking was fast, along 4x4 roads across scarcely cultivated fields. The Bedouin basically scratch lines in the ground and plant some kind of wheat. Apparently, it’s enough for subsistence. Anyway, we took a break at Tel Arad and ate a lot more than we’ve been eating. Amazing how big our appetites are, now that it’s not as hot and the breeze carries moisture.

Our reserves of energy seemed boundless, even as the trail got confusing. By 11:30 AM we’d made it to the the Arab village of Dirajaat, in the hills below a rock quarry. We lost the blazes as we came into town and wandered in, bewildered. A lady noticed us, talked to us in Arabic, told us we could sit and have tea, and then searched for someone named Ayman.

Ayman turned out to be in his house, and he was a 29-year-old guy who appears to have done well for himself. He has a taxi/bus company called Peace and Love Tours. His lifestyle and bearing suggest that he’s got some other things going on the side, but I don’t know. Drugs, maybe? He was very kind and spoke English. He offered us seats at a table and left the hospitality to his mother – the lady we’d seen. She kept going next door and getting tea, snacks, lunch, coffee, etc.

We stayed till maybe 2:30 PM, lounging in the foyer of the house on cushions and talking. Some topics:

1. Bush is not a good guy
2. Bush has killed 1,000,000 people
3. Saddam was good for Iraq
4. Hamas is good for the Palestinians
5. Americans are too much in love with Israel
6. America will fall and bin Laden will win
7. Clinton was a good guy; he liked the sex.

Lots of stuff like that. Like everyone else we’ve met, Ayman was excellent at knowing where things were (he’s done a lot of driving in Israel) but was unable to comprehend a map. Let’s review:

A. At Shizzafon Junction, the two army captains who gave us food also gave us an Israel mini-atlas. They could not, for the life of them, figure out where we were, even though I kept telling them which page. Finally, they listened to me, and there it was.

B. At Timnah, Abu Hassan saw me looking at the Shvil Israel guidebook and showed me a map of his own. “This map,” he said, “is of the whole Negev.” But it was clearly a map of Eilat. I told him this, and he said no, it was the whole Negev. He pointed at the Tsadi above the compass rose, which stands for “North.” “Do you know what this is for?” he asked. I answered and he said, “No, it’s for ‘Tseva.’ This is an army map.” No, it wasn’t, Abu Hassan.

C. Today: Ayman looks at the Shvil Israel, but on the big map, has no idea where Jerusalem and Tel Aviv should be. I have to help him.

So when he gave us directions after lunch to go up past the rock quarry, up a mountain, take a left, and then go straight to hit an old road that would take you “to the place you want to go,” I was skeptical. We tried it, and couldn’t find a good way to get past the noisy, dusty, and quite hazardous-looking rock quarry, so we looked at the map and bushwhacked for awhile in the hills till we found Ayman’s road, which indeed appeared to take us where we wanted to go. So from now on, I’ll take directions from a Bedouin, but won’t take much stock in their map skills.

Actually, the conversation with Ayman was enlightening because he made some good points; even though his sources of information were suspect. I think he’s probably typical of what a lot of Palestinians believe about the situation. Very cynical about the various powers and their interest in the region.

Along the road we skirted the woods, paralleling the INT in a northeasterly direction, then finally met the trail and headed into the woods. It felt great to be in the shade of the pines. What a different world from the Negev! The roads were pretty even, but went up and down most of the time. Still, we flew along, talking about end-times theology and why me and Chase believe the Law is still relevant to believers in Jesus. All the while, the most water we carried was 3 ½ liters, and we didn’t have to worry at all. The air was cool, relatively, even in the heat of the day Tomorrow we’ll try to score another free lunch, if we can, in one of the villages we’ll pass through, but if not, we can walk all day with only a short lunch break.

Most of the woods here have been planted by the Keren Kayemeth L’Yisrael, and their work is amazing. Clearly the land has been transformed. All over the place, it’s obvious that they’ve managed the land conscientiously. At every cleared-out spot in the woods there are various forestry and replanting projects taking place. One side of the road will have conifers; the other side will be deciduous. And it’s a good-sized forest; no small achievement here.

At sunset we saw a building that looked like the forest headquarters. We came up to the front and an Arab kid told me in Hebrew to go upstairs and to the left. So we did, and we found the “Shvil Israel Room,” a dorm for thru-hikers with four beds, a sink, and a shower. The log book said a group of four girls heading south came through here last night. We must have missed them today while we were at Ayman’s. Probably just as well.

So we cooked dinner with our last bit of alcohol and ate Szechuan noodles. Now the Arabs downstairs are yelling at each other and I’m about to shut off the light. Truly the Lord has blessed us to bring us to a place like this. Thank You, Father, for today, and for this new hope.

6/7/2006 -- Arad

6/7/2006 Arad 7:48 PM

I was going to write before breaking camp in Mitzpah Ramon but then I checked the phone messages and called Mandy. By the time I was off, Greg and Chase were tearing things down, so I decided to help.

Last night, when we got to the top of the crater, we were greeted by two fans named Diana and Arthur, and later by their friend Ya’akov. They talked with us and said they’d watched us walk to the top, and then gave us some mint-flavored soda, which Chase liked until he realized it was mint, and some sticky biscuit wafer things, which Greg ate. They also helped us find a restaurant, which ended up being the same place where we ate when making our water cache. This time the guy made us his specialty sandwiches. They were OK.

The youth hostel in Mitzpah Ramon cost too much money, so we decided to camp out in the desert after eating. By then it was dak and we didn’t know where any trails were, so we followed Highway 40 all the way out of town till the lights ended. We found a flat spot above the road, where I felt a little paranoid because of our proximity to town, and to some kind of public works facility. But we bedded down, and then helicopters flew over us several times during the night. Never in the desert, it seemed, could we escape the military presence.

Chase and I didn’t sleep well. But we all got on the bus to Beersheva at about 7:00 AM and fell asleep for at least a little while. We always feel strange on buses because we smell and look so bad. We feel bad for the other passengers. At Beersheva we arrived at a loud, dusty, and busy central bus station, filled with all sorts of army kids, and caught a crappy bus to Arad.

After getting dropped off, it took about 20 minutes to find the youth hostel, and we were checked in by 10:00 AM. So me and Greg took a taxi to Masada while Chase stayed here to fix his pants.

Chase’s pants have been an adventure of themselves ever since the trip began. He made them himself in Norman, as I wanted to, but I didn’t have time. The pants first ripped sometime on Day 2, when we were trying to get out of Wadi Gishron. They ripped right under the left buttcheek, so he patched them with a piece of striped material from his headcovering/poncho thing. The material’s good because it’s stretchy, but it sort of looks like boxer shorts. So it still appears that there’s a big hole in the pants, but there isn’t. The pants ripped again a couple of days ago, so that’s why he was working on them today.

Maybe that’s why hitchhiking was so hard yesterday. Here’s what happened: we got picked up at the Menucha junction by a truck driver who just thought he was getting Chase. That’s when I emerged from the side of the shelter he couldn’t see, and Greg came out from under the bench. The guy couldn’t speak English with Chase, so I hopped up onto the step.

“Yesh makom le-shalosh?” I asked.

“Shalosh?!” His eyes got wide. It was a bench seat.

But we all got in and he dropped us at the junction with Highway 40. Then we went ahead and got a bus after sitting for a long time with the heat and the flies. I told the driver to take us to a spot on this side of the crater, and he seemed to understand. So I said it again and then I was sure. The bus was completely full so we all had to stand in the aisle at the front.

Greg was the only one who could actually see out the front window, because he was standing on the stairs. Meanwhile the driver was all over the road, taking the approach to the Makhtesh at 110 kilometers per hour, despite all the hills and curves. It was sickening. But in the midst of it all, we missed the water cache spot, and by the time the driver asked me, I looked and we were already in the crater. So we just had him stop and we got on a trail that intersected the INT before it ascended the north wall. That’s where we were when I wrote that stuff yesterday.

So today, Greg and I did Masada, which was the best that place has been for me. Normally, I’m with lots of people who are tired and uninterested. But Greg really wanted to see and understand it, so we took our time and enjoyed it. We walked up the Roman ramp and came down the Snake Path – both firsts for me.

Then we took a cab to En Boqeq on the Dead Sea, where we floated for maybe 10 minutes before leaving. The cab driver on the way there ripped us off, saying 15 shekels but meaning 50. Anyway, we took a sherut back to Arad; we talked with a kind girl from Haifa and a German dude who teaches at University of Michigan. Then, back in Arad, we ate at Tokio Pizzeria while Chase finished his pants.

Now it’s about 8:30 PM and Greg is snoring; Chase is outside reading the Bible, and I’m planning the route for what I hope will be our first 20-mile day. Hopefully the first of many. I think it may be possible, but we’ll see.

Lord, how I need You, especially now that the desert part is over! I must not forget Your help and provision in my life. Help me to keep my mind focused on You, and please continue to shelter Mandy as she lives life back in Oklahoma.

6/6/2006 -- Exodus

6/6/2006 Makhtesh Ramon 5:36 PM

Stay for awhile; do not leave. Bury your head in the softness of my sands and remember what it was like to be here. This is where you have been; this is where you came from; this is who you are. Here Abraham looked into the sky and saw the star that had been lit for you; here he walked as a stranger, as you now have as well. Remember that your fathers were strangers on this earth, and that all your journey in this life is like unto a desert.

You are not designed for this place, but unseen hands have kept you alive. You have been protected in cool shelters and sustained in times of thirst. And soon you will leave and move on to more permanent things, but you will always remember this journey. The mark it has left on you will remain long after you have left.

And after you are far away, the marks you have left on this place will disappear in the blowing wind and dust, and it will still shine with bright paths in the moonlight, and its peaks will ever thrust their dark silhouettes against the starry sky. And you will know that I will always remain, like a mother and a sister, calling you back until the day you return to seek once again the ancient and forgotten paths…

For the past hour all three of us have waited here, at the edge of the crater in the shelter of a black rock cliff, bedded down in the white sand with nothing between us and the desert floor. I lay curled up like a baby about to be born, clinging as though afraid to leave behind things I don’t even understand.

Oh, my Father, thank you for bringing me into the desert! I have been so afraid and I have been so brave. Here, I believe You have taught me what it means to live, and how the threads I hang by must be of Your making. Do not let me forget what this place is like!

And in the midst of it all, like some kind of foreshadowing, the fighter jets scream by and explosions sound in the hills. I wonder what the circumstances will be the next time I walk here.

LESSONS I DON”T WANT TO FORGET:

The goodness of a cup of cold water

How quickly a person gets comfortable again

The sharp edge between normal life and survival

Long-term benefits of self-denial

Hot drinks help acclimate you

Cold drinks shock the system

Sweating makes you so cool

Embracing the sweat and dust and dirt

The long silences

All the life that exists and is otherwise unnoticed

Realizing that you don’t do the desert on your terms; your life must conform to the shape of the desert

No other place in the world lets you see life so clearly, because this place has less comfort and less distraction. You appreciate everything.

There are two types of deserts: those created by God and those created by men. The paths that followed His tracing were bearable, if difficult. The ones made by men had paths with no shade, dusty air bases, and people unwilling to help.

6/6/2006 -- Waiting

6/6/2006 Tsomet Menucha (Highway 90 & Highway 13) 11:11 AM

We tried hitchhiking – well, first, we changed our plans. Instead of trying to regain the INT north of Faran, we decided to go ahead and make our way to Makhtesh Ramon, then hike the crater to Mitzpah Ramon, and call it quits for the desert. So we tried hitchhiking to the junction of 90 and 13, but after well over one hour, all we’d gotten were shaking heads and amused looks. Two Egged buses passed us, and then we took the third.

Now we’re waiting at the Menucha junction, with flies buzzing all around and the sun beating and the wind blowing. I think one truck has passed in the last ten minutes. Oops, two. But this last one didn’t have room for three people.

It’s close enough to lunchtime that I think our best bet is to spend the whole afternoon getting to Makhtesh Ramon (because that’s probably how long it’ll take) and then spend the early evening hiking into the crater. In the morning we’ll finish the crater and take a bus to Arad, Lord willing.

6/6/2006 -- Oasis

6/6/2006 Faran – Negev 7:19 AM

We’re sitting here waiting for the store to open so we can get some food. Last night was interesting; I kept being awakened by dogs running through the grassy park where we were sleeping, right in the middle of this strange little town. There were also people walking in and out of a nearby building, which I later discovered to be an “internet room” with rules posted on the door both in English and in some Far East language – maybe Thai, Nepali, or Tagalog.

I wrote earlier that most of the people here seem to be Asian immigrants. Right now, though, the only people around seem to be Israelis; I’m guessing it’s because all the immigrants are out working on the farms. It seems that Israel’s policy of unilaterally pulling away from the Arabs has extended in a de facto way even to the farming/agriculture sector. If the Arabs won’t work here or can’t get here, there are plenty of others who will or who can. It’s interesting and I’d like to know more about how this transition has taken place. A place like Faran is a good example to use in the book.

Today our plan is to regain the INT, probably by hitchhiking a little way up Highway 90 and cutting west along the blue trail. Hopefully it won’t take too long, and hopefully I won’t leave anything valuable in the vehicle. Then, tomorrow, we’ll leave from Sapir (if we’ve made it that far) and go toward the highway (90) again, and hitchhike south to Highway 13, then west to Highway 40, then north to Makhtesh Ramon where we put our water cache when we were just starting out. It seems so long ago now. Then we’ll hike for a day through the crater up to Mitzpah Ramon, and that’ll be it for the desert.

It’s awfully hard right now to not feel discouraged. Looking at the map, we’ve gone a long way through some really hard terrain, but overall, we’ve done very little. By how we ought to have hiked more than one-fourth of the trail, but we’ve probably done about half of that. My hopes at the beginning – back in the States – were so high; now I have to fight just to keep going. And I know Greg wants to take a day off in Arad to see the Dead Sea and Masada, but I’ll be there again in less than a month. I need to hike. Fast.

6/5/2006 -- Loss and gain

6/5/2006 Faran – Negev ~9:20 PM

Tonight, as I write in the middle of a lush, green oasis, it’s hard for me to believe today was as difficult as it was. But it was.

We got up a little late – probably around 6:30 or 7:00 AM – and got our things around and walked back down the hill to Shizzafon Junction to have another meal at Neot Samedar. We did, and I talked to Mandy a little more while the phone recharged. She’s excited and I’m excited, too.

It’s a strange feeling right now, though, not just because she’s so far away, but because I’ve now officially entered into a new season in my life. I have to prepare to be a father. But I’m still out here in the desert while my mind and body want to move on. I’m praying that I can learn what the Lord wants me to learn, so I can get it under my belt and go to the north.

After eating, we hitchhiked for awhile and caught a ride with a kind old trucker who’s done some hiking of his own in Israel. While he and I were talking, I must have quit paying attention to the camera, because about 5 minutes after he dropped us off, I realized that I’d left it in his truck. I was angry about it for awhile. We waited in case he decided to come back, but he didn’t.

So we walked from the place where he dropped us off, and it was a hot, sunny trek. All gravel 4x4 roads in the middle of a wide wadi, with no shade, lots of dust, and flies everywhere. It was unbelievable.

Our midday rest was from about 11:45 AM to 4:00 PM, and we spent it under a breezy rock overhang. But there was no escape from the flies. I slept on a rock shelf with a bandanna on my face, and they just descended on us in thick black clouds. One 4x4 drove by but didn’t stop. The driver just yelled, “Shvil Israel,” and passed along the way.

We left at 4:00 because of the flies and hiked in the midday heat. We didn’t think we could get all the way to Sfir on our water supply, so we opted to go to Faran instead, which we could see miles away on the horizon. Eventually another car came – an SPNI guy and his wife (I think), and they said Faran had a store that was open till 9:00 or 9:30 PM. So we decided to make for it.

