Our New Normal

A return to 'normal' requires a vaccine per Jay Inslee's own website. 

1. There has NEVER been a safe vaccine developed for any coronavirus. Ever. Not for lack of trying. They have been able to produce vaccines that work but each are not considered safe for humans. All of the sudden they're going to pop one out 12-18 months from now?

2. Vaccines take YEARS to safely test. Often times side effects are not discovered until many people have reported them, and are not disclosed to the public in many cases.

3. Covid-19 has a 99%(ish) survival rate. A rushed vaccine could end up being more dangerous than the disease. In 1955 a polio vaccine contained a live virus that accidentally infected 40,000 children. The Swine Flu vaccine has been linked to Guillain–Barré Syndrome (particularly a 1976 vaccine). A quick Google search can give you countless more examples.

4. Mayo Clinic states "Reviews of past studies have found that, on average, the flu vaccine is about 50% to 60% effective for healthy adults who are between 18 and 64 years old. The vaccine may sometimes be less effective."  

I am not an anti-vaxer. My children are vaccinated. However, the fact that our Governor doesn't plan on fully opening up our state until a vaccination is available should make anyone who has an IQ over 60 question his intentions. I've seen geniuses on this board who will jump on a vaccine as soon as it's available. Me? I think I'll pass, thank you very much.

Pandemic Pandemonium

We started hearing about the new coronavirus that was circulating in the Wuhan region of China in December 2019. There wasn't a ton of information, but we were led to believe that it originated in a wet market and that it wasn't a super big concern. Stories were growing more common by the beginning  of January, but the WHO (World Health Organization) had assured us that this virus wasn't airborne and we had nothing to worry about.

By January 20th, Washington State confirmed the first known case of COVID-19 in the United States. People were beginning to pay attention. Patient Zero was quarantined  and they tracked down anybody who he had come in contact with. They believed that they had successfully contained this virus, which by then had killed roughly 3100 people in China and reports were now coming from Italy they they, too, had cases. However, when days later they found other cases of COVID-19 in people who hadn't had any contact with Patient Zero they had to have known that there was likely a problem on their hands. But still, when the Washington Flu Study began testing their samples for this new virus the CDC immediately shut them down. Their reason? Confidentiality reasons that make absolutely no sense to me. 

Italy's cases began to surge, and before they knew it they were in a crisis. The virus, which was known to be most dangerous to the elderly and people with preexisting conditions, swept through Italy's elderly communities like an invisible Grim Reaper. The Italian government issued a mandatory shut-down of all non-essential businesses and told residents to stay home and only leave their houses by penalty of law. 

Seeing what was happening in Italy, the state of Washington followed suit: Our Governor closed down all all schools and 'non essential' businesses. He issued the 'Stay Home Stay Healthy' initiative and gave orders us not to leave our homes except for essentials such as food or medications. The playgrounds and parks were closed. Fishing was verboten. Neighbors could speak to one another from their yards. People must maintain a minimum of six feet from each other when in a public place. Panicked, the store shelves were immediately picked over and toilet paper and Chlorox wipes became impossible to find. Face masks were being bought out and the original initiative was for people to NOT buy face masks -- our healthcare system needed them and they wouldn't do any good to keep you safe. After a few weeks they switched their tune and began telling us to cover our faces in public, but to make our own face masks. Restaurants closed except for takeout orders. Hair and nail salons were not essential. Elective surgeries were no longer offered. Dentists and eye doctors shut their doors. 

"Flatten the Curve" was preached from every available news source. Frightened people began parroting this and before long you were seen as an uncaring and evil soul if you left your home. If you were careless enough to leave your home without a hand made face mask then you were the epitome of selfishness. Neighbors ratted out neighbors for seeing additional cars in front of their homes. Busybodies snitched on businesses that they deemed 'non-essential'. The unemployment numbers soared. The government's answer? A 3 trillion dollar stimulus package to all people who made below a certain amount of money. Then another stimulus. Then another. Unemployment numbers continued to rise. Most of the rest of the country followed suit. Before you knew it nearly all of the American children were out of school with three months left in the school year.

