on the road

do you have any idea how long and skinny an israel road map is? this stretched from my body to the windshield.

we rented a car in Israel. we felt liberated, free to have the type of trip we do best. Israel was really the only place that we went to that we would have felt comfortable driving, and we wanted to explore a lot of territory there, renting a car was actually way cheaper than paying for all the buses and taxis that we would have had to use. we were able to stop whenever we wanted to, listen to our own music, and roll the windows down.

this last picture was from one of our favorite days. we were driving along a highway in the rural part of israel pretty far north and saw an incredible forested meadow. since we had a car we were able to stop and go into the forest for a few hours. we just lazed around and walked through the flowers, and then we met a shepherd. he was bringing his sheep through and came over to talk to us.

it was so great to have an experience that we felt was real and authentic. we had grown weary of visiting churches built and rebuilt and rebuilt atop jesus sights, and battling the buses of tourists to get into them. modern israel is a fascinating place, but ancient israel obviously doesn't exist anymore. so many people go there to trying to find it, and expecting it to still be the same. it was nice to just be in the woods talking to an (albeit more modern than you may have already imagined) sheep herder. it felt much more rewarding than say, paying to visit "nazareth village" (where everybody dresses up like jesus times and you visit fake carpentry shops, ride donkeys, etc, etc). we visited with him for a while about life as a sheep herder, life in america, and his life as a Palestinian in Israel.

he had never met foreigners before, and it was fun to know that the experience would be memorable for both us and him. i am not brave enough to take pictures of people usually, so i didn't get one of him, but i did sneak this one of him from the back window.