Following the huskies north, to Haifa (late post)

Well, what sort of day was it? Let me tell you. It was the sort of day that when we pushed our fully-loaded bikes up and over the crest of the rocky, steep trail, after two hours of pushing the bikes along said steep, dusty trail with the sun beating down on us, and we saw burning garbage from the dump behind a Druz village, we were overjoyed. I've never been so happy to see burning garbage in my life.

It meant one thing to us: pavement, blessed, glorious pavement. It turns out pushing a bike up a trail to steep to ride and too rough for our bikes is a lot of work. So while the next couple of hours included some agonizingly steep hills and sucking down diesel exhaust mixed with dust under the same hot sun, really, it wasn't so bad--and an ice cream in the village went a long ways.

Must be some version of karma. We scored an empty beach with palapas at a nature reserve complete with a bay, bathrooms and water. You don't need much more. We had our lazy breakfast, a leisurely swim, a visit and wander among the studios and galleries of En Hod, the artists' village.

I should blame all this on my uncle Yuval. I spoke to him and he suggested this 'wonderful' road, to the village. "No worries, it's not dirt, I think it's the old road," hmmm.... The confusion grew with a visit to the Arab village of Ein Khod and vague directions along one of the many dirt roads. Perfect... for someone with a mt. bike, going the opposite direction.

It makes a good contrast to the surreal comfort of going to my grandmother Noemi's apartment. Everything the same, for the last 28 years at least. Even the views, there's some confusion in my head whether what I'm seeing is there, or I've just dug up some old memory.
Not suprising, Israel is a land of old memories, some personal, some, shared fantasies.