After two months of the shut down the message began to change. "Flatten the Curve", the overused mantra of people with the intent to lessen the load on our healthcare system against the sudden influx of COVID-19 patients turned into "Shelter in place until we contain this virus" but few people, so terrified of contracting this virus which by now showed less than 1% mortality rate, seemed to notice or care. Mainstream media sources fed a constant IV drip of fear mixed with the sanctimonious message to 'Stay Home' to their listeners. The masses happily complied. 

Meanwhile, a bigger problem was manifesting in our country. Crime rates climbed as people lost their income. Suicides skyrocketed as people crumbled under the weight of hopelessness. Business owners who have poured their entire lives into their businesses helplessly closed their doors, some for the last time. Child abuse cases went down; yet hospitalizations of child abuse soared because the children were stuck at home with their abusers with no reporters to inform the authorities of their suffering. Domestic violence increased. People began to die from heart attacks at home because they were so scared to go to the hospital and contract the virus that they preferred to wait it out. Cancer patients refused to seek help, and sometimes their surgeries were somehow deemed to be 'elective'. 

As of today, May 13th, 2020, some states are beginning to slowly open back up. Washington State, the first to shut down, remains mostly closed. We could have it worse; the governor of Oregon announced that, despite it's extremely low case and death rate, they will be shut down through June into July. The governor of California announced that LA county will be closed through July. 

I fervently believe that history will show that we've done the exact opposite of what we should have done. COVID-19 is hardest on elderly and people with preexisting conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and severe asthma. We had months of data from China, South Korea and Italy before it hit New York City with a bang in late March. We knew that it rarely affected children and that most healthy adults either presented with mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Yet what did we do? Closed down the schools and our entire economy. Instead of paying out massive stimulus packages, efforts would have been better focused on serving our weak and elderly. Committees should have formed that would require hospitals to reach out to patients who are over the age of 60 and people with preexisting health conditions. Special care should have been given to these groups to ensure that all of their needs were met so that they didn't need to leave their homes and could hopefully ride this out until a safe treatment was found. Then the rest of us needed to go on with our lives and get sick. Our children needed to go to school and spread the funk amongst one another. The healthy adults should have gone on with their usual routines. Some of us would get very sick but would almost certainly recover. Most of us wouldn't even notice when we were sick. But we needed to let nature take its course in its most natural way. 

But that's not what happened or is going to happen. Instead, they think that we can actually stay at home and somehow contain this airborne virus, which was likely circulating months before they realized it was in the United States. They have the idea that we can enter a gas-filled room with our breath held and think we will never need to inhale. There is no solid plan on reopening our economy, at least not in this state. Only open-ended platitudes and meaningless initiatives. 

It feels hopeless. 

Baby G

There is no way I'm going to do this entry justice. I'm not even sure where to begin.

Let me first start by explaining that since this blog began we have had a change of venue...we are no longer on top of our mountain looking down at the Denver Metro area. We are now in the beautiful Evergreen State. For three years we tried to build a house. Twice we were almost to the point of pulling trucks in to start building when the deals fell through. We were devastated and wondered why we had to sink thousands into a building permit only to find out that we couldn't use it. We ended up selling the property (and making a pretty decent profit off of it) and buying a home on 20 acres. I'm the proud owner of two almost-well behaved horses and we're pretty happy here, content to leave the home building nightmare in the past.

Fast forward...I have given birth to five children. Over the years that I've had this blog I've shared some of the struggles through my pregnancies, though I've really not gone into incredible detail. One thing was for sure -- I knew that I was finished having babies. When your kids start having their own kids it's probably time to throw in the proverbial pregnancy towel.

This was a perfectly good plan. I had two grown boys, three beautiful daughters and an amazing granddaughter. I was ready to hang it up and peacefully move into the next phase of my life. By now I would think that I would be used to my life never going the way I ever expected it to...

