We started the day at Golgotha or "the place of the skull" and even today that side of the mountain looks very much like a skull (too bad I'm mostly blocking it). Right down below the "skull" is likely where Jesus was crucified, it's an arab bus station now, but it's down by the main road, not up on top of the hill like most of us have thought (due to all the depictions of the Crucifixion we've seen over the years). Jesus was right off the road where everyone could see him.

Right next to Golgotha is a very nice garden, called the Garden Tomb, that was once owned by Joseph of Arimethea. He had built a tomb for his family, but instead used it for Jesus. The "bricks" you see are a crude repair after soem damage done by an earthquake.

This is inside the tomb at the likely place Jesus' body was laid. Outside the tomb you can even see the "track" where the round stone could roll in front of and away from the entrance to the tomb.

All of us just outside the tomb. It has been cool and overcast for several days now, our guide says he can't ever remember being cold here before, but it makes for VERY nice touring.

Sadly, I came down with a mortal ailment and died right here at the Garden Tomb.

Then all of the sudden I was gone! Leaving behind my clothes!

Next we made our way to Beit Lehi. Very few people know this even exists yet, because once it it published, hundreds of thousands of tourists will come (says the Israeli tourism dept) and it has no facilities yet. Many Utah college students are excavating under the supervision of a leading archaeologist at the Hebrew University. It is unbelievable. A huge mosaic floor that goes "up" from room to room, it dates back to a little before 600 BC, and is still today called "the place of Lehi). It's a rough, unpaved road to get here, but may be open to the public in another year or so, although there is still a lot of excavating going on. These people knew something about boats, these very colorful boat mosaics are on the floors, and we got to walk right on them and brush away the sand to see them.

On the floor of the first or lowest room there are pictures of plants and fruit.

In the next highest room you see animals fighting! Very interesting eh?

These are the steps leading up to the mosaic floor, the mosaics are right behind me.

Right up the hill in Beit Lehi they have just finished excavating the only complete ancient Jewish "wash" house.

We finshed the day at Sampson's well. Sampson needed water and struck a rock or something and this well appeared for him. The water was was green but clear, you could see way down in there. I thought it would have been funny to push dad in there and take a short video, but I didn't.

One morning we mounted camels at 1am and took them to the top of Mount Sinai. It was beautiful. So dark you could see every star in the sky it seemed. We made to the top for sunrise at 5:45 am. Unfortunately, on the way back (we walked), we took a wrong turn and instead of taking the camel switch-back trail, we ended up going down 3500 stairs all the way to the bottom! It was gruelling. You couldn't see the end of the stairs. Not the right way to go. Monks put the stairs in centuries ago to a monastery near the top.

We got one day off to relax! Misty and I went paragliding and snorkling on the Red sea.

This is a view from atop Massada. It is so hot up there. Wow. We took the tram up and then hiked down. It's no wonder it took the Romans 2.5 years to take this fort of 980 people

We went into old Jerusalem in the morning, and it was just stunning. Such a beautiful, old city. The wind, however, was blowing in from the East and filling the air with yellow dust. So it looked hazy and overcast all day. On the up-side, it was cool and pleasant all day too. We started with the traditional site of the Last Supper, then we made our way down 2000 year old steps recently excavated and certainly used by Jesus himself many times as they lead down toward Gethsemane. You can see the red "lillies of the field" are all around.

This is the Garden of Gethsemane. It is a beautiful place and we had a very nice experience here. But Daren, Dad, and I could definitely feel for Peter, James, and John, we could barely keep our eyes open after an hour here...

This is the BYU Jerusalem Center. It is an incredible place. We had a meeting in the Chapel and sang songs and toured the campus. It has the most unbelievable views. The Chapel walls are all-glass overlook Jerusalem, best view of the city of anywhere we've seen! Dad was nearly overcome by the place, he said if he had known how amazing the place was, he would have let Emily and Ellen go for study abroad, he felt really bad about saying no now that he's seen it!

One of the caves under the Nativity church, shows what it was like for Mary and Joseph when Jesus was born.