We picked up our car in Jerusalem and had our first real adventure- driving! Brian got comfortable quickly on the highways, but was less than pleased with the city driving. Luckily we didn't have to do a lot of that. We headed down to the Dead Sea and spent the night in a town called Arad which required a lot of twists and turns into the mountains and several signs warning against "deadly curves" and an odd looking animal that I could only determine to be a sh...

And I mean that both in the way the kids of today (or more likely 7 years ago) use the term, and in the most literal sense. We're currently on a bus heading to Beer Sheva, trying to make our way down to Eilat. One ear has popped while the other is stuffed up and ready take over my entire brain in a haze of mountain roads. We're surrounded by soldiers, asleep with guns on their laps, and intermittent bouts of desert and greenery. Brian is snoring quietly besid...