In October 2017 my husband's nephew and his girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl. While in the hospital the baby's birth mother tested positive for heroin. The parents insisted that the test was wrong and the baby's paternal grandmother (my husband's sister) took the baby in until the mess could be straightened out. Unfortunately, it turned out that both parents were addicted to not only heroin, but other drugs as well. They lost custody of the little girl, and my sister-in-law has officially adopted her. This would have been the end of the story but in February 2019 we got the phone call that changed our lives: The baby's birth mother was seven months pregnant again. She hadn't had any prenatal care and we already knew that she was an addict. It didn't take us but five seconds after getting off of the phone to know that we were willing to take this child.

We were told that the baby was due at the end of June. We tried to get the legal cogs turning, but things were just not moving. Then we found out that the birth parents were trying to give the baby up for adoption. In the state where they live adoption agencies are allowed to pay the living expenses for birth mothers. This kind of money was like winning the lottery for an addict. We called the adoption agency and pleaded for them to stop courting the birth parents. The adoption agency refused and pursued even harder.

On May 16th, 2019 the baby boy was born, six weeks early. He was born on the floor of a dirty hotel room in a not-so-reputable area. He tested positive for three different drugs in his system. His birth parents left him at the hospital with no name after signing the adoption papers. We were devastated; they had sold their baby. I sent her a text message pleading for her that if there was any chance at all to undo what she had done to please undo it. Her children deserved to grow up knowing one another.

That weekend we drove up the peninsula, our hearts broken for a baby that we didn't know but somehow felt like ours. When we returned we learned that his birth mother had signed all of the necessary adoption papers -- except for one. The one being the most important paper that severed her rights to her child. All of the sudden we were back in the game and were trying to figure out the next steps.

Unfortunately, because he was legally abandoned at the hospital and had numerous drugs in his system, the state was now involved. To add further complications, because they never filed for a birth certificate the baby did not have a father and so therefore he was not related to us. He went from the NICU to foster care and we had no way of intervening.

After five weeks the paternal grandmother (the adopted mother of his biological sister) was able to get custody of him. I immediately flew out there to get him, with the idea that while we worked through the legal channels she would be able to to temporarily care for him. I met my son for the first time when he was five and a half weeks old. But it wasn't meant to be at that time. The state would not let me take him home to Washington and my sister in law was unable to take care of him. I was able to be with him for three weeks before I had to say goodbye to him and leave him with a new set of foster parents.

I can't begin to tell you how it feels to bond with your child after three weeks only to lose him. At this point we didn't know if we would be getting him back. The foster parents that he was with wanted to adopt him and the LGBT rights could very well have gone in their favor. When I asked the Department of Children and Families I was originally told that the birth parents could not simply sign their baby over to us. After some digging, however, we discovered that they could -- but it would be very costly and attorney fees would top out around $12,500.  We didn't have that kind of money at our disposal. We were determined to make it happen, but we didn't know how we were going to do it.

The next day a miracle happened. A check had come in from King County, where we had attempted to build our house twice. It was a refund for building inspections that never happened in the amount of...$12,500.

Maybe you believe in miracles and maybe you don't. I have had a lot of things happen in my life that can only explained by using that 'm' word. This is one of those times. We immediately hired the best attorney that we could find. We had to hurry up and get our home study done. Somehow we hooked up with the most efficient case worker in the world and she pushed it through within two weeks -- something that was supposed to take a minimum of 2 months to complete.

What labor by paperwork looks like

The court date was set for July 25, 2019. I hopped on a red-eye and flew 6 hours to get there before a 8am hearing to sign over their parental rights. But when the hearing came the Attorney General had not had the time to review the case study, which only made it to her the night before. She said it would take her a week to review. Thankfully the judge saw my horrified face and ordered that she review it that evening and we would meet first thing in the morning.

The next morning I was finally given permission to have custody of our new son, Baby G. It took a week for the ICPC process to complete before I could take him home to Washington, but when it finally came we hopped on our plane and began the next chapter of our lives.

