How I Spent My Birthday
We decided to take a drive up north and see what we could see, this turned out to be a really wonderful idea. Northern Israel is green and beautiful and dappled with Kibbutzim and towns nestled on the hillsides. Spring has come with full force and I've never seen so many wild flowers in my life. I love it!
On the Road
Our first stop was a little historical art town called Zichron Ya'akov (זִכְרוֹן יַעֲקֹב). The town had many historical buildings that had been homes of significant members of Jewish underground organizations during WWI. It also had lots of little galleries and shops, a paper mill, restaurants and a lovely pedestrian walk way. It was such a beautiful place
We were looking for fields of poppies and came to this nature reserve that touches the sea, it was so beautiful!
Hermit crab!
I thought of Kristina when I saw these.
fantastic caterpillar.
Raz in the wild.
We made our way to Ein Hod, another little art town in the Carmel mountains. Ein Hod is right on the edge of the destruction caused by the forest fire that raged through and distroyed 10,000 acres of the forest in December 2010. It was so strange to see charred dead trees on one side of the road and the other to be covered in green and flowers and life. The residents of this town were forced to evacuate during the fire, but all the areas we saw inside the town were free from the fires harm.
We sat down for a quick snack and instantly made a new friend.
She was so sweet.
We wandered the town for a bit popping into a used book shop and several galleries and finally took a break at this little place called the Art Bar where a wonderfully entertaining man named Danny served us a truly delightful homemade microbrew. This was one of my favorite parts of the day. Sitting outside in the late afternoon sun sipping our drinks and eating sunflower seeds as Queen played in the background and Danny ran around talking and singing. It was great.
pretty and delicious!
Danny, He was really wonderful.
After we had our fill of Ein Hod we continued on into the mountains where we saw even more destruction from the fire as well as lots of untouched areas that were still lush and green.
I though this only happened in Utah, but we came upon 3 cows grazing on the side of the mountain road...
fire damage.
Raz finding where we were.
the edges of this tree were all turned to charcoal, it was so sad to see this huge tree which looked to be a couple hundred years old bare and lifeless.
The day was perfect. The weather was beautiful, the company was grand, the sights were inspiring. We made our way home as the sun set and had a lovely dinner of tabbouleh, labaneh, pitas, and delicious olives. Raz's mom had made a carrot cake in celebration that was absolutely scrumptious. I couldn't have asked for more, it was a wonderful way to turn 25.
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