Well, it took the whole time, and we had to sort of bushwhack in the dark toward the city lights. We got here just before the store closed, and bought all the things we’d been fantasizing about: juices and fruits.

Faran is not really a town, but a farm, apparently worked largely by Asians. We’ve hardly seen any Israelis or Westerners here so far. But one lady at the store who spoke English said that it would be fine if we slept out here on the grass in the parklike area in front of the store. So here we are, getting weird looks from people.

Even though it’s nice, I long to be at home with Mandy. Chase said it well today: “For all that we’re able to do, all we really want is to be comfortable.” So our desert hike is really a series of hops from oasis to oasis. My wife is my oasis, and I look forward to seeing her again soon.

6/4/2006 -- Death and birth

6/4/2006 Shizzafon Junction – Negev 8:44 PM

Today was sort of a strange day – different from any we’ve had so far. We got up a little later than we wanted to, but still got to Shacharut around 7:30 AM, before anyone was awake. We threw our stuff against the wall of the Khan and cleaned up a little in the bathroom. Finally a jeep drove up and a guy got out, and a girl came out from the apartments area. I talked to them in Hebrew – asked them about breakfast, etc. We had a whole conversation before I asked if they spoke English; I was encouraged because apparently, up to that point, my accent didn’t give me away.

We ate a crazy amount of desert food. Pita, labane, salad, cheeses, etc., and we drank tons of freezing-cold water and lemonade. Afterward, Chase and I even ate ice cream. Really, it was way too much food, but last night as I was lying there in the dark, I realized that I’d eaten probably less than 1000 calories that entire day. So I felt the need to make up for lost time.

We didn’t get out of Shacharut till after 10:00 AM, and when we did, our bodies were protesting the rough terrain and the desert heat. We only went a couple of miles before we felt like we should stop, but we made it to about 12:00 noon before we did.

Unfortunately, this stretch of trail went through a very rocky, flat area, with no rock overhangs or anything of the sort. At noon it got worse because we were at the edge of an air force base in the middle of a wide plain, blowing all over with sand and white dust.

The wind was so strong we couldn’t do a free-standing shelter. We took cover inside the structure of an electric cable tower and fastened the tarp corners to its crisscrossed side beams. It made for a small, uncomfortable shade, much like the first day, but more bearable because the girl at Shacharut had let us fill our bottles from the cold water cooler. We kept our packs in the shade and every time we drank, we blew the water out of our tubes and back into the bags, so all the bottles and tubes stayed cold.

Dust blew through at times so thickly that we could barely see the watchtowers of the air force base. It was a hellish environment. The heat and white dust were punctuated only with the occasional passing vehicle, and the scream of afterburners as fighter jets tore through the sky. We took no pictures, though; there were signs warning us not to.

At 3:00 we found out that we’d indeed been watched. A dark green pickup truck pulled up with two military guys inside. The driver rolled down the window and I asked if everything was all right.

“Yes,” he said. “And with all of you?”

“In order,” I said.

“How long are you gong to be here?”

“Till about 4:00. Is that all right?”

“It’s all right. What are you doing here?”

“We’re hikers on the Israel Trail. We’re going north from Eilat.”

“You came here from where?”

“From Eilat.”

“How many days has it taken you?”

“This is our sixth day. Do you speak English?”

“Yes.” We continued in English. “So it’s taken you how many days?”

“Six.”

“And you’re walking from Eilat?”

“Yes. Is everything all right? Can we be here?”

“It’s fine.”

“Where are you coming from?” I asked.

“From the base.”

He drove off but then we decided we’d better head out at 4:00, like I’d told him. We didn’t want military-related trouble. Although I did hope that we’d find out later that all those jets had bombed Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.

From there our route followed right alongside a road. We decided that in situations like that, it would be just fine to hitchhike, so we tried, but only six or seven cars passed, and none of them stopped. It was terrible, because now all the dust and wind were blowing right into our faces. It took us two hours of road walking, and lots of rejections, before we got to Highway 12, which the trail continued to follow. It was only a couple of miles to Shizzafon Junction, but we waited for a bus and took it.

Because of our late breakfast at Shacharut, we hadn’t eaten lunch. Now it was 6:30 PM and we were starving. But at the junction there’s a nice kibbutz-run organic restaurant. We all drank a couple of bottles each of their organic nectars, then ordered a full-course meal. Once again – twice in one day – we stuffed ourselves. Chase didn’t feel too good afterward. I think the cold drinks and the rich lasagna were too much of a shock to our systems.

Now the trail goes north along Highway 40 and I think we’re going to hitchhike. That’ll carry us another 30 kilometers. Overall it’s good because our time here in the desert is limited.

After eating we found this sort of flat spot on a hill just on the other side of the road from the restaurant and right over the bus station, from whence we’ll hitchhike in the morning. But just as we were crossing the road, a car stopped and the driver yelled in Hebrew: “How are you feeling?”

He pulled over at the bus stop and he and his friend got out of the car. Both of them were ranking IDF officers, with three bands on their epaulets – possibly, they said, equivalent to a captain. They fell all over themselves to be nice and talk to us and encourage us. They gave us food and a map of the whole country. Amazing how all day, no one will pick you up, but then there are great guys like these.

From up here, Chase called Daniel, and we noticed I had a voicemail from Mandy telling me to call home. So I did, and she said she’s pregnant. She took two different tests – both positive. And then the phone died, so we still haven’t talked about it much. Lord, help me process what this means. I am ready for You to teach me to be a father!

6/3/2006 -- Moonlight

6/3/2006 Negev – Shacharut ~9:30 PM

We are sleeping tonight in some kind of high, moonlike valley above the Aravah. We were trying to get to Shacharut for some dinner and some cold drinks, but it got dark. We even tried to make it in the moonlight, but eventually it got too hard to follow the trail. It’s only half-moon, though; in another week it’ll be bright enough to hike by for sure.

Today was probably the longest and latest we walked, and it was mostly uphill. We got a late start because we didn’t get moving with the Bedouins till about 7:30 or 8:00 AM and they wanted to show us around Timnah. We rattled around in their big diesel work truck and stopped at a few places. We saw all the buildings they’ve been working on. In another week and a half they’ll be finished and they’ll go home to their village near Beersheva. They showed us the “Mushroom and a Half,” the “Mushroom,” and the ancient Egyptian copper mines and smelting works. We walked up to some natural arches with Abu Abdullah and the others sat in the truck, lethargic, listening to Arabic music. Then we drove back at breakneck speed, music blaring.

We exchanged phone numbers and drank some Turkish coffee, and then we left at 10:00 AM. I had the heaviest load I’ve carried thus far: 12 liters of water. We’d tanked up at Agam Timnah because we thought we would drink all night, then leave with a full load in the morning. Since the packs were being transported by pickup truck, we thought we might as well fill them all up. But we ended up drinking the Bedouins’ refrigerated water, so today we had extra. Abu Abdullah wouldn’t let me leave any of it there, either. He thought I was trying to give him a gift.

So we bid them farewell and then, not long after leaving the park, we saw a group of Israeli southbound hikers. One of them was named Noy and said he’s half-Christian, half-Jewish. Interesting. He wants us to stay at his place when we get to Tel Aviv. Definitely a noteworthy contact if he’s around then.

He told us it was an easy walk to Shacharut and that we could get there before dark. We were enormously encouraged by this and started pushing hard. But there was a huge ascent right away that took a long time. Then we ended up on a high plateau and had a hard time finding any shade. Finally, at 1:20 PM, I found a cave and decided to stop there for the afternoon.

It turned out to be a great shelter. That’s one of the big things we’ve learned in the desert – natural shade is the best, and when you pick it, you want some place where shadows will lengthen as the sun moves west. So east-facing canyon walls and cliffs are the best – especially if there’s an overhang. Well, this one was a cave – not too deep, but with a boulder sort of in front of it, blocking out even more sunlight. So the interior was sort of semicircular. The stone above and around us was all crumbly and dusty and unstable; you could break it with your hands and melt it with water. Despite the uncomfortable sharp and rocky floor, I got some sleep. Meanwhile, I had a Nalgene bottle soaking in a handkerchief.

That’s a small pleasure I’ve discovered, and I think it’s going to become a daily ritual. I like to eat an orange and put a couple slices in the Nalgene bottle. That makes the water taste fresh, even if it is bleachy-tasting Be’er Ora water, like I had in the bottle today. Then I tie a bandanna around the bottle and spit some water on it, just enough to get it wet. As it dries, of course, it sucks the heat out of the water. The water actually gets juch cooler than the surrounding air, which surprises me continually. It’s a delicious drink in the middle of the day and it motivates me to guzzle a good liter before leaving.

We only stayed at the cave till 4:45 PM and then we left. We knew we were still far from Shacharut but wanted to try. Obviously we didn’t make it.

I thought about a lot of things during the walk, though. I realize that I’m loving this life and this trip because it’s forcing me to live in the moment – to be concerned about what I’m doing today and now. I’m not thinking all the time about the next step. It’s one water source to another. When life boils down to that, everything seems immediate and consequential. Decisions matter and you immediately see the fruits. Life or death.

I guess this is a time of pruning for me. I feel like this hot furnace, the Aravah, which constantly breathes its fiery breath southward, is reforging me and boiling me down to the things that matter. I see what I need and what I don’t. I need food, water, shade, and yes, my wife. Only on this trip am I realizing how beautiful and important she is to me. A well of love and encouragement and close companionship.

I don’t need the things that weigh me down. Actually, what I fantasize about on a daily basis is cold liquid, ice, and slushees like the one in Eilat. That’s why I wanted so badly to get to Shacharut. Often our conversations while walking will turn to cold beverages. And our goal in the morning is to get to Shacharut to fill our Platypus bottles with freezing-cold water before trying to get to Shizzafon Junction.

Father, keep teaching us lessons and help us to keep relying on You, and not taking confidence merely in our own abilities. And walk with us; teach us things and help us to identify with Yeshua, and Him crucified. Amen.

6/3/2006 -- Negev Bedouin

6/3/2006 Entrance to Timnah Park 6:06 AM

Yesterday we had to get water, so we got up early and hiked to a source on the map, but it was dry. So we hiked off-trail to a place called Be’er Ora, which turned out to be an abandoned U.S. Marines logistical base from the Gulf War. We explored it and it was rather fascinating. Then we climbed a fence, thinking we were getting out, but we were actually climbing into the gated community of Be’er Ora. It was a modern ghosttown; the only people we saw were the ones we bummed water from. They showed us a tap in a fenced backyard, then left us alone to fill our bottles. We walked out the front gate, then had to make our way back to the INT along roads for awhile.

Our goal became to make it to Agam Timnah before lunch. To do that, we ended up hiking fast all the way to the entrance to a landfill, where we bought 3 bottles of ice-cold water from a couple of big, fat dudes – one of whom wore a Speedo halfway down his butt. The water cost us 10 American dollars, but it got us to Agam Timnah.

Agam Timneh turned out to be a total oasis. Not only did it have drinking water, but also a Bedouin tent with all kinds of food, refrigerated drinks, shade, cushions, etc. We ate and slept all afternoon. We thought about staying there for the night, but I wanted to hike on and make up some mileage. So we took showers and got ready to go. But just before we showered up, we talked to one of the guides, who found out we were about to do the steep northbound climb, and he said we would enjoy the hike a lot more if we did it without packs. He offered to take the packs to the other side of the park in his pickup truck, and we accepted. We filled every water bottle we could find and put them all in the packs.

It was a good thing we did it that way, because the hike took over two hours and we barely made it out of the mountains before nightfall. It was a very beautiful walk, like some kind of moonscape, especially in the light of the setting sun. When we got to the bottom, our packs were waiting for us in the entrance to the men’s bathroom at the park entrance, just as we’d arranged with the guide.

Just as we were looking for a place to go camp for the night, we noticed a man walking around the entrance area by himself. We didn’t know what he was doing or why he was there, but it unsettled us a little to think of camping out where mysterious people were roaming around. Chase lobbied to move on down the trail even though it was almost dark. I decided we should talk to the guy.

He turned out to be a somewhat nice guy – an Arab who said he worked at the park. He said he lived there and offered to show us, so we followed him. Sure enough, he was Bedouin, and lived in a tent behind some trees by the entrance.

We sat with him and his three friends, talking late into the night. The conversation lasted about four hours and was solely in Hebrew. The whole situation was rather funny. They gave us tea and coffee, then made dinner, even though they’d already eaten. It was a delicious meal.

We talked about all sorts of things – home, family, America, Bedouin trackers, the base at Be’er Ora, people who sell water for ten dollars, the stars, American culture, the Qur’an, and the Bible.

After dinner Abu Hassan, the man we’d first met, played a whistle for everyone. It was a Bedouin tune and I recorded it on my camera. Then we talked some more and had another glass of tea. Finally the Bedouins dragged beds outside behind the tent and we all slept outside. And that’s where I am now – sitting on the bed, writing.

There’s much more I could say about the whole day at Be’er Ora, Timnah, and this Bedouin tent, but it will have to be fleshed out later. For now, suffice to say that this whole walk along the Israel Trail, though not as fast as I hoped it would be, is much fuller and more beautiful than I expected. I think the desert is a place I could fall in love with – as much because of the people as because of the land.

6/2/2006 -- Fireworks

6/2/2006 Timnah--Negev 5:36 PM

We're about to leave Timnah, but first I'll catch up.

So we hiked till dusk across rocky plains for more than a mile, along the bases of massive sandstone formations all broken up with deep canyons. Then the trail went up and up; we kept thinking it was about to level off, and then it would turn and we'd see another peak. We went till we found a flat spot where we could camp, and it was a good thing we stopped because darkness fell really quickly. We ate dinner -- cooked it on the alcohol stove, which, incidentally, is working very well -- and then watched fireworks going up from Aqaba across the Aravah. We could still see Eilat and the Red Sea, which was disappointing since we were still so close, but it was beautiful. I tried to call Mandy but the line was busy. By 9:30 PM we were in bed and asleep.

Greg woke me up in the middle of the night when he yelled, "BUH! BUH!" I asked him what was wrong and he said he'd seen a cat and he was scaring it away. I told him it was probably a dream.

Finally -- this morning. But we're about to leave Agam Timnah. So I will continue the story, hopefully, later this evening at the park entrance. Father, help us get there safely.

6/2/2006 -- Redemption

6/2/2006 Agam Timneh -- Negev 2:57 PM

So much has happened since the last time I wrote but I'll try to continue anyway.

We ended up coming over the saddle of the Yehoshaphat Ascent with almost nothing in our packs and the trail met up with a road. We followed that until the trail split off again and went up a rocky sort of ridge -- not too high. By then we didn't expect to see anything on the other side, except more mountains. But Chase was at the front, and he yelled, "Highway!" when he got to the top. Sure enough, the first thing I saw was a car going by.

And in the gravel lot at the bottom that separated us from the road above, some guys with a jeep were setting up for what appeared to be a Birthright Israel group. We went straight to them and asked if they had any water. They actually were not very nice guys; they poured us some hot water that had been sitting in the sun for a long time. When Chase guzzled half his bottle and asked for something else -- something fruity or juicy -- the guy offered us apples, which we gratefully accepted, we found that they were rotten all the way through. Chase ate his anyway.

We went to the road and tried to hitchhike but no one picked us up. So we started walking -- each one of us with his Nalgene bottle of hot water -- and just a little way down the road, we found the entrance of an army base with a taxi out front. The cab driver didn't seem to like us (he was an angry-looking type) and said it would be 30 shekels to Eilat. We got in and headed to the city to regroup after our ordeal.

He dropped us off down by the mall, right at the seafront, and we went straight for this slushee stand. We downed them immediately, then bought two big bottles of water and split them among our Nalgene bottles. We drank them, too, and then went swimming in the frigid Red Sea.

