On January 1, we returned home with Janet and Sarah from our weekend trip to New Mexico, which included Carlsbad Caverns with visits to Las Cruces and Albuquerque.
In February, Linda and Darel drove to Zion National Park. The highest parts of the park were still covered in snow, but the trails were all open near our hotel in Springdale.
On our trip back to Colorado, we visited Bridges National Monument.
In December of 2021, it appeared that the Covid-19 pandemic was somewhat under control. We were looking forward to a trip to Egypt in April and decided to add a pretrip to Israel and Jordan. By the time we were ready to leave on our trip, the pandemic had flared up again and travel again became a challenge. Our first destination was Israel and they required a PCR test o be taken in the USA within 72 hours of arrival, with another PCR test at the airport as soon as we landed. Test results in Fort Collins could take 36 hours. We were relieved to learn that test results would be posted on our UCHealth website. At our stopover in Munich, we were unable to log in to our UCHealth account, so we had to change to a later flight to Tel Aviv. It was the middle of the night in Colorado, so it was impossible to document our test results. We finally called our daughter, gave her our account information, and she was able to send us our results via email. Our flight to Tel Aviv was completely full and we were lucky to find seats. We took a taxi from Tel Aviv and checked into our Jerusalem hotel at about 3:00 AM.
The next couple of days we explored the historic sights and gained an understanding of the tensions between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Before we arrived a journalist was shot and killed. After we left a Muslim boy was killed. Their solution to terrorism in Israel is to encourage retired military to carry automatic weapons. Since virtually everyone serves time in the armed forces, there are a lot of automatic weapons on the street. Much of the emphasis on a strong response to terrorism can be traced to two events in history where the Jews were weak militarily. The first event was a loss at Masada to the invading Roman army in the first century. The second event was the Holocaust. The Israeli mantra is Never Again. We toured Masada and found it very interesting.
Jerusalem is full of Christian sites. This church is controlled and maintained by five different Christian organizations. The ladder remains undisturbed because of indecision about whose responsibility it is to remove it.
The Black Dome of the Rock mosque is protected by a checkpoint to assure that only Muslims are allowed inside.
To go from Israel to Jordan, we took a van to the border on the Jordan River, went through Israeli security, then walked across the bridge to Jordan, where we boarded another van and drove south to Petra.
In addition to the temple carvings and cave dwellings at Petra, we explored Roman ruins and a Muslim fortress, and we ate a lot of wonderful food. We ordered some take-out Petra dishes after we returned to Fort Collins, but it just wasn’t the same as what we ate in Jordan.
We found Jordan to be an interesting and enjoyable place to visit. The country appeared to be progressive compared with other Arab countries. Solar panels were highly visible and the roads were well maintained. The people were friendly and the food was excellent. Mosques were open to everyone, although robes were required for those who wore shorts. (Oops. I should have known.)
After four days in Israel and four days in Jordan, we flew to Cairo for two weeks in Egypt. I watched the map on our flight. We flew straight south, then west in order to avoid Israel’s airspace. We started and ended our trip in Cairo, with a week in the middle cruising the Nile River. We had looked forward to exploring a huge new museum that was scheduled to open soon in Cairo. Alas, the opening is still a year or so in the future. The existing Egyptian Museum is very traditional, but includes many ancient artifacts and is well worth the visit.
Other sights in the Cairo area included the Step Pyramid, Memphis, and the streets and markets of Cairo.
The Nefertiti was our home for seven nights on the Nile River.
From Aswan we rode a bus through the desert to Abu Simbel, a temple moved from where it would have been underwater in Lake Nasser. After our tour, we had lunch at a beautiful nearby resort. Lake Nasser is now a huge reservoir that extends south well into Sudan. Canals fed by the lake irrigate large plots of wheat and other crops in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Most of our time on the Nile was near Luxor, home to many temples and tombs. A highlight was a sunrise balloon ride that passed directly over some of the temples.
Back in Cairo, we finally got our chance to see the pyramids and ride a camel.
The last museum that we visited was the modern and brightly lit National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. The lower level includes a large collection of royal Egyptian mummies. Many of them still looked pretty healthy.
One thing that I found very interesting about the Middle East was the artwork. Since pictures of people, animals, and even plant life are forbidden in a mosque, art is restricted to abstract geometric patterns.
Meals during Ramadan presented challenges since most restaurants were closed during daylight hours. Our bus drivers could not even drink water during the heat of the day. I still don’t understand how and why.
Back in Colorado, we celebrated Preston’s graduation from UCCS, Kyle and Sarah who participated in a skateboard art contest at Square State Skate, and Olivia’s graduation from CMU.
In June Mike and Darel returned to Cour d’Alene to bike the Centennial Trail and play some golf.
Summer in Colorado goes way too fast.
The summer ended with the annual Hardy Party at the cabin.
We took several short trips to view the fall scenery in Colorado. We endured a CSU loss with Mike and Lisa, and watched Grayson as he carried a flag onto the football field.
We have visited many beautiful places … but there is no place like home!
One more chance to travel! The day after Christmas, Olivia and Chandler were scheduled to fly back to Oregon, but Southwest had other plans. It appeared that no flights would be available for days, so Janet volunteered to drive them back to the airport in Portland to retrieve their car. Linda suggested that Darel ride along since he was so insistent on traveling.
We soon learned one reason for the airport delays. High winds, fog, heavy snow. On our return, I 80 through Wyoming was closed and we had to detour through Casper and Douglas.
From Portland, Janet and Darel decided to at least get a view of the Oregon coast with a stop at Tillamook.
Some 2600 miles, but Darel loved every second of it!