The day I got him back!

So we're back to having an infant in the house and all that comes with it! Sleepless nights, teething, crawling and now he's almost ready to start walking. I'm delighted to say that he has absolutely no known side effects of his mother's drug use. He is a happy and healthy baby boy who will be turning 1 this Saturday. We are so blessed!

Airman J2

Catching up on the blog is bringing back a lot of interesting and meaningful experiences from the past few years. There are some memories that I would prefer to forget, but some of them are definitely worth remembering. 

When your children are young it's difficult to imagine them being anything other than that. But one day you realize that they are gone and you're never getting those days back again. I haven't had all of my children together under one roof in many years. Actually, as you'll find out later in this blog (once I've made more updates) I've never had them under one roof. More on that later...

Last January J2 made the decision to join the US Air Force. I honestly wasn't sure that he would be able to withstand the stress of basic training. But as soon as I returned from Israel last year I had to immediately make a trip to San Antonio, TX to watch my son graduate from Air Force BMT. I was so unbelievably proud of him!

Now he's off serving his country (actually, he's delivering mail) in South Korea. Soon he'll have his orders and heading off to Japan - a place that he's always dreamed of visiting. I'm so stinking proud of my Airman 1st Class J2.

Israel...Part 2...Day 15

March 20, 2019

Day 15: On our last day, we decided to do something completely out of our comfort zone and terrifying to us: taking the train across town to Yad Vashem. We really had to give ourselves a pep talk on this one. We had no idea how to buy the tickets, how to board the train, or how to disembark once we finally figured out where we are going. But after some research and talking with an American volunteer at the hostel we felt ready! And you know what? It was easy and I wish we had been using it all along! Hahahaha


So, after checking out and storing our luggage, we went by Cofix so I could get one last Hot Sachlab. Then we took the train to Yad Vashem, otherwise known as the Holocaust Museum. Joanie had heard that we should reserve about four hours to see the museum. The truth is that we probably needed at least six, maybe more. They didn't allow photos taken inside the museum (or backpacks...or babies) so I don't have a lot of pictures. The museum was what I mostly expected, but I did learn some things that I hadn't known before. It was a sobering experience and it really helped put our own lives and situations into perspective.

The Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations

Yad Vashem

View from Yad Vashem

Afterward, we took the train back to the Yehuda Market to grab some last minute treats and decided to leave early for the airport.All around us were children and adults alike, decked out in their Purim costumes. For those of you who aren't familiar with Purim, this holiday commemorates the biblical story of Queen Esther, a heroine who saves the Jewish people from certain death. It is celebrated with special cookies called Hamantashen and is one of the more fun holidays that the children enjoy. How all of this translates to a modern mix of Halloween and Mardi Gras is beyond me, but that's what it has become in Israel. We definitely didn't want to be in Israel during this madness, so us old Fuddy Duddies are pretty happy to be hanging in the airport instead.

Last Cofix!!

As this trip comes to an end, we are remembering all of the special times we had on this trip; places we never expected to go, people we never expected to meet but have found a special place in our hearts. And even though we went on so many adventures and had so many laughs, we are still leaving with the feeling that we missed so much. We keep finding ourselves saying, "Oh well, we'll go there next time." Will there be a next time? Probably not, but it certainly makes it easier to leave.
I'm going to sign off here with practical tips for the practical Israel traveler:

1. Bring a roll of toilet paper everywhere you go. Not all restrooms contain toilet paper, or they run out frequently.

2. Pack Wet Ones sanitizing wipes.

3. Hand sanitizer. Just do it.

4. Jerusalem Tram: Buy a single ticket at the kiosk near the train stop. When you board the train simply validate your ticket by inserting it into a machine by the door. KEEP YOUR TICKET UNTIL YOU GET OFF THE TRAIN! Sometimes an intimidating person comes by with a little beeping machine to check your ticket to make sure that you validated it. The fine is steep if you don't have your ticket or have forgotten to validate it. Then disembark after any stop, you do not have to get a ticket for a specific destination, but once you get off the tram you'll need a new ticket (5.90 ILS)

5. $1 = 4 shekels (approximately). Whatever the price is in shekels just divide by 4 to get US dollars.