The rest of the night, we stayed at the YHA hostel in Eilat and ate next door at Pizza Meter. We ran errands and resolved to go get the stuff we'd left at the Yehoshaphat Ascent the next morning. We got to bed at almost 11:00 and got up at 4:30 AM.

The return to Eilat felt like a bit of a defeat, but given our close brush with disaster, we were glad to have a chance to regather our thoughts and feelings. In the morning, when we sat out once again, we had a new degree of confidence because we felt that in the face of danger, we'd handled ourselves well. And we felt that we had a better idea of our limits and how far we could go.

So in the morning we were all exhausted, but caught a cab to take us back to the spot where we met the highway. This driver was much nicer -- probably because we'd had showers. When we got there, the Birthright group was still asleep. We walked down to where we'd left our food the previous day and got most of it; on later examination it seemed that some of it was missing. Either we forgot it, or some animal took it.

Back at the Birthright camp, we redivided all the food and set out again -- this time along the highway. It would be about a 3-kilometer hike uphill to regain the INT, and once again, no one was interested in giving us a ride.

We got to the trailhead, already sweaty and tired, and tried to give Maoz a call for the waterdrop, but I couldn't get a signal on the phone. So we began; the route first led us down to a natural spring whose name I forget right now [Ein Netafim]. The climb down was rather involved, but at the the end the spring actually had water, collected in a stone tank and filled with algae and some kind of strange black larvae. Our bottles were still mostly full (thankfully), so we contented ourselves only with wetting our bandannas and proceeding onward.

The hike was fairly nondescript, except it followed some wadis for awhile, then some sides of ridges, and then through some wide flat areas between mountains. It was in one of those that I finally reached Maoz and told him to have his friend make the water drop at 6:00 PM in Shehoret Canyon. Maoz said he'd make some phone calls.

Not long after that, we wanted to stop for the afternoon, but couldn't find any natural shade. Day 2 had taught us the importance of a cool stone abode, as opposed to a sunny, exposed rockface with just a tarp. So we hiked a lot further and longer than we'd originally wanted to, until we were only about a mile or so from the place where we'd asked for the water drop. But it was now only 12:30 PM.

Our shade was only a shallow cave with a boulder in the middle of it. We rigged the fly along the front and made ourselves comfortable, looking out at a wide-open, gravelly field, hemmed in by mountains on all sides. But we did all right, despite the less-than-ideal location. We kept our water in our packs and we kept our packs in the shade, so drinking was actually enjoyable. I ate an orange and put the last couple of slices in my Nalgene bottle, then kept the bottle cool in the shade of the cave, with a wet bandanna tied around it. When I got to the bottom I was proud that the drink was still delicious and cool, and the oranges at the bottom were a welcome treat.

The whole afternoon was like that. We felt that we'd learned to put our newfound knowledge to good use. Once a group of kids came by with a mother and with an army guide, doing a day hike. It was good to have some momentary company, and to be viewed with awe by someone who wanted to do the trail.

When we left at 5:00 we found that we'd set up our camp right outside Shehoret Canyon, where the walls were high and all was shady and cool. Its soft, gravelly bottom made us wish we'd fallen asleep there, instead of our sun-baked abode. Still, we felt more rested than we ever had after an afternoon. inside the canyon we passed three ibexes, which stared at us curiously for awhile, then hopped up on the rocks and passed by us via the high road.

We got to the parking lot at the end at around 5:45 PM and waited in the shade for Maoz's guy. I still didn't have a cell phone signal. We stayed till 6:20, during which time we saw an ibex with huge horns and a long black goatee. He laid down among the shady rocks above us and stayed there till we left.

Without the water drop, our situation was now considerably more desperate, though still not an emergency like the day before (to be continued).

6/1/2006 -- Escaping

6/31/2006 Shehoret Canyon 6:10 PM

Yesterday we packed our stuff and left our cafe at 4:30 PM. Before we started walking, we divided up our remaining water, which was a total of 36 ounces -- 12 ounces per man. We took a final toast -- "to life" -- before leaving and we each drank half our ration and saved 6 ounces for the walk.

The trek began with us having to squeeze between a boulder and the canyon wall -- a space so narrow that we had to remove our packs and pass them through. Then the trail wound through the canyon for awhile in the shade, but finally broke out into full sunlight. We found that we were exhausted and definitely dehydrated. Chase was the worst; he'd been trying to save water in the cave and now he was dragging his stick along in the sand.

The wadi had a mostly sandy bottom with rocks of all sizes strewn around. It was hard, picking a path through it all. At one point we missed the place where our trail left the wadi. I noticed, and we backtracked to the blaze and kept going. I don't remember to many of the details from this point because we were all starting to show signs of heat exhaustion. I told Chase to throw away his walking stick, but Greg traded with him.

We had to make a long ascent called the Yehoshaphat Ascent. We'd started in Wadi Gishron, the low point of the region, and had to make it to the saddle between two mountains. It was full sun the whole time and we subsisted by holding water in our mouths for as long as we could, which wasn't very long, because we couldn't breathe from the exertion.

We got to a rock fin most of the way up the ascent but we didn't trust our map, or the blazes on the trails, so we huddled in the narrow path of shade while the sun hung low in the west. At that point we knew it was life-or-death; we were so tired and try that we could barely walk or think clearly. So we ditched all the food and anything else we didn't need. That made our packs light enough that we could keep going (to be continued).

5/31/2006 -- Brushes with death

5/31/2006 Negev 11:24 AM

Yesterday morning we set out from Eilat. We didn't get to bed as early as we'd hoped, and we didn't get up as early as we should have. We went up the street from the Shelter to Eilot Blvd. and caught a cab. "Taba," I told the driver. "To the border?" he asked. "Almost," I said, and he opened the trunk for our packs.

As we drove, we looked out the windows toward the Red Sea. Nobody said anything; I ate an apple and the taxi driver turned on the radio. The song: "Maneater." I took some pictures.

We got close to the border and there was a sign for the trail. I stopped the driver and we all got out. "You are walking where?" he asked. I didn't know how to explain, so I told him, "Mitzpah Ramon." He looked stunned and said, "You will walk a week or two weeks?" I nodded. "Good luck," he said; we took out our packs and walked up the hill as he drove off. It was 7:44 AM, the sun was already high, and we were sweating by the time we got to the top of the hill.

It wasn't too long before we accidentally lost the trail and we found ourselves skirting a barbed-wire fence that seemed to mark off the no-man's land between Israel and Egypt. After some bushwhacking, we found the trail again and continued.

From there the trail was pretty clear; the only thing about it was that it went up and down quite a bit. By 12:30 the sun was fully up in the sky and we were probably a little over halfway done with the day's walk. To us, that seemed pretty good, so we hunkered down in the shade, expecting to leave at about 4:00.

But the shade we were in was the lee of a small cliff, and as the sun moved west, the shadow crept in toward the wall until there was almost nothing left. At that point we rigged up our fly, but its meager shade didn't keep us that cool, and we had to use our bags to hold the poles up. So the bags sat in the sun, and our water got hot, and we didn't feel like eating or drinking anything. But there wasn't enough room to sleep, either. So we just lay there and roasted.

The thermometer in my pack started out at 92 degrees, then climbed to 115 degrees in the shade, about a foot off the ground inside our fly. It stayed between 110 and 115 degrees all afternoon. Finally, at about 5:00 PM, we headed out; me and Chase had headaches and I was worried that heat exhaustion was setting in. The water in our bottles and in our water bladders was much hotter than the temperature outside; it was probably 140 or 150 degrees and tasted like plastic. I started gagging every time I took a sip, so I didn't drink much while we sat there in the shade.

We walked down off the cliff face and into Wadi Gishron. On both sides rock walls rose up, and the middle was a soft bed of sand. Here we were completely shaded from the sun and we wished we could have spent all day in such a place. But I still wasn't feeling good, even when we sat down, and finally, I took a gulp of water and threw up everything I'd eaten that day. I was on all fours, with my pack still on, retching into the sand.

The guys knew then that something was wrong, so they helped make me comfortable. I lay on the sand and kept trying to drink some water, but couldn't, and told the others that this might be a good place to make some dinner.

I can't remember much between then and dinnertime. I felt exhausted and weak. My thoughts drifted and I only wanted to be with Mandy. I began wondering if I was going to die.

Then they handed me a bowl of food and I started taking sips between each bite. After I finished, I was feeling much better, and by the time we got the dishes clean, I was very thirsty, but feeling much stronger. We decided to continue even though the sun was down. As it got darker we put on our headlamps; the trail followed the wadi so we just watched out for INT blazes, which we would see suddenly and feel relieved.

Greg and I walked with our shirts off, because even though the sun had only just set, it was already down to about 85 degrees, and the wadi was now like a wind tunnel, blasting air from the interior of the desert toward the sea. For the first time on the trip, we all felt really good.

Finally we reached a place where we thought we'd soon leave the wadi, and where the ground was a flat, wide expanse of soft sand. I thought we should spend the night there, and as we only had about 3 km before the end of that trail, we'd use the water we had left to reach the border post just northwest of our stopping point, on Highway 12. And then we'd get water from whoever happened to be manning the station.

We spread out our plastic ground cloth in the middle of the wadi and laid our sleeping bags under the stars. I lay on top of my sleeping bag, only in boxer shorts, as the wind blew over me -- that constant cool breeze moving out from the Negev. I read from Genesis and Exodus, and Greg and I talked about how much we miss our wives and our homes. Above the rim of the wadi the crescent moon set, and we fell asleep.

I awoke the others at 5:06, before the sun rose, and we packed. By the time we got moving, the sky was already light and we didn't get as much cool morning walking as we thought. But the trail began by continuing down Wadi Gishron, so we were in constant shade. Then, when it turned to follow another watercourse, we stopped to take a drink and eat some apricots and nuts for breakfast. While we were standing there, at the junction of Wadi Gishron and the other watercourse, an ibex appeared right where we'd been standing, and it just stared at us. We took some pictures and watched him for awhile; then we noticed two more standing on the rocks above us. They were beautiful and surreal; it was hard to imagine that animals of that size could thrive in a place like this. They seemed to be kind and peaceful toward us and we though we could probably feed them if we tried. After a few minutes we walked on.

Our route took us through canyons and up some pretty steep climbs. There were three different places where we had to use ladders to ascend. And finally, when we got to the top of a granite ridge, it seemed that there was nowhere else to go but down. On the way down I noted that the blue-and-white blazes (the INT had been paralleling the blue trail) were faded, and in many cases, gone except for a little chip of paint in a crack. But as long as we saw the blazes, we felt all right.

But the path began bearing us south -- due south, which didn't show up on the map. And yet at an intersection of watercourses -- ravines, really -- there was a bold blue-and-white blaze. There was nothing for it but to follow. Still, we got confused, then backtracked a little, but could think of nothing else than to keep going south.

So here's what we did: we walked until the path ended at a cliff, which clearly poured down into the wadi below. There, at the cliff, a blue blaze pointed up the wall of granite on the right side, and we began a rather treacherous climb to the top. At that point we were at the top of a dark, broken granite spire which led nowhere, and all of us were on our last bottle of water.

Then Chase, looking out over the wadi below, figured out where we were. Down at the bottom of the cliff where we'd just stood was an INT marker. And next to that were the three boulders that marked the spot where we'd turned out of Wadi Gishron, and where we'd seen the ibexes. So, somehow, we'd made a complete circle. Here's how I think it happened.

According to the map, the trail was supposed to leave Wadi Gishron when the wadi turned left and crossed the Egyptian border. It was supposed to continue going north, with only a couple of little zigzags, until it reached the highway. But at the point where we saw the ibexes, it didn't continue north; it went east at a right angle to its previous course. It stayed that way, too, for awhile before twisting around and climbing.

Meanwhile, there WAS an old trail that went due north, just like the map said, but to take it, you had to go up that cliff. There had once been a way; I theorized that there had been a ladder going straight up to the dropoff. Up there we'd even seen a series of metal pins driven into the walls. So that may have been the trail that went north; up at the top of the long ladder climb on the other trail, they had merged. There must have been another path there we didn't see; if so, it wasn't marked, or the mark had been defaced or obscured, because I even said, "Do we go down, or up and over?"

So here's how it went: [Hand-drawn map showing the various trails and ravines]

Once Chase figured out where we were, we decided that the safest bet was not to backtrack, or repeat the grueling climbs we'd made earlier, but instead to take the quickest route to the highway. That meant getting back down to teh bottom of Wadi Gishron and hiking back to teh green trail, which we'd seen earlier, and which joined up with the red trail, which led back to Highway 12. Once we got to the green trail, it would be about 2.5 km back to the road.

But the hard part would be finding a way back down to the wadi. I found a route that looked good and scouted it out, sans pack, till halfway down it dropped off completely. The only other possibility was one Chase put forth: to take the ibex route back down to the bottom.

Greg and I immediately rejected it, but after awhile it was obvious that there were no other possibilities. So we crossed back to the east side of the small watercourse, where the dropoff was, and noticed that up the side, there were two cairns of stacked stones. Greg and I climbed up -- and found that the ibexes had inadvertently shown us the location of a hidden ladder, invisible from anywhere else. So that was the way the blue route had once continued north.

We climbed down the ladder to where the rungs ended, then sat down and scooted down the loose granite incline. Eventually we reached bottom, and then made haste to reach teh green trail. We passed last night's campsite and walked through a lot of what we'd done in the dark. By the time we got to the green trail it was 11:30, and the trail began in a narrow ravine with overhanging sandstone walls, providing lots of cool shade. Since we were down to about two liters of water between the three of us, we decided to stop here and take the hike out to the highway after the worst sun has passed.

That's where I am now -- resting in the shade, shooing flies away. Chase is sewing the hole that ripped in the crotch of his pants -- he's using the needle from the first-aid kit and some fishing line. Greg's writing in his journal, too. Awhile ago, we made a solar still using our cookpot and a piece of our ground cloth. We each ate our kiwis and put the peels into the still. Greg went out and found some vegetation just outside our little shelter, and then Chase peed in the still for good measure. Now that it's baked for a couple of hours in the hot sun, it's actually yielding results. We're hoping it'll at least fill up a Nalgene cap.

So far we feel like we've learned important lessons from the desert. We know now not only the importance of shade in general, but of the right kind of shade. Yesterday we had shade; today we have the right kind. We also know how important it is to hike early in the morning, and then into the night. And our appreciation for, and understanding of water has gone up dramatically already. I hope I never take water for granted again.

Lord willing, we'll make it out to the road by nightfall and catch a ride back into Eilat. Father, don't let us die out here. Help us to last as long as possible with the water we have, and help us to find water when we get out. And when that happens, help us to know where to go next. -- Amen.

5/29/2006 -- Second thoughts

This is the first journal entry I'm posting. I wrote it the night before we started the trail. Enjoy.

[5/29/2006 Shelter -- Eilat 11:02 PM]

I don't want to do this anymore.

Last night I lay in bed awake for hours, just thinking, and above all, doubting. I don't think I've ever doubted myself this much in my life. But when I think about how I felt last night, it's nothing compared to how I feel right now.

But I guess I should rewind a little bit. Yesterday Maoz called and said he'd come between 5:00 and 6:00 PM. Greg arrived at the airport at 5:05. So Chase waited at the Opera while I waited at the Hayarkon 48. They both ended up arriving at the same time, which was chaotic, but I rode with Maoz, Shlomit, and the baby, and Chase and Greg took a taxi. We met at Iceberg, an ice cream place on Ben Yehuda near the Gordon Inn.

We went over the maps, and it was encouraging in some ways, and discouraging in others. Maoz made it sound like we'd do well and have fun, but he also made it sound like we might as well give up the idea of doing the whole thing in one month. And he's offering us a lot of help, but everyone seems doubtful.

