Our Shabbat Walk ... by Hannah

Tommy and I went for a walk this afternoon, and took a bunch of pictures! Here are some of them ...

This was taken on a walk last night ... the full moon was beautiful!

Peeping up over the hill!

We started walking toward the Egyptian border.

This is the oasis at Ezuz.

Ezuz is on a hill ... this is taken as we were walking down.

The oasis.

This is a marker for the bicycle trail.

A date palm.

Tommy got a lecture about how few pictures there have been of me, so he started taking some on the walk!

We took so many pictures of the desert landscape!

Tommy called this "the electric chair of Ezuz".

We have a lot of pictures here, and some are similar, but it's kinda funny ... pictures in Israel take on a special meaning, and it's hard to delete them unless they are really bad quality!

This is the road going toward the border.

The road from Ezuz to the border runs southwest (I think!). This picture is taken from the road, looking back at Ezuz.

See the orange flagging on Tommy's backpack? Orange is the theme color for those who believe in settling the "disputed territories" :)

Approaching the border ...

We recognized the orange gate, since we had driven on this road when we were here as a family. The road that we were walking on dead ends into another road that runs along the border. When we were here five years ago, we stopped right at this crossroads, and Abba asked some Israeli soldiers if the border road was open, and could we follow it north. They didn't know, but told us to try it anyway :)

This is the border road to the north.

You can just barely see the border fence.

We turned and started retracing our steps.

There are lots of black rocks ... they have a certain mineral (iron, I think) in them, that makes them turn black. Eyal explained it, but I can't really reproduce the explanation!

There were several of these along the road we were walking on. I'm not sure what they were for. This was the first one we saw, and Tommy said it was Moses' grave :)

This tree was covered with thorns ... I think it's a locust tree.

This was very interesting - I think it is limestone. It looked like steps.

I'm not sure what these ruins are, or what time period they are from.

The walls are very sturdy (that is, what remains of them!).

We set the camera on timer to get a picture of both of us together.

Trying to scale the wall.

This is back at the oasis ... I think these are tamarind trees.

It is a campground area.

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but it was HUGE!

These are just outside of the village ... they are used for camel tours :)

I liked the white one!

Tommy tried to get a close-up photo of one of these, but I don't think he liked it! He made a face, and started walking toward Tommy ... and Tommy ran!

One of these flags is on the Hirshfeld's home, and the other is at the neighbors. What a beautiful sight!