Mizpe Ramon

On our way home from the desert, we stopped at some pretty cool geologically places in the desert. One was a lot like Devil’s Postpile in Wyoming- you could hike up these pumice looking stones to get to the top and see the desert for miles in each direction. There was also an area that had this gorgeous colored sand. It reminded me of my past talent with making sand bottles.

We also went to Mizpe Ramon, at the top of the crater, which was also home to the Ilan Ramon Museum. There was a wonderful exhibit with a lot of his space and air force memorabilia (including a picture of Abba) and several movies about his time in both space and the air force. The movies were especially hard to watch and I was tearing up both times. The last movie was mainly about the last few days in space. What was wonderful about it though was the movie was in the very dark room and when the movie finished, you were in the dark for a few moments, contemplating what you had just watched, when all of a sudden the curtains open in front of you and a huge glass window with an endless vista of stark beauty appears before you. The juxtaposition of dark and light is very impactful and I thought it was wonderfully done. There was also an exhibit that focused just on the geological aspects of the area which was also quite informative.

After dropping Maya off at Sde Boker, we stopped in quickly to pay our respects to David Ben Gurion before heading back to the kibbutz. As much as I love the mountains and foothills of Boise and the valleys of Caldwell, the deserts of Israel are gorgeous.