So last night at the Hayarkon I just laid there, going over it all in my head. I started shaking from fear and began to cry. I felt like I used to feel when I was a boy and things would bother me so much, but I wouldn't be able to explain it. But now I think I know what's bothering me. I feel like I've gotten myself into something much too big for me to handle. And I'm afraid of what might hapen as a direct consequence of that.

[words crossed out] Actually, I think I should write more about last night. I missed Mandy more than I ever have. I felt so lonely and lost. It was hot in the room and I just shook and sweated and shivered. Though the fears were real, I didn't know where they were coming from.

OK -- so we got up at 6:45 so we could get to Eldan and rent our car by 8:00. We did that and got the car -- I drove through Tel Aviv for the first time. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought. We went by the mall in case we needed to get a stove, but then decided to try out the alcohol stove. Maoz had said we could use 70% alcohol, sold in drugstores. But we were skeptical; we thought the water content would be too high. But I dropped Chase off at a drugstore, and after much driving around the block, he came out with a bottle of 95% alcohol. So we left for Eilat.

Lots of little things, lots of little steps. We watched the land get drier and drier, and more and more desert stretched off to the horizon till that was all you saw. We stopped and had falafel at Mitzpeh Ramon, then bought water at a Delek station and stashed it on the southern rim of Makhtesh Ramon.

The short amount of time we spent there, outside the car, was demoralizing. It was killer hot and the sun was so bright, both in the sky and on the gravel and dust. To me, it was probably the most hellish place I have seen in my life, but that thought didn't coalesce till later.

We got to Eilat and the day just kept getting longer. Nothing was easy. We drove around for probably a half-hour, trying to find the Tourist Information Center, which we never did find. And it was only after a similar and equally frustrating search that we found the hostel.

The Shelter is run by Christians, which I hadn't been expecting. And initially it was very encouraging to talk with other believers. But then, as before, all I heard from them were words of caution -- which I know they delivered out of a sense of responsibility. But with those endless miles of desert in my mind, which took me hours to drive through, and whose real distance I had not been able to picture until then, I felt like my back just broke.

Still we soldiered on. It was 39 degrees Celsius in Eilat and we still had to return the rental car, get a new guidebook, exchange traveler's cheques, and buy all our groceries. We got it all done, but now, even when thinking of the groceries, I feel a pang in my stomach at its inadequacy.

Back at the shelter we ate and began going back over the guidebook, and I began to feel hopeful again. But then another woman, who reminded me of [censored], began telling us that if we didn't have maps, then there was no way we'd be able to hike the trail, because it's not marked well at all. And all the fears came rushing back in as she told us how hard it had been to go through the desert in February, and how it had taken 10 days to get to Makhtesh Ramon, and 18 days to get to Arad. Of course I began doing the math and I knew that would only leave me 12 days to see something other than desert in Israel.

After buying some bug spray at a supermarket near the hostel, per Maoz's instructions, we began packing the food. Then Mandy called and I went outside and sobbed like a child. I miss her so much. I have never been so far away from her. I don't know if I have ever felt this small and alone. And I desperately wanted to tell her good things -- that she didn't have to worry about her husband at all; she could be proud that he went and did what he'd always been wanting to do. I didn't tell her that I didn't want to do the trail anymore, but I told her everything else.

So tonight it is hot in Eilat and I'm sweating in the top bunk of an old metal-frame bed, with my headlamp shining on my notebook, and the voice of some Russian man coming through my window. Greg and Chase are both asleep and I haven't had the heart to tell them any of this.

But I have one thing to hold onto, and Mandy reminded me of it tonight when no one else would. God wants me to hike this trail, and the enemy does not. And the voices I'm hearing are not coming from Him; they're coming from the enemy.

SHAY ----- REMEMBER THIS:

"Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths; ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls." -- Jeremiah 6:16 (Written in picture hanging on the wall at the Shelter)

My Father, please remind me of what this is all about! Make me a voice crying out in teh wilderness; help me to raise up a highway, to level the mountains and fill in the valleys. I need You, Jesus; I need You, Jesus; I need You, Jesus.

News articles and journal postings

Once again, I find myself apologizing for not writing. It's been awhile since there's been much news regarding our hike; once it's done, it's done. But I promised a long time ago that I would post my journal entries from the hike; now I'm about to do so.

But first I should say that our hike has been in the news lately -- first in the Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK), and then apparently in El Nacional, the Spanish newspaper. I don't know how that happened; apparently they must have a deal with English-language news sources. What's funny is that the Spanish-language article is totally different from the original article written about our hike; it's actually about the Israel-Hezbollah war, and just talks about how I would like to return to Israel in spite of all the fighting. Anyway, if you want to see it, and if you can read Spanish, it's here. I can't find an online version of the original Oklahoman article that talked about our trip.

But the bigger news is that today (Sunday), the Oklahoman published two articles that I wrote. After the first article ran, in which a staff reporter interviewed me about the hike, my old friend Bryan Dean from the Sooner yearbook gave me a call at work. Turns out he works at the Oklahoman now, and he was wondering if I'd be interested in writing something about our trip. Of course I said yes; they let me write two of them.

So they ran today, in the Sunday paper. The first article -- the bigger one -- told the story of the three of us camping above Kiryat Shmona, up in the north of Israel, on our last night on the trail. We were with some Israelis, within sight of the Lebanese border. While we were there, we talked with the kids' father, a rabbi, who said he was afraid that Israel's enemies might try something while his kids were on the trail.

We reassured him that nothing would happen, but sure enough, about two weeks later, full-scale war broke out along that same border. And the parking lot we were sitting in? It got blown to pieces by a barrage of Katyusha rockets launched from southern Lebanon. Twelve Israeli reserve soldiers were killed in the very spot where we'd been hanging out.

I'd copy and paste the articles from my computer, but I guess they technically belong to the Daily Oklahoman now. It's too bad, too, because they butchered my second article. That was a humor piece about all the ways you can die in Israel that have nothing to do with guns or bombs. I ended by telling about how we distilled water in the desert from Chase's urine, and then Chase drank it. I ended the article with, "And we never peed in our cookpot again."

They cut that out. Me and Bryan are going to have some words. Just like the good old days, eh, Bryan, when you were my editor and I kept trying to use words like "ain't" and "floppin'"?

Anyway, let me tell you what's going on with the journal entries. I'm going to enter them in day by day, so you can read them as I wrote them. Some of the stuff will be censored, partly because it's my journal and I want to keep some of it to myself; partly because I'm writing a lot of stuff about this trip and I don't want to blow all the surprises; and partly because some of the stuff is irrelevant to readers of this blog understanding what the hike was really like.

So I'll post them by the day number and date. Example: "Day 1: 5/30/2006" or something like that. Bear in mind that my journal starts in the airport, getting ready to fly to Israel, so there's quite a bit of preparatory stuff. Some of that will be cut out too, I suppose, since the incident about accidentally dropping someone's toothpaste in the toilet (unflushed, mind you, with the toothpaste tube being only one of TWO solid objects in the bowl) and then rinsing off the tube and putting it back on the shelf could potentially get me sued.

Now that I think about it, I'll just start my journal entries at the point where we begin the trail. Or the trial, as those first couple of days should more appropriately be named.

Just know that this could be a long process. There will be gaps. I'll enter a few days at a time, and then, as usual, weeks will probably pass before I post again. Here we go.

Post-script: Yesterday (Saturday) I turned 26 years old.

Finished

I'm in Tel Aviv again, and frankly, I feel a little overwhelmed. Out of the past twenty-nine nights, I think I've spent two indoors. Now I'm here at the Hayarkon 48 again, back in bustling Tel Aviv, and the pace of the city feels strange. There are cold drinks everywhere, and it's full of people. We're used to seeing only a couple of people every couple of days, and when we see them, we talk to them for a long time and we get to know them. So it's strange that there are so many people here, and none interested in talking.

Let me sum up the hike. It'll still be a little while before I have the time to sit down and transcribe my journal entries in a day-by-day format.

For the first eight days we hiked through the southern Negev from Eilat to Kibbutz Faran. On the first day, I came to the brink of heat exhaustion and vomited heroically all over the bottom of Wadi Gishron. On the second day, some old, unerased trail blazes led us in the wrong direction and nearly got us killed. So the beginning of our hike, needless to say, was pretty demoralizing.

But it picked up from there; over the next six days and nights we became acclimated to the temperature, and even learned to make our time in the Negev as comfortable as possible. It was killer hot--I may have mentioned in a previous post that the temperature the first day was 115 degrees in the shade--but in the end it was time, and not temperature, that caused us to skip up to the north. We loved the desert and didn't want to leave, but we also wanted to see the rest of the country. In all, we hiked about 85 miles through the Negev.

So from Kibbutz Faran, we took a bus to Makhtesh Ramon and hiked through the crater. Then we hitchhiked up to Arad, where we took a rest day that wasn't really a rest day at all; Greg and I went to Masada and hiked up and back down the mountain. After floating in the Dead Sea, resupplying, changing money, making phone calls, etc., we felt like the trail was more restful than our supposed relaxation time.

From Arad we hiked 55 miles in three days. That brought us almost to Kiryat Gat, where we were hosted by a Bedouin shepherd named Ibrahim, and the three of us got to herd flocks for the first time. We ate traditional food in his family's tent, and slept outside next to the sheep. I woke up in the morning and had to swat a goat away from Greg's head. That day we decided we'd seen enough of the middle of the country, where the land is flat and looks surprisingly like northern Indiana, where we all grew up. We figured we could see the same kinds of wheat fields at home, albeit without the Arab herdsmen. So we walked to the train station in Kiryat Gat, and that afternoon, we found ourselves in Jerusalem.

We stayed there for three days, camping out on the roof of the Petra Hostel--an old building just inside the Jaffa Gate that used to be a hotel, and where Mark Twain and Herman Melville once stayed. More recently, it's been the home of the Prophet Elijah, Jesus, Christ (Jesus and Christ apparently stayed there at the same time and didn't like each other much), and currently, the Queen of Jerusalem. My orange Nalgene bottle, I hope, is still in the refrigerator on the second floor; I left it there and am hoping to find it when I return to Jerusalem in two weeks.

But after three days, we found that the Old City was driving us nearly as mad as the other inhabitants of the hostel. After meeting up with Zac Winters and Lane Koenig (soon to be Winters) from Norman Community Church, we took a bus out of town, back to the trail, and proceeded toward Tel Aviv.

We walked about 30 miles through the mountains and forests south of Jerusalem. It was beautiful, until we hit the mess of farms, highways, and construction projects southeast of Tel Aviv. Rather than blow our time in a region we've driven through innumerable times, we decided to skip north--far north, actually, to Zichron Ya'akov. What we missed was a long stretch of Mediterranean seacoast that would have been a lot of fun, but spent most of its time on roads, in cities, and in places Chase and I have visited before. So in the interest of hiking one last long, unbroken stretch, we took the train again toward Zichron, a small winemaking town just south of Haifa.

The train station was in Binyamina, to the south of Zichron Ya'akov, and at 9:30 PM, there's not much going on there. While I ran back into the station to retrieve my hiking staff, Chase and Greg talked to a girl standing by a bus stop, and she got her parents to let us stay in their backyard. The family's dog, Bridget, almost chewed Chase's hiking stick in half, but otherwise, it was a lot of fun hanging out with a normal Israeli family. I'm looking forward to sharing more about what that was like.

The hike from Zichron Ya'akov took us through Ein Hod, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Tiberias, Ginosar, Meron, Kiryat Shmona, and finally to Kibbutz Dan, where we finished this afternoon. We spent something like ten days up there, and covered something close to 150 miles; we haven't added it all up yet. I hiked it all in sandals and got some firsthand knowledge of why Jesus never says anything nice about thorns and thistles, and why the Bible uses water and shade to teach about God's mercy and love toward people. Finishing in the north was amazing; it was a sharp contrast to the dryness and emptiness of the Negev. We began in a desert and ended in a garden, and that seemed significant to us.

There's a lot more I want to share about all this, and I'm confident that this hike has provided more than enough material for a book. We experienced so much, and met so many different kinds of people. Israel is more interesting and amazing than I realized. Many of the convictions I have felt in the past were confirmed on this trip. But I'll have to write about that later.

About a week ago, when we first got to the Jordan River, we were so excited at the prospect of actually being immersed in water that we all jumped in. It wasn't until I was in the middle of the river, treading water, that I realized my cell phone was still in my pocket, along with a lot of other things. So I haven't talked to my beautiful wife in about a week and it's been driving me crazy. But tonight the Pelephone came back to life, inexplicably, and I've been trying to reach her. So that's my job for tonight--along with taking my first shower in something like eight days. I've left a trail of angry bus drivers across Israel, all holding their noses and cursing the foul-smelling shvilistim. I don't want to make those kinds of enemies here at the Hayarkon 48.

So good night, thanks for reading, and keep checking back. If you have specific questions about the hike, post them as comments and I'll look forward to answering them.

Shalom shalom (v'ein shalom?)

Shay

O Jerusalem

Tonight, me and Chase and Greg went out to eat on Ben Yehuda Street, up in the more modern part of Jerusalem. All of us are ready for a little bit of alone time; Greg's probably going to stay in Jerusalem on his own for a day so he can see some more sights and do some shopping. Me and Chase are going to move on down the trail and head for Tel Aviv, and then meet up with Greg when he's ready to join back up.

So we decided to go eat a big dinner before temporarily splitting up. We ate shish kebabs at sort of a pricy restaurant, under the pretense of putting some fat back on our ribs. It's easy to justify blowing cash on food when you've been losing weight on the trail.

Anyway, afterward, I hung out up there for awhile by myself. I signed up for a credit card and got a free 30 shekel coupon to a nearby cafe, so I went there and got dessert and a coffee. It just so happened that it was the same place where Mandy and I went after I proposed to her three years ago at the King David Hotel. Naturally, being there by myself made me feel pretty lonely. I took a table, ate my dessert and drank an espresso, and wrote in my journal for awhile. The waiter talked to me in English and a girl at the next table asked me something in French I didn't understand. Then I left a good tip and walked out.

There was a woman out on Ben Yehuda Street wearing a white robe, with gold letters that said in Hebrew, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" -- "I Am Who I Am" from Exodus chapter 3, the burning bush. She was holding a golden scepter and yelling at people in English. People were yelling back and telling her to shut up. "You're crazy!" some guy said. Someone else yelled, "Who do you think you are?" She shouted back, "I am who I am!" Then she pointed the scepter at him and screamed, "But who are YOU?" The guy next to me started singing the popular religious Jewish tune, "Mashiach, Mashiach, Mashiach," and a few people laughed. She went on down the street, leaving a trail of bewildered people.

It dawned on me that despite my love for Jerusalem, it's one of the loneliest places in the world for me. Everyone here seems to have a place; all along the street there were knots of Birthright Israel kids joking around in English, Lubavitchers bobbing around and gesturing passionately, and Nachmanim sitting cross-legged on the paving stones, smoking cigarettes and laughing. Down in the Old City there are all sorts of places for all sorts of people: Ethiopians, Copts, Armenians, Lutherans, Catholics, Swedes, Brits -- almost every culture and religion.

But a guy like me has a hard time finding a place; sometimes it feels like a curse that I fell in love with the God of the Old Testament, and that I found wisdom in His Law. If I'd stayed where I was, I'd have no problem now finding a place. I could sit with all the Christians who feel bitter at the Jews' grip on this city, and act like I had some claim of my own. But as it is, I'm a stranger passing through, who can't identify with a particular group, and who can't stake any claim without some kind of long explanation. If I could be anywhere in the world, I'd want to be in Jerusalem. And if I could be anywhere in Jerusalem, I'd want to be at the Kotel ha-Ma'aravi -- the Western Wall. But nobody understands that; neither the Jews, nor the Christians.