6. Pack light. You can always do laundry and you will be dragging your suitcase everywhere.

7. Watch the weather. We went from unbearably cold to frying hot within 24 hours.

8. Don't be afraid to barter at the shuk (market). It is intimidating at first but you'll get used to it. Might I suggest the good cop/bad cop routine?? Figure that each item is quoted about twice as much as it's worth.

9. A Nesher/Sheruts cab costs about 65 - 70 ILS per person to run from Ben Gurion to Jerusalem. We got back to the airport from Jerusalem for 25 ILS a person by hanging out at the central bus station. You can take a bus for 16 ILS but then you have to deal with a bus full of people...and possibly stops.
The cabbies drive extremely aggressively but they'll get you there quickly!

10: Big tours are good to get you to many places but they NEVER give you enough time there. Better to research and then try to find your own transportation to and from if it's a place you really want to spend time at.

Israel...Part 2...Day 14

March 19, 2019

Day 14: Our last full day in Israel! Today was a day full of 'lasts'. Our last day to shop at the shuk. Last walk up Jaffa St. Last cheese bureka. Tomorrow will be full of even more lasts as we close out this trip. But I'll post a sappy epilogue tomorrow night when I set forth on our plane ride home and have 19 hours to kill.

Bureka

There were still a few items that I wanted to buy at the shuk so we decided to start our day in the Old City. I picked up a really cool book from a bookstore called 'Elia's Photo Shop'. This book contains photographs of Israel taken by the shop owner's grandfather and includes photos from 1930s - 1960s. What a find!

Fresians!!

Afterwards, we walked across the Armenian Quarter to Mt Zion to a place that we found when we first arrived in Jerusalem but were unable to go to until today: The Holocaust Cellar. This was established in 1949 and was the first Holocaust Museum. However, it did not start out as a museum at all. On the walls are tombstones - not for people but a plaque for each town or village destroyed by the nazis. Originally, this dark, cave like building was used for survivors or families of victims as a place to memorialize their loved ones when they had no other place since their town was virtually obliterated. Eventually people began donating items and now there are displays that are horrible to see, yet very moving. Tomorrow we are planning to go to Yad Vashem so this was only the beginning of what we're prepared to see then.

Only a tiny portion of the walls that contained the plaques.

Actual clothing from Auschwitz 

The worst photo album I've ever seen 

We then spent a little more time in the shuk (my mom said that if she never sees it again it'll be too soon! She's all shuk-ed out), got some snacks and lunch, then made our way to the Jaffa Gate to meet our tour group for our Mount of Olives tour.

We were grateful for the bus drive up to the top, but most of what the tour guide said was old news to us. She took us to a lot of churches that were built on supposedly holy sites, but I barely even bothered to enter them because I'm really not interested in the history of the churches - I'm far more interested in the sites themselves.

A building that can't decide if it's a church or a mosque

Kidron Valley

Tombs on the Mount of Olives

Garden of Gasthemane

They dumped us off at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, down inside the Kidron Valley, deep within Muslim territory who contained people who were not extremely friendly toward foreigners. We had the option to take a taxi home but we decided to just walk back ourselves. The sun was going down as we went through the Lion's Gate, in the Muslim Quarter. I still don't know what happened there, but we managed to walk into a bit of a tense situation. Road blocks were set up and Israeli police were everywhere. It was the first and only time that I felt like we might be in actual danger and I rushed my mom and Joanie through there as quickly as possible.

Lions Gate

We finished our night eating our Final burekas in the lounge and started packing our bags. 

Israel...Part 2...Day 13

March 18, 2019

Day 13: Perfect blue sky with warm sunshine today!! We originally had planned to hike up Masada and watch the sun rise over the Dead Sea but my mom has had a nagging cough so we decided instead to take the cable car both up and down.

