Masada

Day five of the tour is under our belt.

View from our window this morning

We checked out of our hotel and headed to Masada. That place was a lot cooler than I anticipated. We took a gondola up to the top. Masada is a resort that Herod the Great built. 70 years later when the Jewish zealots were being killed by the Romans, they took refuge here. When the Romans came after them and it was obvious they were going to be captured, they decided they would rather die. They killed everyone. I think they said that the fathers killed their families, then they drew lots and ten men killed the rest of the men. Then they drew lots again and one guy killed the last nine and then he fell on his sword and died. Two women and three children hid and told the story later. Years and years later monks lived here until they were slaughtered by another crazy regime. Not a great track record, but the place was pretty cool. It was huge too!

There were rooms and rooms used just for storage. These long rectangle ones. They left two of the storage room filled with rocks so we could see what it looked like when they started excavating. What a crazy jigsaw puzzle.

 Stephanie, Rachel, Jordyn, Renee, John, Ron, Mark, Sharon, Steve

You can get to the top without taking a gondola. It is a loooong walk up.

 I was very concerned with this crazy lady standing on the rocks to get her picture taken.

 Maybe the rocks overlooked another room and she wasn't going to fall to her death

 Nope. This is what she was standing on. I'm concerned about all her life choices.

 This picture guy was funny....and he would only get bruised knees if he fell...

There are these black lines everywhere. That is the line of what was still in tack, and above the line they did their best to put it back together. I thought that was a great idea.

 More lines with Jordyn in the doorway

There were a lot of fragments of the walls found. They gave the fragments to artist and they took those and tried to piece together what the walls looked like.

 This one reminds me of a buffalo ~ haha

 grapes and French fries

We were able to go down to Herod's special chamber. No one was allowed down here without special permission. Fancy.

 Stephanie & Ron

 Steve, Rachel, Stephanie, Dad, Jordyn, Renee, John, Mark

 Just missing Sharon. Her feet are so sore, it looks incredibly painful to watch her walk.

 Rachel

 Rachel, Jordyn, Stephanie, Mark

 Stephanie

 Stephanie & Jordyn

 Stephanie, Jordyn, Rachel

 John & Jordyn

Mark bought us ice-cream and we scarfed it down before we got on the bus. Our next stop was to see the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

 Sharon

 Dead Sea Scrolls cave

We went to a Mount of Olives overlook place. Sam taught us, my dad taught us, and Renee, John and Jordyn taught us.

Sam

 Renee, John, Jordyn

 John & Jordyn

 Jordyn

 Dad

 Dad, Rachel, John, Stephanie, Renee, Jordyn, Mark, Sharon, Steve

Mark

 Sharon

 Steve & Sharon

 Stephanie, Dad, Rachel

 Rachel, Jordyn, Stephanie ~ Jordyn has the best picture of this one...hopefully I'll get it later.

 Stephanie

 Sunset

We checked into our hotel in Jerusalem. It is called the Leonardo Hotel. We ate dinner and then went to the Western Wall. I was able to put names on a piece of paper and put it on the wall. We then had a tour through some of the tunnels. That was rough for me. I was soooo tired. I kept almost falling asleep. I'm getting this blog put up as fast as I can because I'm hoping for sleep tonight. It's almost midnight already!

 Stephanie

 Stephanie Selfie

 Stephanie & Rachel