Speaking of the Western Wall, I realize that if I'm going down there, I'll need to have something on my head. If you don't have a kippa, they give you a cardboard thing to put on your head -- I think it's actually a french-fry box. So if I don't want to wear a crappy food container, I'll have to buy something. I walk down to a store on Jaffa Street that I saw on the way in. It's called Kippa Man.

Kippa Man turns out to be a Russian dude with a storefront about the size of a walk-in closet. It's filled with thousands of skullcaps of all colors and designs. Some of them are pretty ridiculous, with knitted designs depicting Ninja Turtles and stuff like that. I ask him what his best-seller is, and he shows me this weird, swirly-blue one. I ask him why people buy it and he says it's beautiful. I ask him if he's got anything that's kind of loosely knitted, and he realizes I know something about kippas. The knitted kind are the ones the hippie types wear, and I suppose I identify more with them than anyone else. They're the people I'd prefer to hang out with, anyway.

So he shows me a big one that looks kind of cool, but it's too big, and it's black, and I don't want to give the impression that I'm some kind of wannabe Orthodox guy. But then again, don't I look like a wannabe, anyway, buying a kippa when I'm not Jewish? And what am I doing, going down to the Wall to pray? Don't I have my own places? Those are the kinds of questions I know people would ask if they knew I believed in Jesus, so it's almost easier to just play along. Kippa Man has the impression that I'm some Jewish kid with some particular sectarian affiliation, and since I don't feel much like talking about my religious issues, I decide to leave it alone.

Do you have the same thing, but smaller, and in a different color? I ask. He furrows his brow and digs around in a pile and pulls one out that I like right away -- a knitted brown one with a white fringe. I ask him how much, and he says 25 shekels. I cringe at having to shell out five bucks for a tiny piece of fabric, and think I could easily get one cheaper in the Old City, but I leave it alone and give him the money. He offers me a couple of hair clips for free, and I take them. He puts it all in a bag and I go back out on the street.

Jaffa Street is busy near the intersection with Ben Yehuda, but it gets darker as I head back toward the Old City. There are still a few orange streetlights and some small groups of people talking quietly as they walk the other way. I have the kippa in my pocket and don't know what to do with it. I'm a man caught in the middle of things. So I decide I'll put it on when I get down to the Wall, so as not to mislead people any more than I have to. Then I wonder if I'm being disingenuous, or if I'm ashamed. I don't know.

It dawns on me as I walk through the darkness that this must be how Jewish people feel in the States. They pretty much look like everyone else, but in certain matters, where the rubber meets the road, the differences are undeniable and unconcealable, and it's in those times that they feel the most out of place. All my life I've been part of the majority culture, doing things on my own terms and rarely feeling awkward for it. Even when I've felt a little out of place for believing in Jesus, I know there's a big sector of society that will support me. And at the very least, my family serves as a safety net. But here, I'm alone. Even Greg, as a Catholic, has an identity and a network here that I don't have.

And it strikes me as funny, that after five years of coming to this country, I've come so far in certain ways. I can speak Hebrew well enough to pass briefly as an Israeli, or at the very least, as an American immigrant to Israel. I've become acquainted with the country both geographically and experientially, and I don't feel like a tourist anymore when I'm in Jerusalem. I know when I'm being ripped off by a shopkeeper or a cab driver. And I've gotten to the point where I have the guts to assert myself in situations where I wouldn't if I were in the States. But in the end, where does it get me? It just confuses people more.

I make it to the Jaffa Gate and start winding my way through the dim streets of the Arab Market. Most of the stores are closed; their metal doors are shut and barred, and only a few stalls have light shining out into the narrow alleyways. None of the storekeepers bother trying to get me to stop, because I'm walking quickly, like I know where I'm going, and I'm not wearing the dumb Coca-Cola shirt I bought yesterday just so that I'd have something clean to wear. They leave me alone and I'm fine with that, and I make my way down toward the Kotel.

As I descend the stairs, coming down from the Jewish Quarter, I put the kippa on my head and pass through the security check. Down in the wide, paved area, I see Greg standing there with his camera, wearing the Bazooka shirt he bought yesterday, and holding a wooden flute he bought for his son. He looks out of place, and he knows it, but in a strange way, he looks like he belongs. At least he fits the mold of a tourist and people can identify him. Jerusalem is a place where lots of lines are drawn, all over the place; the city itself is divided up into quarters, and even those quarters are split up into territories and neighborhoods. Everything has a label or a flag or a name. Even down here, I can tell a lot from the way people are dressed; there are haredim, soldiers, American tourists, policemen, and so on.

I go down to the Wall and I want to pray for my wife and my son, who hasn't been born yet. Mandy asked me this morning if I would write a prayer and put it in the cracks of the stones; that's something she's never wanted before, and I want to honor her request. But I don't have a pen, so I pray for awhile, facing the Wall, and then I turn to go find something to write with. As I'm going out, a guy in black Orthodox garb stops me and starts talking to me in Hebrew. I respond in kind and after a couple of minutes of talking, he asks me if I'm Israeli or American. I guess he picked up an accent. I tell him I'm from the United States and he tells me I speak Hebrew well. I thank him and he asks me where I studied. I tell him Oklahoma, and he seems surprised. We talk about his time in the States, before he made teshuvah and came back to religious Judaism.

He says he's got a wife and couple of kids, and I tell him I just found out that my wife's pregnant. So he tells me he's studying the Torah and needs some help with funds. He says that if I help him out, he'd be happy to pray for me and my wife and my child-to-be. So I tell him I've only got four shekels in my pocket, and he asks if I've got any paper. He's nothing if not bold. I respect this and dig something out of my wallet -- probably too much, but I like the guy more than any of the other religious panhandlers roaming around down there, muttering Tzedekah, tzedekah, and thrusting their hands in my face while I'm praying. He thanks me and takes out a notepad to get my name. I tell him my name is Shay, and he asks my mother's name. I tell him it's Lisa, and then he asks my wife's name. I tell him her name is Amanda, and then he asks me if my wife is Jewish; and here we are at the answer that warrants explanation.

But I don't explain; I just say, "No." He looks bewildered; why would this guy, who seems pretty pious and speaks decent Hebrew, marry a woman who's not Jewish? Too late, though; I've given him money, so he figures his job is just to pray for me. He thanks me and lets me use his pen as I write down the prayer I'm going to stick in the Wall. "Bless you," he says in English, and I tell him I would have given him the money whether he was going to pray for me or not. He nods and I walk to the wall to stand before God and be seen by Him. And I take comfort that even if I am not understood by the people around me, and even if I don't understand myself, and this strange path I'm walking, at least I am understood by Him. And for a little while, with my face just inches from those cool white stones, I don't feel as lonely.

Finally!

Well, it was harder than I thought it would be to find internet access along the trail. I should have known that in the southern Negev desert, it's hard to find signs of human life, let alone computers.

It would be impossible right now to chronicle all of the things that have happened to us so far, but later on, probably after I get home, I'm going to put all of my journal entries onto this blog in a day-by-day format. Why don't I just do it right now? Because I'm paying 10 shekels an hour to use the Internet and my journal is 83 pages long so far. And we're not even halfway through the hike.

But here's an overall update: We're not going to be able to hike the whole trail. That became obvious about two days into the hike. And at first, that tore me up, because I want to write about this whole thing, and I thought that if I didn't finish the whole trail, I wouldn't have a story. I thought the story was me and my brother being some of the first Americans to hike the Israel National Trail. But I was completely wrong.

The story doesn't have much to do with us at all, except that we are observers and chroniclers. It has more to do with the land and the people. And though I was sort of saying that all along, I'm only now realizing it to be true.

We have walked through miles and miles of desert and discovered lots of small things. I've learned how to find good natural shade in the middle of the day, how to keep a bottle of water cool in 115-degree heat, how to let my body cool itself without being disgusted by the smell of my own sweat, and how there are times and places where you can do very little but fight as hard as you can and abandon yourself to God.

After about eight days and probably close to a hundred miles in the southern Negev, we had run across an abandoned US Army base in the middle of the desert, climbed into a guarded settlement to find water, sat on a mountain watching fireworks across the Arava Valley in Jordan, and talked late into the evening with Bedouins in the middle of nowhere. Then we decided to move further north, so as to learn about another part of the country.

Along the northern edge of the Negev, we walked faster and covered about 55 miles in 3 days. We ate lunch in an Arab village one day, camped out in the woods (which felt entirely foreign to us after the desert), reveled in the lightness of our packs (we went from carrying 9 liters of water per person per day to 3 liters), and had lunch another day with a family of Orthodox Jewish settlers on the edge of the West Bank. Last night we helped a Bedouin shepherd get his flock of goats back to his tent, and then we ate dinner with him and slept under the stars along with the animals. This morning I had to shoo a goat away from Greg with my hat.

Then we walked along a rail line till we found a station in Kiryat Gat (check your maps, kids) and took a train to Jerusalem. From here we're going to push north and cover as much of the trail as we can, skipping the boring parts when necessary (this is the advice all the Israelis, including hikers, have given us; apparently there's no shame in hitchhiking parts of Shvil Israel) and continuing to chronicle the parts that matter the most. And like I've said, the thing that matters most is people.

As for our current status, we're all doing well, relatively speaking. We've all lost some weight and we're looking pretty gaunt. But we just gorged ourselves at the Jerusalem McDonald's, so hopefully that will help. We've found ourselves developing weird cravings for things like plums and chocolate milk. So overall, we're looking very skinny, very brown, and very dirty; it's been three days since any of us have had a shower, and the only way we've washed our clothes has been in hostel sinks and Nalgene bottles. I'll explain that some other time.

But most importantly, I am beginning to understand the humble feeling people talk about after having spent time in the desert. It is a lonely place and a humbling place, and I feel foolish now for having thought I would somehow conquer it. It is the kind of place that forces you to bend to its will, not the other way around. Just as we would lie across shady rocks in the midday, conforming to the shape of the ground beneath us, I think your personality and outlook are forced to fit the mold of the desert; otherwise you will either become horribly frustrated, or you will die. None of us wanted to die, but we did come close once. And because of that experience, I will never take a drink of water for granted again -- not even the hot, bleach-tasting water that saved our lives as we stumbled out of the Negev toward the beginning of our hike.

Everything I've said is just the barest edge of a story, and I'm looking forward to telling it. I'm looking forward to telling all of them, or as many as I can. But the story is still going, and we do not know what tomorrow will bring. One thing is certain: this is one of the best times of my life. And even though I've missed my wife so terribly, even that is good; it reminds me of all the good things we have, and why I asked her to marry me in the first place.

OK--my hour on the Internet is just about up, so I'm going to my rooftop bed here at the Petra Hostel in Jerusalem. It's only about 55 degrees outside, and very windy. Not what I expected. But it's a blessed coolness after the hot breath of the Arava Valley and the Negev. The Lord is good.

Thanks to everyone who's been praying for us. I'll write again as soon as I can.

Love!

Making up for photos with words

I was hoping to post some photos of our trip so far, but the computer in this internet cafe won't read the camera I'm hooking up to it. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it looks like the photos will have to wait. It's all right, though; it's not like I've taken very many, anyway.

Here in Tel Aviv it feels like we've seen everything a million times, so I don't take many shots. I should be, though, because Tel Aviv is a really unique kind of place. In Hebrew, the name comes from one of the sites where the Jews stayed during the Babylonian exile. Tel means "hill" and often refers to the mounded-up sites where cities were built, destroyed, and rebuilt over the years, until in the end they stand as abrupt hills in the middle of otherwise flat plains. So a tel usually is a very old place.

Aviv means "spring," and is a word that refers to newness. It's one of the names, in fact, of one of the springtime months of the Biblical calendar. So even the name of Tel Aviv is a weird juxtaposition. It's the old-new city, and not in name only.

In Tel Aviv it's not entirely uncommon to see donkey carts rolling slowly down the street against a background of skyscrapers and high-rise apartments. It's a place where street markets are within walking distance of city centers, and where people from all over the world still keep the old ways of their country. Often the children of those old immigrants have adapted completely to modern Israeli culture, which is heavily influenced by Europe and America, and basically look indistinguishable from someone you'd see in New York or Paris.

For people who come to Israel thinking they'll see flat-roofed clay buildings and people wearing robes, Tel Aviv is a huge disappointment. It's actually as far from Biblical as you can get almost anywhere in the world. There are plenty of religious people, but often Judaism is mixed with New Age and Eastern religion, and kabbalah is a religion unto itself, far removed from a mere mystical understanding of the Torah. On top of that, Tel Aviv is lobbying to become the gay tourism capital of the world. It also has a thriving prostitution industry. Jerusalemites see Tel Aviv as a modern-day Sodom, but that doesn't stop them from going there on weekends and having a good time. It's a world of contradiction.

But I like Tel Aviv -- not because of the immorality or the materialism or the sad, exaggerated imitations of what Western culture has to offer, but because of the honesty and openness of the people. They may not like you, but if that's the case, they aren't afraid to tell you. And if they do, they'll tell you that as well. One time a dude came up to one of the guys in our group and said, "Man, your eyes are f---ing beautiful."

When I come to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, I'm saddened by the comparative lack of beauty (limestone and gold give way to concrete and mildew) but I actually feel like a weight's been lifted from my shoulders. Maybe I'm leaving one form of spiritual heaviness for another, but in Tel Aviv the yoke feels lighter, if a bit dirtier.

Not to say that Tel Aviv doesn't have any beauty. There's some interesting architecture -- last year, they named the city a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its unique collection of Bauhaus-style buildings from the '20s and '30s. That part of town is called the White City, and with the money Israel plans to use for refurbishment, that name will cease to be a total misnomer. And along the Mediterranean, of course, the water and the beach and the sky are beautiful. Today I was standing on the roof of the Marina Hotel, looking out over everything, and it was a hazy day, so the sea and the sky met only in a fuzzy line, blue upon blue, with the sailboats moving out from the marina up toward the horizon until it looked like they were about to sail up among the clouds. It reminds me of a lyric Naomi Shemer wrote about the Tel Aviv beachfront: Or, or li be-einayim/Mi-shemesh u-mi-mayim/Al ha-tayelet sheli.

Tonight, though, I'm ready to leave this town. Normally it's sort of the goal; this time it's just a staging ground for something else. I've had enough of the tall buildings and I'm looking forward to seeing the rocks and the desert. Not the sun, though; yesterday I was totally unprepared for the intensity of the Mediterranean sun, and when I woke up this morning, I was red as a beet. I'd post a picture, but...

That's all for now. My next post may be from Eilat, where we'll be Monday night. If not, it may be awhile before I make an update. I appreciate everyone who's commented and written, and who are praying for us. Please don't forget about that.

Thank you.

Tel Aviv

Chase and I left Norman on Wednesday at 4:00 PM. Aaron Friedman, a friend from OU Hillel, picked us up and took us to the airport, which was a really great thing to do. We flew out at 6:30 and arrived at Newark at 10:30 PM. From there we took a bus into Manhattan and crashed at a friend's place. Actually, we stayed up talking till 5:00 AM, and then Chase and I got up at 8:00 to take a cab to JFK.

It felt fitting and strange at the same time that the first stage of this journey was a stop in the world's greatest and proudest city. I haven't ever spent much time in New York, but every time I've passed through it, I've known that it's the kind of place that naturally drives creativity. It is full of power and energy. But at the same time it felt inappropriate, as if all the forces and motivations that have built up that great city are the opposite of what I'm hoping to understand through the course of this long walk. So it was with a sense of detachment that I watched all the things pass by in the window, while our driver, Mohsin, a charming Arab dude, wove through lanes like a madman and blasted Ace of Base on the stereo.