If you already know all about the history and significance of the Masada fortress feel free to skip this next paragraph, otherwise hold on and I'll give you a little lesson...

Herod the Great built a fortress on top of a plateau deep in the Judean Mountains, overlooking the Dead Sea about 35 BC. This fortress included an enormous palace (as well as a couple smaller ones), splendid bathhouses and grand halls, as well as living quarters for his generals. Huge frescoes and mosaics are still visible today. One of the most impressive features, however, are the large cisterns that provided plenty of water in the lowest elevation on the planet. In the year 66 AD a group of Jewish rebels settled there and remained during the fall of the Second Temple in the year 70 AD. In 73 AD the Roman Army laid siege to Masada, hoping to root out the last group of Jewish rebels. But Masada was built high on top of a mountain with only a steep, narrow winding trail known as the Snake Path and it was easy for the rebels to throw boulders or shoot arrows at the Roman Army and keep them from gaining access to the settlement and murdering the men and making slaves of the wives and children. The Romans built encampments around the base of Masada. First they had hoped that they could thirst or starve the rebels, but with the sophisticated cistern system they had plenty of water. They farmed fruits and vegetables and olive groves grew on the plateau, fertilized by guano harvested in the dovecotes. With no chance of starving the rebels out, the Roman Army eventually hatched a plan: using Jewish slaves they began to build a siege ramp made of stones and earth. Each day the terrified Jews watched as the ramp grew higher and closer. In the spring of 73 AD they brought a battering ram and began to berate the stone walls of the settlement. Upon realization that the end was near, the leader of the Jewish Rebels made a stirring speech. He called on the rebels to give up their own lives rather than live as slaves or be struck down by their enemies. However, they faced a dilemma; murder and suicide were forbidden. To solve this problem, lots were cast and 10 men were charged with the murders of everybody in the settlement. After setting all of the buildings on fire (except for the food storerooms in order to prove that they were not starved out) these ten men then cast lots to see who would be the one to kill the others before falling onto his own sword. When the Roman Army finally breached the walls, they found only slain bodies and burned buildings. According to the writings of Flavius Josephus (Biblical era historian) the only survivors were two women and 3 children, who possibly survived by hiding in an underground cistern.

Snake Path - Masada

Roman Encampment - Masada (square)

Underground cistern 

Herod's Palace 

Hiking up from Herod's North Palace  

Dovecotes

Roman Siege Ramp

Friendly little birdie

I could go on and give you more information, but it's Google-able. Several years ago I read a book called 'The Dovekeepers'. This was the first time I had ever even heard of Masada and I've had a special interest in it ever since.

Anyway, after spending too short of a time up there, we took the cable car down and the bus brought us up the coast to Ein Gedi, known in the Bible as the place where David hid from King Saul. The weather was perfect, but the sun was direct and it felt good to wade in the creeks. When my family was here last time the temperature was about 110F and we splashed around in the waterfalls to stay cool, even if for a few minutes. This time we were content to just have light spray from the falls.
Afterward, we were taken to a private beach on the Dead Sea. Joanie and I had packed our swimsuits but had decided that we weren't going to float around like a couple goofy tourists and we CERTAINLY weren't going to rub the dark mud all over ourselves. But once we saw that beautiful blue water we chucked those thoughts and went for it! I'm so glad we did - it was a great time!
There was also a camel there named Pistachio, and I gave him a hug. He was so cute!

Have you ever wondered what the Orthodox wear while swimming? Me neither, but it turns out that they wear all of their clothes

Caves at Ein Gedi. Very near Kumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found

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Dead Sea with Jordan in the background

Dead Sea with Jordan in the background.

Floating in the Dead Sea

Pistachio

Jordan villages across the Dead Sea

On the way back to Jerusalem, we went through a checkpoint. Used to just waving us through, our bus driver grew visibly irate when they questioned why we were going to Jerusalem. Next thing we know, everybody is yelling and we have two IDF soldiers asking to see everybody's passports. Yikes!



