A magical mystery tour

Yesterday the Cap’n and I teamed up with friends and took our collective brood on a magical mystery tour.  Stops included a Dead Sea factory tour, a picnic at Ein Bokek (on the Dead Sea itself), a trip to Arad’s outskirts to see the view of the desert and to visit the cemetery, culminating in a cup of tea and a soufganiyah (doughnut) in Arad’s mercaz (pedestrian market/commercial/hangout center).

We began the day by tooling down Route 60 past Kiryat Arba, Pnei Hever, Susiya, and Tel Arad, then turned east on the Arad-Beer Sheva highway.  We made our first stop in Arad’s industrial area at a factory which processes Dead Sea minerals for the booming Dead Sea cosmetics industry.  Our guide showed us the various salts they work with, described their chemical make up, and showed us how they are harvested in the divided pools of the business end of the Dead Sea.  We were all treated to various muds, scrubs, and creams to test on our hands, and looking at my angrily dermatitic right hand, our guide promised to mix together a therapeutic cocktail for it which he promised should clear it up in short order.

With lunchtime upon us, we descended to the Dead Sea, and planted ourselves and our picnic on a beach near the hotels, spas, and treif Burger King.  (The great advantage to getting out of places like Efrat and Beit Shemesh and going to a place like the Dead Sea is that people are not as obsessed with modest dress.  The disadvantage is that not all the food’s kosher.)  We enjoyed our sandwiches, chips, vegetables, and assortment of homemade baked goods which my foodie friend and I analyzed in delightful detail.  The kids got their feet thoroughly salty and watched with amusement the bloated adults floating out in the water, whose size only augmented the ballust provided by the salt content of the water.  The temperature was in the mild 70s, perfect considering the day had begun chill and blustery.

The sky was nearly the same dun color as the desert sand as we drove back up to Arad to take in the view at The Point (the easternmost tip of the city).  The Crunch family scrambled onto the bizarre sculpture placed there for a photo-op, and the Cap’n and I mused at how many dozens of walks we and other friends took from the WUJS program out to The Point of an afternoon, an erev Shabbat, or a Shabbat afternoon.  The Cap’n brought me there in July 1997 to propose, and we visited it last on our honeymoon in 2001.  One of our friends watched our girls scampering down the gravel path and said, “To what ends these proposals lead, eh?”

After a brief stop at the Arad cemetery for our friend to say tehillim over her grandparents’ graves, we returned to the center of Arad and headed for the bakery the Cap’n and I remember from our WUJS days.  They had sufganiyot in the window, both jelly and ribat chalav (dulce de leche), and once every man, woman, and child had the doughnut of his or her choice, we sprawled at the tables for a few minutes of rest and reflection before journeying home.  The doughnuts were as we remembered–plump, not too sweet, and not at all greasy.  Heavenly.  When I mentioned to the young men who worked there how the sufganiyot were just as good as they were 13 years ago, they looked at me like I had two heads.  (I realized then that they were probably in gan 13 years ago.)

The Cap’n and I decided that this Chanukah would be less about gifts and more about doing things together as a family.  We’ve taken short trips and walks, spent time outdoors, eaten food from our favorite restaurants, done crafts, baked, and made gift-giving a minimal part of the holiday.  (Our friends from yesterday’s tiyul have the custom of gifts on the first and last nights, a very reasonable one in my opinion.)  While many of the school vacations have the Cap’n and me scrambling for ways to keep the kids busy (including finding camps for them to attend to get them out of the house), this vacation has been mellow and fun.  There has been no Pesach to kasher for, no dozens of meals to prepare as during the High Holidays, just lots of good stuff in the freezer left over from a huge kiddush I threw a couple of weeks ago, and great stuff to make and do together.

That proposal 12 years ago has led to some pretty good things, I would say, and this week’s vacation–especially yesterday’s tiyul–has been one of them.

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