We flew Israir Airlines to Tel Aviv. That was a first for us; in the past we've usually flown El Al, the Israeli airline. I think the best way to describe Israir is as the youth hostel of airlines. It's just comfortable enough to get you through, but you wouldn't ever want your grandmother to set foot there. Israir had just enough quirks to be funny and just a little unsettling at the same time. For example, all the flight attendants wear jeans and orange polo shirts, and everything's really low-key. That was good. But when the status screen on the 13-inch TV that most of the plane had to use to watch the in-flight movie showed all of our flight data in Icelandic (I'm not kidding), I felt like something was a little wrong.

But we got there, even though Chase and I were flagged at JFK for who-knows-what (well, I probably know; we had one-way tickets, which are always suspicious, and we were traveling for six weeks with hardly any clothes). They went through our stuff and escorted us all the way to our seats, along with a withered old Arab woman, with whom I was able to communicate rather well between her broken Hebrew and my broken Arabic. She couldn't speak any English, but I knew she was thankful when I helped her carry her bags to the plane.

I didn't sleep on the plane, and I haven't slept yet today. And the night before we left, I only slept for an hour because I was packing and doing last-minute stuff. So I've been running for about four days now on somewhere around four or five hours of sleep. Still, I managed to swim in the Mediterranean, eat an Abulafia cheese pizza on the Tel Aviv beachfront, get a wicked sunburn, and get in touch with Maoz Inon, our man in Nazareth. Now it's almost dinnertime and I'm thinking about crashing in my room after I eat.

On Sunday, Maoz is planning on coming down to Tel Aviv to go over maps with us and give us any additional information we might need. Then we'll drive down to Eilat, hiding water at various points in the desert as we go. On Monday, we will return our car in Eilat, take a cab to the Israeli-Egyptian border at the Red Sea, and begin walking north. All that is becoming real to me now and I feel good about it.

But now the sun is getting low over the sea; the stores are closing and the streets are busy as everyone gets last-minute items before heading home for the Sabbath. I have to walk several blocks to get back to the Marina Hotel, where Chase and I are staying tonight and tomorrow night with a college group from Oklahoma. I look forward to the peace of the Sabbath -- even though here in Tel Aviv, it's not nearly the quiet holiday you'll see celebrated from week to week in Jerusalem. It will be a nice rest from the stress of traveling.

I'll probably post again before I leave Tel Aviv, so you should hear more soon. Bye!

Eve of departure

It's almost three in the morning and I'm getting delirious. Why am I still awake? Because I'm trying to tie up loose ends before I leave for Israel. Me and Chase have to be at the airport tomorrow -- I mean today -- I mean May 24th -- at 4:30 PM to make sure we're on time for our 6:30 flight to Newark. From there it's a taxi or shuttle to JFK, and then we'll chill there till 9:30 the next morning, when we begin the rigorous Israeli airline security process.

We're flying Israir, which, to me, seems like a total wildcard. It's a pretty new airline -- my Hebrew teacher Ori informs me that it is, indeed, a "real" company (not the two dudes in a dorm room I envisioned when I was trying to make an online reservation a couple of months ago). But everything about Israir seems a little chicken-crate to me. Like being put on hold for fifteen minutes, only to reach someone who seemed confused by the term "confirm." If I'm starting an airline, that's probably the first word I'm teaching my new hires.

So I've got this picture in my head of me and Chase wearing goggles, huddled in the bomb bay of a World War II-era prop plane, freezing somewhere over the North Atlantic, with a stewardess in a parka offering me my Glatt Kosher meal, and my fingers so frostbitten I can't pull off the cellophane. (There are probably like 5 people in the world who get the joke I just made. See explanation at bottom.)

Anyway, the folks at Israir -- or actually, the androids who apparently sit behind computers, generating emails, because it's just about impossible to reach a human at this airline -- say that you need to show up 4 hours before the boarding time so that you can go through the security process. That beats El Al, which makes you show up 3 hours early, and won't even let you try to get on the plane if you're only 1 hour early (I know, because that happened to me last year, and it ended up taking me 3 whole days to get to Israel). So I'm looking forward to watching the contents of my backpack get strewn around some dimly lit room with a table.

Oh, man, I'm getting really tired, and I have to work at 8:00 AM.

I read on the news earlier today that the Palestinians shot a Qassam rocket into the Negev. Ordinarily, that wouldn't bother me. I guess I would probably think it was funny how those rockets never seem to hit anything. But of all places, why do they all of a sudden have to start launching rockets into the Negev? If I get hit by some rocket, Mandy's going to be hacked off.

Just for fun, I'll type out the remaining items on my list of things to do tonight.

Update weblog
Order tickets for group
Cut screen, get fiberglass
Call Beit ha-Yeled
Wal-Mart:
Exchange groundsheet
Headlamp battery?
Hardware cloth?
Pocketknife
Boxer briefs
Moist wipes
Chapstick
Flip-flops
Delicious food
Cigars?
Book?

Some of those things are a little strange -- maybe even a little creepy-sounding. I don't care, though. I need to go to bed.

Love,

Shay

*Joke explanation: Glatt Kosher meals are funny because everything is wrapped up in cellophane and sealed with a sticker so that you'll know there's no possible way anything could have rendered the food non-kosher. One time they screwed something up on an El Al flight, so they thought that's how I wanted all my food. So I spent half the flight tearing all the plastic off of my dumb sandwiches and stuff. The rest of the joke is funny because of the words "North Atlantic."

Stove test

This may be the last post for awhile, considering we're now only about 10 days out from leaving. I'm not sure how much time I'll have between now and then to update, and I'm fairly sure that it'll be difficult to post while on the trail. When I have the chance, I'll try to stop in internet cafes (definitely in Jerusalem) and upload pictures.

It's been a pretty weird time lately. A lot of things have converged to make everything really interesting. On Friday I found out that the guy who works right over me at work was leaving for a new job. That wouldn't be such a big deal, but he was kind of a friend and kind of a mentor to all of us in our department. It's hard for me to shake the feeling that I'm leaving at the worst possible time, but what can I do? I've got non-refundable plane tickets and a lot of commitments related to this trip. So I'm going.

That's not all, though. So far in this weblog I've written mostly about the logistics and the details of putting things together. I haven't said much about why I want to do this, or how I really feel about the whole thing. The truth is that I haven't been giving it much thought over the past few months. I've been so wrapped up in just making sure it would happen that I put everything else on the back burner, and now it feels like it's all catching up with me.

Mandy spent the night with some friends the other night and I was at the house by myself. That's no big deal, usually. But that night I was alone with my thoughts and I couldn't sleep, and all I could think about was the trail. My mind was stuck on all the things I hadn't done yet and all the things I'd been avoiding thinking about. I don't know if it finally dawned on me that in just two weeks, I was going to start walking across a somewhat volatile Middle Eastern country, or what, but I started feeling scared about all this for the first time.

I've never been scared to go to Israel, not even the first summer I went. I've always had this sense that what I was doing was somehow sure, that nothing bad would happen because there were still too many things I had to do. I suppose getting married takes the edge off of that mentality somewhat. And considering that Mandy and I are now seriously looking toward having kids, my view of myself has changed. I don't think of myself anymore as a kid who goes and does different things. I'm starting to see myself as a father, and I'm seeing my responsibilities in a more weighty and serious way.

So I laid there most of the night, waking up intermittently, with my stomach muscles burning from a hard workout at the gym, and with different scenarios flashing through my mind. It only makes sense to ask what would happen if I didn't come back from this trip, and what that would mean for Mandy and all the rest of my family, but at the same time, thinking like that doesn't do any good anyway, because in all likelihood things will work out just fine and I'll meet my beautiful wife in Tel Aviv on June 30, with a Sabbath dinner waiting for us in the city and the waves of the Mediterranean crashing on the beach.

But before that -- miles and miles of desert.

Last night I had trouble sleeping again. We watched Munich, which I hadn't seen. It wasn't the movie itself that got me thinking; it was just everything about Israel and what that country is, and what it means, not only for the Jews, but for the rest of the world. It's been 5 years now that I've been wrapped up in Israel, and all the while I've had the sense that I've become part of something much bigger than I ever would have thought, and my life is now wrapped up in the story. It is far away from the green cornfields of Indiana where I started.

All this might seem funny for people who have never been there. Some people -- Christians, even -- say that Jerusalem and Israel have no special place anymore in the heart of God -- at least, no more so than any other place. But I would caution anyone against making that judgment until going there and seeing the places and seeing the people, and the things that have happened there, and the evidence of things that one day will happen. It is the city of the great King, and I have found myself praying the prayer of the Psalmist: Im eshkachekh Yerushalayim...

The heading of this entry is "Stove Test." Why? Because I built an alcohol stove (known as the "Cat Stove" because it's made from two metal cat food cans [don't ask; it's just the best way to do it, and if you want proof, just check the Internet]) this past week and me and Chase tested it out. I was skeptical; I'd built an alcohol stove once before from a couple of Mountain Dew cans, and it didn't work so well.

But this one was awesome. I didn't, like, do a scientific experiment with a bunch of charts and boil times and stuff like some fanatical people do (again, check the Internet), but the fact that it boiled water at all -- enough for a three-man meal, no less -- in a relatively short time was enough for me. And it cost me about a dollar because once I bought the cat food cans, I cannibalized some fiberglass insulation that had blown down into one of my closets from the attic, as well as some window screen I'd had to cut when I had to break into my own house awhile back. Want to know why you use fiberglass and some screen when building an alcohol stove? Check the -- never mind, here you go.

In an earlier post I mentioned wrestling with the decision of whether to bring my MSR WhisperLite multi-fuel stove (easy to find fuel for, but accident-prone and relatively heavy) or a cartridge stove (hard to find fuel for, but [in my experience] reliable and lightweight). In the end I decided to take the MSR since it'll run on just about anything you dump into it, except maybe urine. Depends on what you drink.

The problem is that it doesn't look like I'll be able to take a stove on the airplane with me. I've read posts on webboards from a lot of people who have had differing luck with taking stoves on planes, but even on domestic flights, you're likely to have your stove confiscated if they find it in your checked baggage and it's been used even once. Seeing as how we're talking about Israeli air security, I'm not going to assume they won't find the stove. And if they do, I'm actually going to assume they'd boot me off the flight, and at that point, seeing the stove again would be the least of my worries.

So I'm thinking about bringing a couple of cat food cans with me instead, along with some fiberglass insulation and some wire mesh screen. Not the stove I used for the test -- that one really could get mistaken for some kind of bomb. No, I'll just take the individual components with me, and then assemble the stove while me and Chase are in Tel Aviv taking care of business before Greg gets there. There are plenty of hardware stores in Israel, as there are here, where you can buy denatured alcohol for fuel.

All right -- I'm going home and going to bed. Hopefully there'll be one more update before the trail, but we'll just have to see.

Pain and suffering

Hey. I wrote a big, long post earlier today, but then the website shut down for some kind of update and I lost the whole thing. So I'm going to sum up everything I wrote in one short sentence: On Saturday I walked barefoot across like two miles of burning hot pavement and tore my feet up something fierce.

Here's a picture you'll never forget (taken about five minutes ago; two-and-a-half days after the initial incident). I'll explain it. That's my left foot. I took that picture right here, in the Bizzell Library computer lab on the OU campus, and I probably grossed out like a dozen people. But I'm not a student anymore, so I have no one to impress. I was just telling Mandy that when I come here I feel like I'm surrounded with kids. No offense, kids.

Anyway, the weird multicolored spots are various blisters, some of which tore off completely.

I think I mentioned in the last post that I've been walking barefoot every day in an effort to condition and strengthen my feet for the weight and long miles they'll be bearing every day when we're in Israel. I'd just as soon adapt now, rather than break my feet in (or just break them) on the trail. So I thought my feet were getting callused up pretty nice.

Then, on Saturday, I was sitting in the living room watching Lawrence of Arabia when Mandy asked if I wanted to take a walk outside. It was about two P.M. and I thought that sounded pretty good. But it was about 92 degrees outside and the pavement was hot enough to fry an egg. I took one step on the street (these barbarous Oklahomans don't have sidewalks; no offense, Oklahomans) and found myself relegated to the white concrete gutter, which was probably only 140 degrees instead of 150.

We walked a long way, and for most of it, I thought I was fine. The last half-mile or so, though, I felt as if the skin had been torn from the soles of my feet, leaving nothing but a bloody pulp into which sand, shards of glass, and pieces of gravel found their way. Why did I feel like that? Because that was exactly what was happening.

So I got home and got really mad at myself for doing something so stupid. But a day later, my feet felt a lot better. Now I'm feeling fine -- and the good news is that my feet are going to be wicked callused now.

Additional news

I discovered a couple weeks ago that I've just received my first official film credit, and it's sort of Israel-related. A girl in my Hebrew class (I know her as Dinah [pronounced Deena], but you know how in language classes, everyone uses fake names [in Spanish, in seventh grade, I was known as Eduardo]) made a movie about the genesis of the Hebrew program at the University of Oklahoma.

Me and Daniel Perna (a good friend of mine, and Chase's roommate) are in the movie playing music at a Hebrew Club party. So we got credits in the film for "Musical Performance" I think this makes me only like 9 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon now. If you want to see the site, click here. Meanwhile, here's a crazy picture from the site. Daniel looks like some kind of religious zealot or something, and I look like I'm lecturing the camera.

OK -- it's Shay "Master of the Running Gag" Rabineau, signing off. Oh yeah: one month till departure.

Back on the trail

Sorry it's been awhile since the last update. It's been crazy, but a lot of my commitments of late have coincided with the Passover holiday -- church involvement and so on. But now that's mostly out of the way, so things are looking good right now. Here's the newest trail-related news:

Practice hike

Two weekends ago, Chase and I drove out to the Wichita Mountains of southwest Oklahoma to do a practice hike. Unfortunately, I forgot my digital camera, so there is no photographic evidence that said trip ever actually occurred. But they call me Shay "Honest" Rabineau, so you know that what I say is true. Any photos you see are stock photos from the Internet. Hey, here's one now. See, it sort of looks like the Negev:

We met up at 6:00 AM and weighed our packs until they were each exactly 30 pounds. We're hoping that's the heaviest they'll be, when we're hiking through the Negev with approximately sixteen pounds of water per person per day. It may be tough to get our pack weight that light, actually, since we have to factor in the weight of our food as well as our gear, but since we'll be drinking the water as we walk, our packs will get lighter each day as we go.

The overall goal of this hike was to duplicate the conditions we'll be facing as we walk through the Negev. Unfortunately, we couldn't control the temperature, which was a cool 70 degrees, as opposed to the 100-degree heat we'll feel on the trail. Other than that, though, we were able to pick routes with similar terrain and elevation changes. We hoped to cover 20 miles -- which is what we'll have to do every day if we want to finish the entire Israel National Trail. And if we could do it, we were both interested in seeing how we felt afterward, and if it was something we'd be able to do day after day.

I know: most people are probably reading this, thinking: 20 miles a day -- yeah, right. We're the first to acknowledge that we've set the bar pretty high. It's been done before, though. For people with ultralight gear, it's not unheard-of to cover 30 or more miles every day. Granted, that requires excellent physical condition, but with all this working out at the Y, me and Chase are getting a lot stronger. They've even started calling me Shay "King of the Pec Deck" Rabineau.

Anyway, we got on the trail a little late, since we had to drive an hour and a half from Norman. But by lunch, we'd covered over 8 miles, and we still had about 7 hours of daylight. And we were feeling really good. We got back to the car and drove to the Holy City of the Wichitas (see picture; yeah, it's a strange place) to eat lunch. While it doesn't look anything like Jerusalem, it stands as a monument to the devout and well-intentioned.

Instead of returning to repeat the loop trail we hiked in the morning, we drove over to another trail, which was marked on the map only as a game trail. It ran about five miles or so through a canyon of sorts, so once we got to the end, we'd have to turn around and hike straight back again.