Now we're relaxing in the lounge, drinking sachlav, saying goodbye to some friends and winding down before another busy day tomorrow in the Old City and the Mount of Olives.

Israel...Part 2...Day 12

March 17, 2019

Day 12: Our 'official' tour of the Old City wasn't set to begin until 11 am so we started out our morning hoping to get a little shuk shopping done. We ended up a bit frustrated because everything was closed on Friday (stupid marathon!) and yesterday was Shabbat so we couldn't get any shopping done. Turns out all of the places where we meant to go to today were apparently Christian shops and were closed for their Sabbath. Oh well, there will always be more shuk time, I guess.

The weather was terribly cold and windy again, but at least we didn't get poured on. I'm a bit on the disappointed side that I've spent this trip primarily in the same two pairs of pants and Joanie's rain coat since I didn't plan ahead for this uncharacteristically cold wave here. After today it's supposed to get better, just in time for us to leave on Wednesday. Grrrrrr

Old shops outside the Temple Mount

The Old City tour really wasn't as good as I remember it being last time I was here. Our guide was kinda meh, and had the personality of a soggy dishcloth. It felt unorganized and rushed and there were just so many people in so many lines that you would have thought we were in Disneyland. Since we would be going up onto the Temple Mount, we were warned to check our bags and make sure that we had no religious items whatsoever on us. No mention of guns, machetes or tasers. Apparently those are cool, but if you have a piece of construction paper with a rainbow and a Bible verse on it from your granddaughter you were in trouble. Unfortunately Joanie had just that, among other contraband that would get her in hot water going through security. Little did I know that Joanie is a diabolical genius and had a plan: While we waited for our tour guide she surreptitiously sneaked her illegal items into a super secret hiding place next to two goofy looking lion statues near the south entrance of the Western Wall, safe from gusty winds or sudden downpours. If anyone noticed they didn't say a word.

Joanie retrieving her contraband

We waited in line for a long time, then were finally granted access to the Temple Mount. I'd been there before, of course, but this time it was extraordinarily cold and miserable, not to mention crowded. I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for the most precious of ancient sites as we rushed through as quickly as possible. The only real highlight was seeing the small Wailing Wall, but that experience was dampened by me accidentally stepping into a muddy nastiness that smelled like a mix of human waste and cat pee. I can't speak for my mom and Joanie, but it wasn't the best part of this trip for sure. We decided to break from the tour and do our own thing and the day got much better from there (stinky shoe and sock aside). We retrieved Joanie's hidden treasure and set off on our own adventure.

Al Aqsa Mosque

Dome of the Rock

Golden Gate

Most people who visit Jerusalem have never heard of the Wohl Museum or the Burnt House. These are both ruins from 1st century mansions, which were recovered after the War for Independence. The Wohl Museum allows you to walk through some of it and shows which rooms were there and what they may have looked like before the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman Army, and the entire city of Jerusalem was sacked and set on fire. The Burnt House shows a movie, of sorts, which shows a historical fiction account of what it could have been like for the inhabitants of that house, where a spear and the remains of a young girl's arm were found among the rubble. There were ancient artifacts, such as dishes, cookware, coins and cosmetics found as well, all pointing to a wealthy first century family, probably a high priest.

Wohl Museum

Wohl Museum

We had one more tour scheduled for the day, one that my family missed last time but shouldn't have; the Western Wall Tunnel tour. This tour brought us below the current Western Wall and we finally got to walk on actual streets that have been there for over 2000 years. One thing that I have learned on this trip is that if you want to find anything real, you go down and not up. If the stairs are going up then it's man-made junk. If the stairs go down then it has a shot at being the real deal.

Underground Western Wall

Underground Western Wall

Wailing Wall at night - very pretty!

It was getting late so we hoofed it back to the hostel as quickly as possible. Tomorrow is our trip to Masada, Ein Gehdi and the Dead Sea. It's calling for sunshine and I'm just praying that it's true!