A Trip to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Cassie and I spent a week in Jordan over winter break...

A tomb outside the Siq at Petra.

The Treasury at Petra.

On our way to the High Place of Sacrifice.

Cassie's knees are so much younger than mine!

The High Place of Sacrifice.

The Garden Temple.

The Monastery was named for cruciform images inscribed on interior walls. It's three times larger than The Treasury, and nearly at the top of a mountain.

From Petra we traveled to Wadi rum. This is the view from Lawrence Spring.

Reminds me a little of Monument Valley in Arizona, except instead of lava capped flat mesas, the sandstone mountains are weathered round at the tops.

The view from our Day One lunch stop.

Petroglyphs dating from at least the time of the Nabateans.

A brief hike through a shaded canyon.

Cassie atop The Big Arch. Yes, I remained below...

Sunset reminded me of home.

Cassie strikes a pose on the Khasch Route.

Aqaba is about an hour that a way, if you're a crow doing 100 kph.

The evening's entertainment in the main tent after supper the second evening.

Desolate views in all directions from Crusader Castle Shobak.

One can see for miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) from the heights of Castle Kerak.

Cassie and I spent New Year's Eve at the Holiday Inn Dead Sea. That's Israel across the lake...err..sea. We bobbed in the brine New Year's Day.

In the foreground is Umm Qais, formerly the Roman city of Gadara. On the right across the valley are the Golan Heights occupied by Israel for their obvious strategic and tactical advantage. In the distance beyond them is the Sea of Galilee (called Lake Tiberius by the Jordanians).

Along this road to west, and outside the perimeter of the ruin, is the Gadara cemetery, by tradition the scene of the New Testament story of the Demoniac of Gadara.

This road once lead from Jerash, Jordan to Damascus, Syria.

Visiting Cassandra In Lebanon

Cassie's job provides opportunities for grand adventures...

I visited Cassie in Beirut, Lebanon over winter break. It's taken some time to get this posted as I do most of my reportage over on Facebook these days

Cassie with the Mediterranean Sea in the background.

The remains of a Roman bathhouse in Beirut.

The famed Corniche. In the distance are snow covered peaks where ski resorts are found. 

The infamous Holiday Inn Beirut, one of the high places fought over in the "Battle of the Hotels" in the mid-1970s. Vanquished defenders were thrown from the roof whenever the property changed hands. Pocked with bullet holes and scarred by fire it remains a sad monument to the civil war.

But for the minaret, this holiday scene wouldn't be out of place in Hanoi, Seoul, Minneapolis, or Prescott.

The remains of "The Egg" - a movie theater project interrupted and then battered by the civil war - lies abandoned across the street from the beautiful Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque.

I'm pretty sure I ate more mashed up garbonzo beans (hummus) in the past two weeks than I have in my previous 60 years! Next to the bowl of the ever present dip are a meat filled pastry that is a local Baalbek specialty. Yes, that's an ash tray on the table. Smoking appears to be a national pastime in Lebanon.

The remains of a column hewn, finished, and polished by hand some 2000 years ago in Baalbek.

This is the quarry where slaves chipped away at the bedrock to free pillars and columns before hauling them a kilometer or two to the site of the Roman temples in Baalbek.

Byblos is the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. This spring was used in Neolithic times.

From the Neolithic Era to the Ottoman Empire in a single photo.

Lunch starters: some assembly required. 

The mouth of the Dog River beneath the cliffs of Nahr El Kalb, where Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Arab, French, and British armies - whether invaders or liberators - have made a tradition of commemorating their arrival in Lebanon by carving stellae into the limestone cliffs.

The Raouché Rocks as one leaves Beirut to the south.

In the mountains east of Sidon we visited Castle Beaufort, a stronghold used by Crusaders, Muslims, the Ottomans, the PLO, and Israel.

A photo taken by a helpful security officer at the gate to Cassie's school. 

Cassandra, thank you for yet another trip of a lifetime. I will follow you anywhere you go for as long as my knees hold out!