The trail was, as my wife Amanda might say, "janky," and not well-marked. Cattle trails, often broader than the actual trail, merged and split off, and it was hard to tell most of the time if we were even going the right way. At one point we hiked halfway up a mountain before the trail disappeared almost completely and we realized the real trail had continued through the bottom of the canyon. We hiked to the top of the mountain anyway, where we encountered two climbers all of a sudden, which was a bit startling.

The mountain was good because it provided the kind of climb we'll encounter fairly often in the desert. We had to do some ducking and scrambling and we did just fine. Back at the bottom, we continued along the trail until it became too unintelligible to bother with, and then we started hiking back. We'd gotten in probably about three miles, and hiked three back.

So, all told, we knocked off fourteen miles by about 3:30 PM. But then we didn't hike anymore, and here's why: our muscles were fine, and the packs weren't hurting us at all -- but our feet were really sore. So we went to Meers and ate Meersburgers.

I'm not sure if it was a footwear problem or not, but it's something Chase and I have both decided that we need to address in serious fashion. Our shoes have thick, tough soles, but they're flexible and have good cushioning. I honestly felt like my feet were just tired, as if all the uneven, rocky terrain had just put a lot of stress on them, and they just needed to get stronger.

Back in Norman, at the Y, we talked to a couple of physical trainers who said we should work to strengthen our plantar fascia -- the web of muscles and tendons that spreads across the bottom of the foot. So we've been exercising by bunching up towels with our toes while watching TV. Yeah, Amanda thinks it's pretty weird.

In addition, I've been walking a couple of miles a day barefoot. They say it's a good way to condition your feet, because when your feet get away from all the cushioning and padding of normal shoes, they start using muscles they don't normally use. And in the end, your feet get a lot stronger. So far it seems to be working -- I can now walk across gravel-covered pavement with relative ease, and I'm building up nice, nasty calluses.

Overall: I think that by the time we hike the trail, we'll physically strong enough to do 20 miles in one day. But doing it every day, in difficult conditions, will be another story. I just hope that when this is all said and done, they don't start calling me Shay "Overly Optimistic" Rabineau.

Wedding plans

No, not me; I'm already hitched. But yesterday something funny happened.

I've been in the Hebrew program at OU for about three and a half years now, so I've gotten to know the Judaic Studies faculty pretty well. Norman Stillman, the head of the department, was actually my co-conspirator when I was in Jerusalem a few summers ago, plotting a good way to propose to Mandy (and I'm eterally grateful to Noam, because she said yes). There are lots of close connections and we've loved getting to know everyone. This past week, we did a Passover Seder (second seder) at the home of one of the Jewish families here in town, along with lots of the JUST faculty. We've been doing that for a few years now.

So yesterday, one of the Hebrew teachers was holding a reception at her house for her daughter, who's getting married this summer in Tel Aviv. Karni (I'm assuming that's the best way to spell it) and her fiancee Tomer were both in Norman, so we went by to congratulate them. Not that we knew them or anything.

It was cool, though, because we made friends with them right away. And it turns out that they're getting married near the beach in Tel Aviv on June 29 -- the day Greg flies back to the States, and the day before the team arrives in Israel. It's perfect because me and Chase will have one day of downtime, and then we'll spend that evening chilling with a bunch of new friends along the Mediterranean beachfront. We'll probably look like dark, skinny, bearded nomads by then, but that's all right.

Plus, Tomer says, "There will be a great DJ and lots of alcohol, this is the truth." And since me and Chase are such party people (see picture), we're totally there.

OK, that's enough for now. This is Shay "Biblical Garb" Rabineau, signing off.

Matisyahu

Warning: totally unrelated to the trail. Sort of. I guess since Matisyahu is Jewish, and Israel has lots of Jewish people, then it's sort of related. Sort of like how an Israeli hiking the Appalachian Trail might mention going to a Rolling Stones concert, since Mick Jagger speaks English, sort of like Americans do. If that makes sense to you, keep going.

Me and Chase went to see Matisyahu in Dallas last Wednesday night. We drove down there with a banner we made. It started off as sort of a joke. Don't we look sort of militant? Anyway, we thought it would be cool to do something that the guy noticed while he was on stage.

We were also going to make a more serious banner saying something to the effect that we supported his music, and what he was doing. But we did all this the night before the show, and by the time we were done with the first one, we were too tired to make another.

If you want the whole story, you can email me or something, but basically, Chase smuggled the banner into the building in his sock; we bribed a guard to get to the front row of the theater; we got people in the crowd to help us raise the banner; and just before the security guards took it away from us, Matisyahu leaned out over the crowd and motioned for us to hand him the banner.

He got pretty excited about it and held it out for everyone to see. Then, intermittently through the rest of the concert, he carried it around on stage, ran around with it, jumped up and down, etc. If you look closely in this picture, he's in midair and it looks like he's flying. You can barely see the Shield of David blazing above his head to the left.

During this time, me and Chase were freaking out and I was taking lots of blurry pictures, like the one below, in which he is wearing the banner as if it is a tallit, or prayer shawl.

After the show, we hung around outside the venue and waited to see if the band would come out. The bass player and guitar player came out and hung out with us for awhile, but they said Matisyahu was probably in bed by then and wouldn't be coming out till morning. Then, right when we were getting ready to leave, Matisyahu came walking across the parking lot looking like he'd just gotten up.

It was a cool thing for him to do, and during the brief conversation I could see that he's real-deal about what he believes, and he's not pushy about it. A lot of the Hasidim in Jerusalem are pretty hard to talk to, and have a real holier-than-thou attitude (literally), but he was almost apologetic about he standards to which he holds himself.


"When I saw that banner," Matisyahu said, "I got fired up. I'll remember this show because of that."

Me and Chase will remember it too, while looking forward to the next one. L'shana ha-ba'ah b'Yerushalayim, maybe.

OK, trail update: We're working on getting this thing on the local news, and hopefully more sponsorships will roll in. More to come.

Miscellany

This update doesn't have anything really crazy. We're making progress on a lot of fronts, but no major breakthroughs. Fundraising: inching ahead. Physical training: moving along fairly well. Logistics: Eh. But slow and steady wins the race, right? With a little under three months before our departure, I think we're doing OK.

Fundraising

One really exciting thing was when I got a letter in the mail last week in the mail from our old Scoutmaster, Wayne McEntarfer. Wayne has an auto body shop in Auburn, Indiana, called Classic City Body & Paint. Back when I got my old '66 Beetle, Wayne painted the car for me for almost nothing. He's done a lot of favors for me and Chase and Greg over the years, and he's always supported everything we've done.

But I was blown away when I saw a somewhat sizable check in the envelope along with the letter. It was more than I thought an individual would give. Suffice to say that it'll go a long way toward the three of us getting the gear we'll need for the hike.

Wayne wrote that he wanted to support our trip after he read the article in the Butler Bulletin. He said that you don't usually hear anything about ex-Scouts in the news unless they've been involved in a crime. When he saw us in the paper, he said he was proud that we were doing what we were doing, and he wanted to help.

I haven't written Wayne his thank-you letter yet, and I don't know if he'll ever see this. But if anyone from northeast Indiana happens upon this weblog, let me just say that Wayne and his business are worth supporting. Anyone will tell you that he's a man of his word, and one of the most honest businessmen you can find. I hope and pray that God will return blessings on Wayne and the McEntarfer family a hundred times over.

Physical training

Today Mandy woke me up at 5:45 AM so we could go to the Y and work out. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I did it, and tomorrow I'm sure my sore leg muscles will be thanking me. It's because of her, mainly, that I've been working out consistently over the past couple of weeks, doing a lot of cardio and weight training.

Chase has been working out, too, and so has Greg. I don't know as much about how Greg's been training, but if it's like anything else he does, I'm sure he's going at it with all his might. And Chase informed me that two weeks ago, he could do 10 dips (raising yourself up and down on bars at waist level...I don't know if that makes sense); then, a week ago, he could do 15. And last night, he says, he did 20 of them. So at this pace, by the time we leave for Israel, he'll be able to do like 75 dips.

What that really means, I don't know.

Anyway, for my part, I'm feeling really good and I can tell I'm getting stronger. I've kept drinking the shakes for extra calories -- sometimes two a day -- so I don't think I'm losing any more weight, and that's good, too. Basically, it's all good, right?

Logistics

Greg and I have gotten several emails from Israelis who are interested in our trip and want to help us any way they can. That's been really great; even if they won't all be able to help out, their support means a lot. The only occasional side effect is that everyone, Israeli or not, seems to feel the need to inform us that the desert gets really hot in the summertime. So here are some frequently asked questions, and some answers.

Do you know that the Negev desert is very hot in summer?

Yes.

Are you aware that it might be difficult finding water?

Yes; we are going to cache water at several points on the trail in the Negev. That way, we'll have water even if other sources are dry. And if something happens to those, the trail stays fairly near to highways, and we'll have a cell phone and GPS if we need help.

But there is no cell phone reception in the Negev desert.

Then the people at Israel Phones are lying to all of us.

Have you considered hiking the trail in spring or fall?

We have, but all of us are at the mercy of our job schedules. Greg's a teacher, and summer is the only time Chase and I can take that much time off.

I know these are only four questions, but they seem to be the most prevalent. There may be more, but unfortunately, I've gotten some e-mails in Hebrew that I've been unable to read because Hotmail can't hang with Hebrew fonts. It's too bad. I tried getting a walla.co.il account, but the OU computers don't have Hebrew fonts, either. So I'm stuck having to correspond in English.

All right, enough ranting. Thanks for reading, and you'll hear from me again soon!

A million miles per hour

A lot of things have been happening over the last couple of weeks, but I've been so swamped with work, etc., that I haven't been able to update the blog. I realize that by not updating, I have probably disappointed tens of people around the globe. So here's what's new:

Chase: officially on the team

"But I thought he was already on the team." Well, he was, unofficially, but it was all subject to our boss letting him off work for six weeks in the summer. And as anyone who's ever worked in a busy office knows, that can be a pretty tall request. Add the fact that Chase has only been there a little over a month, and it's sort of a miracle that the boss said yes.

For anyone who doesn't know what's going on, Chase moved out to Oklahoma so that he could get a job, which, we hoped, would make it possible for him to hike the trail. It looks like our prayers have been answered, so since his part in the hike became official, we've started training more seriously.

Training

Cue "Eye of the Tiger" by Frank Stallone. Me and Amanda (my wife) and Chase all went to the YMCA and got memberships last week. I've been up there a couple of times since then. Chase and I have decided that in addition to cardio work in the gym for endurance, we're going to try to bulk up in general by lifting weights and consuming a lot more calories.

Both of us have always been skinny -- him especially. Right now I'm at about 155 pounds, which is actually less than I've weighed over the past couple of years. Normally I'm between 160 and 165, but all this recent exercise, not to mention Mandy's vegetarian cooking, has trimmed me down even more.

So today Chase picked me up a case of cheap Wal-Mart brand breakfast shakes -- like Slim-Fast, except with more calories. We're going to drink them between meals, thereby adding about 400 extra calories per day. And Mandy is going to start cooking meat for me at home. Hopefully all this will result in me building muscle before we hit the trail.

In truth, I don't think we'll have to work that hard in order to be ready for the hike, because both of us are already in decent shape. But we'd rather hike too fast than too slow.

Our man in Israel

For the past several months, I've been in touch with an Israeli backpacker named Maoz Inon. Maoz is the proprietor of the Fauzi Azar Inn, a hostel in Nazareth's Old City. Maoz thru-hiked the Israel National Trail in 2004 and wrote a trail journal about his experiences. His INT page and journal are probably the most useful INT sites on the Internet, and he's doing a lot to pave the way for future thru-hikers, including me and Chase and Greg.

So far, Maoz has been extremely helpful in answering our questions, even though he just became a father a couple of weeks ago. If he keeps going like this, the INT is going to become a major tourist destination in Israel over the next few years. That's something I also want to see happen.

Right now, almost nothing has been written about the trail in English. That's what I'm hoping to contribute after the three of us have hiked the trail. I think if there were an English trail guide, lots of Americans would hike the INT while visiting the Holy Land. I can hardly count the number of Birthright Israel groups I've seen up around the Galilee, doing outdoor activities.

When Maoz hiked the trail, he wrote a data book that gives detailed, kilometer-by-kilometer descriptions of every landmark along the way. It includes all sorts of statistics and notes, without the bloated commentary that makes so many trail guides thick and heavy, and thereby useless to backpackers. I've been translating the first part of it into English, and when Maoz finishes his Hebrew version, I'm hoping to provide the full English translation. Here's my little part of it.

Maoz tells me an American group just stayed at the Fauzi Azar and was planning to hike along the section of trail covered by my translation. Hopefully it worked; I guess we'll have to see!

Anyway, a big thanks to Maoz for all the help he's putting in!

No hiking for a little while

It's not that I don't like winter hiking; it's more that I just don't like the cold. And I suppose I've gone soft after having lived in Oklahoma for the past seven years.

Three days ago it was seventy degrees. Then, last night, there was an ice storm that froze everyone's car doors shut (and I mean solid shut; at one in the morning I had to have a guy pour hot water all over Mandy's car door so we could get it open).

So today it's Saturday (shabbat shalom), and though it isn't my normal practice to do things like this on the Sabbath, I'm working on some stuff for the group from my church that's visiting Israel this summer. While I was at it, I got an e-mail from my old friend Evan Brown, who's deployed in Iraq right now with the 101st Airborne. Evan's been giving us a lot of useful information on desert hiking and, lately, GPS systems.

For awhile I was sort of hyped on the idea of carrying a cell phone with GPS built in. That would be one less thing to carry, and it would be cheaper, because in Israel, you can rent a phone for about a dollar a day. You might blow $300.00 for a good GPS unit.

But I'm a little concerned about how well these cell-phone GPS units work, if you're anyone other than a soccer mom using it to get you across town to go grocery shopping. Do they work at all in the mountains? And do they carry Middle East maps? Are they capable of showing your elevation and speed? Finally, do they cost a ton to actually use, because of the increased bandwidth required for all that data?

For all these questions, I have yet to find a decent, recent review online regarding how well these things work and how much they cost to use.

So I'm leaning now toward renting the cheapest, lightest phone we can find in Israel, and also buying the lightest and most reliable (notice I didn't say cheapest) GPS system we can get. Of course, we'll try to get the best deal possible, and we're currently running down some options. But the GPS is something we won't want to skimp on, since it'll be a useful source of information for any future book or trail guide I hope to write, and because it could save our lives.

Hike featured in the Butler Bulletin

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that the three of us were interviewed by Jeff Jones -- Scoop, we call him -- the reporter for the Butler Bulletin, the newspaper in the town where we all grew up.

The article is pretty cool. Let me give a shout-out to my peeps: Jeff Jones, you write a mean article. Gosh, it's been almost twenty years now since you took my first picture for the paper in first grade and referred to me as "You, the small one." You probably don't remember that, but it's funny what sticks in your head from when you're a kid. And Greg Bercaw: if it wasn't for you, hardly anybody would know about what we're doing. Seriously.

Anyway, you can read the article for yourself here. Check out that great head shot of me. It looks like I'm submerged in water!

A quick fix for gear fanatics

All right -- for a long time I've been wanting to get to the point where I can discuss the gear we'll be taking on the trip. But I haven't gotten to do a whole lot of that because we still need to buy a lot of stuff, and we can't do that until we've raised some more money for the trip.

Today, though, Chase and I went to Backwoods, an outdoor store here in Norman. I wanted him to see the range of stuff that's available here in town before we started looking online for things we want to take on the trip. So he tried on some packs -- the two top contenders right now are Osprey packs -- and we looked at stoves and hydration systems.

First I'll talk about stoves. I've got a nice, fully functional Campingaz cartridge stove that I've used on a couple of hikes, and that I really like. Ideally, something like that would be the best option for us: they're super-lightweight, they're easy to light and easy to cook with, and in the warm weather, there won't be much risk of a cartridge stove fritzing out. So initially, I thought I'd just take that. After all, Israel's hiking community has kind of a European vibe; I've been in hiking stores in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that carry Campingaz-compatible butane/propane canisters. So they're available.

But they're not available in the one-horse towns we'll be passing through, especially in the Negev desert. Plus, in those long, waterless stretches during which we'll each be carrying 8-10 liters of water per day, the last thing we'll want is a bunch of empty cartridges rattling around in our packs, waiting for a trash can.

The other option would be to use my MSR Whisperlite Internationale, which I love, but which is heavier and more accident-prone than the cartridge stove. The Whisperlite is a liquid-fueled stove, which means you have to carry a can of fuel (usually white gas, aka Coleman fuel, aka Scout water, which, incidentally, isn't available in Israel [at least, not anywhere I know of]) and pressurize it using a pump that screws onto the gas canister. That's fine, but I've been using mine for a good while now, and on my last hike in the Texas panhandle, it gave out on me while I was trying to warm up a can of Ranch Style Beans. Ever since eating those beans straight out of the can, cold, with my Lexan spoon, I haven't been a happy man, and I've eyed that stove in my garage with more than a little contempt.

Once I get the jet unclogged, it should be good. But it remains a risk on the trail.

So what do I do?

My plan right now is to go with the Whisperlite, and here's the main reason: the mother burns automotive gasoline as well as Coleman fuel. A guy I know who takes solo motorcycle trips to the Arctic Circle (seriously) just fills his Whisperlite out of his spare gas can, and that's it. Of course, this makes the jet even more prone to clogging, since gasoline isn't as pure as Coleman fuel. So I'll have to take every precaution I can to keep that from happening. But in the end, I'd rather deal with a heavier stove burning dirtier fuel than a cartridge stove that's useless because nobody's selling cartridges.

Some people, I realize, are very bored by this discussion.

So I'll move on to something everyone's excited about: hydration systems! This is something brand-new to me, actually; all through Scouts and up to now, my system has been two Nalgene bottles -- one inside the pack, and one I can sip from while walking. But like I said before, in the Negev, we'll need to carry the equivalent of eight Nalgene bottles a day. That's sixteen pounds of water, and I don't want to mess with the additional weight of all those bottles.

The obvious solution, to me, was the 10-liter MSR Dromedary Bag. I checked one out at Backwoods today and I liked it. Thing is, that sucker is pretty heavy-duty, and I think I could go lighter. Plus, with the pack I'm bringing (GoLite Gust), I'd like to have a little more freedom to distribute weight the way I like it. The MSR bag would basically like carrying a 16-pound brick around in there. To make matters worse, Backwoods doesn't stock the conversion caps that turn the bags into legitimate hydration systems with drinking tubes, etc.

I could buy them online -- but then the Backwoods guy tells me the reason for not stocking the caps and tubes: they leak. Instantly I envisioned what would happen if I took my pack off in the desert and realized that my water bag had popped open, soaking all my stuff, and leaving me nothing to survive on except for whatever I could wring out of my sleeping bag. And considering how long it'll have been since I've washed said sleeping bag -- well, I don't want to think about how the water would look and taste.

Camelbak pretty much dominates the hydration system market, but all they had were 3-liter containers. But here's what the Backwoods guy suggested, and what I think I'll end up doing: get 4 Platypus 2-liter bags, with the cap and tube that convert it to a hydration system. In the end, the combination of bags weigh about the same (maybe less; I'll have to check) than the MSR Dromedary 10-liter, but they offer the flexibility I want. They're cheaper, too. And from this guy's experience, they don't leak. Much.

So I bought one bag, and the cap/tube thing. Next time I go practice hiking through town, I'm going to try it and see how it works. And if I like it, I'll get the other three bags. If I hate it -- well, I'll be out a few bucks, but it wasn't that expensive, anyway. And I'll use it on shorter hikes close to home.

That's it for gear. Last thing: Me and Chase and Greg all got interviewed for our hometown paper, The Butler Bulletin, last week. They're doing a story about the hike, and it'll probably run in the neighboring town's newspaper, too. It's nothing huge, but Greg's doing a great job getting the word out in Indiana about what we're doing. As soon as the article's published, I'll post a link on this blog.

All right, I'm back!

It's been awhile, but I'm ready now to begin posting in earnest. During this hiatus, Greg Bercaw, our Indiana team member, has gotten our website up. Thanks especially to his wife Kelly, who is a skilled web designer, the site is now showing at www.israelnationaltrail.com. As soon as I'm done posting on this blog, I'm working on some more content for that page. Before too long, it'll be a full-blown thing.

Team member (and brother) Chase Rabineau is in Oklahoma now, too

In other news, my brother Chase just moved to Oklahoma from Indiana. So he's sort of bridged the gap between Greg and me. He just got his degree from Ball State University (if you're in college, he's got a wicked Facebook page) and is now working at the company here in Norman where I work. I'm his boss now and it's kind of weird for both of us. But he's doing well, and paying off those loans.

Chase's arrival in Oklahoma came in the middle of a lot of other things. We're taking a team of college- and post-college-age students from our church to Israel in early July, so on top of planning this hike, we've got to book airfare for a dozen other people. It'll be a lot of fun once we're there, but until then, we're awfully busy. We've been squeezing training and exercise in between a million other things.

Our training so far: Urban hiking

Our training, while I'm thinking about it, has been interesting thus far. We've been loading our packs with about 30 pounds' worth of junk and then hiking around town. The first time we tried it, we walked to work from my house. We left at about 7:00 AM and got there at 7:45. It's a good 2 1/2 miles, so by the time we walked back after work, we'd gotten a decent amount of exercise. There was also the added bonus of seeing multiple people laugh at us as we walked down the busy streets full of rush-hour traffic.

The other night, we were walking through Campus Corner (Norman's just-off-campus area of bars and restaurants) and a couple of guys yelled, "Walk on, brothers! Walk on!" It's nice to see that the public is getting into our endeavor.

Really, though, we're going to have to start training a lot more seriously if we want to be in shape to start off hiking through the Negev. We're trying to strategize the best times of day to walk, how far apart we'll have to cache our water in the desert, and how many miles per day we'll have to go in order to have a couple of rest days in Jerusalem. These are all things we need to answer quickly.

On the average, though, we think we'll have to go about 20 miles a day. I don't think that'll be a problem as we go through parts of the Negev and most of the coastal plain, because there's not a whole lot of elevation change. But there are a lot of rugged areas in the desert, and the Galilee and Golan will involve a lot of up-and-down hiking. By then, we hope to be fairly used to the grind of daily hiking, so the Negev will be our most brutal testing ground.

No, Mom, nobody's going to hurt us

It seems like Hamas always tries to ruin my summer trips to Israel. I guess that's what terrorism's all about, though; making people afraid. A couple of years ago, the Israelis kept blowing up Hamas leaders -- I think they killed three of them, one right after the other. And as soon as they'd put a new guy in place, his cell phone would explode or something, and they'd have to get someone else. If I were Hamas, I guess I'd be mad about it, too. Eventually they learned, though, and they quit letting the world know who was running the show.

Anyway, that summer they vowed to unleash a campaign of violence the likes of which had never been seen in Israel -- they like saying things like that, even when incapable of carrying it out -- and it got a lot of people worried, but nothing really happened. And what did happen was nowhere near us.

This year it's happening all over again -- the worries, anyway. Since Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, we've had to take another look at our hike, and decide whether this is going to change the situation in Israel enough to create a serious threat. Right now, we're going ahead with our plans, and we'll just keep an eye on things. I honestly don't think it will be a big deal, but we'll do our best to be honest with ourselves and everyone else involved. Meanwhile...

Still lots of details to work out

There are a lot of things on the horizon that I can't talk about just yet, but we're working hard at getting funds lined up. We want to make it clear to everyone that this isn't just a fun adventure for us (although that's a big part of it), but also an opportunity for us to come back home and tell people about what we did. The educational aspect is a big thing for all three of us -- whether it involves talking to a church youth group about the places where Jesus walked, or to a synagogue about the history and modern importance of the State of Israel, or even to a group of backpackers about what it takes to plan a major hike in a foreign country. We think this will benefit a lot of people on a lot of levels; they just have to ask.

With that in mind, we're looking for sponsorships from civic organizations that want their members to learn more about Israel or the Middle East in general. So if anyone reading this knows anyone who might be interested in helping out, send them to www.israelnationaltrail.com and get the word out!

How all this began

I'll start at the beginning. It's kind of a long story.

When I was 15 years old, me and my brother and my friend Greg were all in Boy Scouts together. In our small town (Butler, IN; population 2,601) everyone pretty much knew everything about what went on in each other's lives, and in our school, it was pretty much unanimous that things like Boy Scouts were for dorks and losers. Our troop was brand-new, though, so all of us who joined at the beginning had an opportunity to sort of set the pace and make it whatever we wanted it to be. Most of us were interested in hiking, backpacking, and wilderness survival, as opposed to leatherwork and Indian lore. Our leaders encouraged us in these pursuits, so to us, Boy Scouts was awesome.

Still, it had to stay a carefully guarded secret, lest our friends find out and ridicule us mercilessly. Every summer we had to march through town in the Memorial Day Parade, which we dreaded, but which fortunately few people our age bothered attending. And from time to time we had to wear our uniforms while doing service projects, so we'd make every excuse to wear jackets because it was too cold, put on T-shirts because it was too cold, and so on. This frustrated our leaders, I imagine, but it enabled us to save face in the cutthroat world of junior high and early high school.

Once every month or so, though, we would either go camping as a troop, or we'd participate in one of the big council-wide campouts at the big Scout camp north of where we lived. During those times, we loved being in Scouts because it meant building sleds and racing them (and in our case, I might add, kicking all the other patrols' butts), spending the night in shelters made from fallen logs and pine boughs, and competing against other patrols in firebuilding, canoeing, and cross-country navigation. Me and the other guys in my patrol got pretty good at the competitions and eventually started winning a lot of them.

I talk about all this now, and a lot of my friends wish they'd had the opportunity to do things like that. I probably shouldn't have been so ashamed of it at the time. It's funny how self-conscious you can be when you're that age.

Anyway, I eventually had the opportunity to join a group of Scouts from my area on a summer trek at Philmont Scout Ranch. Philmont is famous among Scouts, but has achieved a lot of notoriety outside the organization as well. It's a huge ranch in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rockies in northeastern New Mexico. A Philmont trek usually lasts about 10 days and consists of a long backpacking trip punctuated with climbing, rappelling, mountain biking, and other outdoor activities. It's sort of the Mecca of the Scouting world; once you've been to Philmont, you have a certain degree of respect among your peers, and can legitimately look toward planning bigger wilderness adventures on your own.

During the practice hikes, I was chosen to be the crew leader -- a role for which I felt inadequate and unprepared. I was the smallest member of the twelve-man team. Our adult leaders, I knew, preferred to let us learn by thrusting us into situations and allowing trial and error to teach us. It was clear to me that this was a position of heavy responsibility and decision-making. But no one else wanted the job, so I took it.

When I look back now on the Philmont hike, I remember how great it was and how much fun I had. But at the time, I felt like I was about to buckle under the burden. Every night, I stayed up later than everyone else, reading topographical maps by flashlight and plotting out the best course for the next day's hike. And in the morning, I had to be the first one out of bed so that I could wake the others and begin distributing crew gear for people to pack. There were times almost every day when we'd reach a tricky area off-trail and have to navigate using landmarks and compass bearings, and the adults would make it very clear that it was my decision, not theirs. And at one point, one of the adults got openly angry at one of my decisions at the end of a very long day, and I had to both ease the tension and convince him that I was right.

The only time the adults took outright control was when a bear wandered into our camp during dinner on the fourth of July, and we had to ward him off by yelling and banging on pots and pans. Otherwise, everything was left to the teenagers, and ultimately, to me. At times I relished in it, but often I wondered why I had to do what I was doing, and whether I was doing a good job. On the long train ride back to Chicago, I spent most of the time looking out the window at the passing country and resolving in my mind that I would never do anything like this again.

And for about five years, I didn't. My backpack sat in my parents' garage in Indiana, collecting dust, while I went to a sort of boarding school at Ball State and worried about getting girls to like me. And I left it there, too, when I moved out to Oklahoma for college; for a long time, the last thing on my mind was loading a pack and setting out for parts unknown.


But then things started changing in me. Israel affected me a lot. I began going there every summer and finding myself intrigued by the desert places and the lonely hills. And even in Oklahoma, on the Plains, I often thought of what it would be like to walk alone across those empty spaces. And then, finally, I took my pack from Indiana and started using it when I felt like I needed to get away and understand things. With it I went to a couple of places nearby, and then the Texas panhandle, and even again to New Mexico, by myself, during those times I wanted to try and hear from God. And sometimes I think I might have -- but those are other stories.

It was after all this, on my third trip to Israel, that I found myself sitting on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee with a couple of friends, sipping drinks and enjoying the warm summer air, that I first thought of what it would be like to take a backpacking trip through Israel. At the time I was working for a Holy Land tour operator, so I was thinking of it in terms of bringing college-age tourists to Israel and leading them on Bible-related wilderness hikes. My friends and I started putting together a dream itinerary: a Negev trek reminiscent of Abraham; a jaunt around the En Gedi oasis near the Dead Sea, where David's men hid from Saul; some hikes around the Kinneret and the Galil, where Jesus and his disciples bummed around; and finally, a walk atop the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. In that dreamlike place, though, with the plateau of the Golan rising darkly to the east, and army flares shooting mysteriously at intervals into the starry sky, a trip like that seemed far from reality.

Back home, though, I started checking into what it would take to lead such a tour. I couldn't find much information, though, because hiking isn't something a lot of Americans, or English-speakers in general, do when they're in Israel. Americans stay in posh hotels, hang out around the holy sites, and ride around in big buses. And the backpackers don't do much backpacking, per se -- at least, not in the wilderness sense. They hitchhike, bum rides, and crash in hostels.

But then I found an online Jerusalem Post article on the Israel National Trail. It was only a short travelogue that dealt with one section of the trail, but it was enough to get me excited. A footpath that wound around through the entire length of the country, from Dan to Beersheba and then some, was the kind of thing I'd been looking for.

The problem was that there was nothing else. I could hardly find anything about the trail -- not in English, at least. My Hebrew was only good enough at the time to decipher headlines and short snippets of articles about the trail, so I couldn't do any extensive reading on Israeli websites. Having been trained in college as a writer, though (my degree was in English Writing and I wrote feature articles for the Sooner yearbook), I thought the perfect thing to do would be to hike the trail myself and then write about it.

That was about two years ago. I'm now in my fourth year of Hebrew and I've gotten pretty good at it; I'm conversational, but not yet fluent. I can read the Shvil Israel guidebook, though, and I'm currently translating a data book (written by Maoz Inon -- see his site here) that is, as far as I know, the only existing English-language resource for hiking the trail. My research, to this point, has been extensive, but mostly theoretical. I still have to work out some of the logistical details, like caching water in the Negev while driving from Tel Aviv to Eilat, and that's what this weblog is all about. In the end, I hope to create a chronicle of what it takes to walk across a foreign, and yes, occasionally volatile country, from start to finish.

My little brother, Chase, is going with me, and so is my old friend Greg. The three of us are currently training, studying, and raising funds to make the hike a reality. As we get closer, I'll keep updating this weblog so that anyone interested can follow along with what we're doing. And once we're on the trail, I'll take every opportunity I can to update the blog to keep people up on where we've been and what we've seen. It'll be an amazing trip, and one that few Americans have ever undertaken.

In my next post, I'll write about some more of the logistical issues associated with all this, and what we're doing to train ourselves physically for the hike.