Me having fun

.

Woohoo, I got to climb up a huge ladder and play in a HUGE truck! 
What a fun day that was in Ramla! 

Look at the size of that thing!
Standing under it is Dani, the man responsible for Kibbutz Gezer Olives. 
On our day off, Dani took us volunteers and WWOOFers on a tour of the city of Ramla, including this new museum for old vehicles. 

Ashlea, Dani, Dina, Luke -- what a team! 

There are lots more posts about our olive harvesting adventures last autumn. 

For June 1 theme day, City Daily Photos bloggers are posting on the subject ME.
It's a rare chance to see photos of the photographers themselves.  Take a look!
.

A bizarre accident, 2 smashed cars

.

This big Border Police vehicle managed to do a lot of damage to two parked cars on a main street of my town early last Friday morning, thankfully without injuring any people.

Police were already there investigating, and this one was measuring distances with his meter measuring wheel.

A parked towing wagon had also been hit and was on its side. 

I really wonder how and why this happened.
Click one or two times on the photos to get the full "impact."
.

Jerusalem tolerance: 2 wheels vs. 2 legs

.

Our group of 28 older citizens of Meitar was touring Jerusalem last Tuesday.
We had just exited the New Gate and were trying to get through the narrow passage between the Old City wall on the left and the tramway on busy Paratroopers Road on the right. 
We had to quickly scoot over when a string of segway riders came whirring by! 
I was delighted but one of the oldies voiced his disapproval to the tourists for usurping his space. 
Maybe it was just envy, because I see on the SmartTour website that 
"All participants must be between the ages of 16-70, not pregnant and of a maximum weight of 270 pounds."
.

Men and their Mercedes

.

So after living in a women's monastic community for any length of time (I've been here 12 days now), you start to miss seeing men around. (UPDATE:  Just kidding, kinda. I speak for myself alone; I'm sure the nuns are fine with it.)
This morning, on our desert day, I walked out and into the little village nearby.
The man was unloading his huge black shiny MERCEDES truck and I actually stopped to ask if I might take a picture of it.
He thought I wanted him to pose.

He snapped the cement platot (English?) onto the crane's cables,

and up it went.

The worker waiting to fit it into place on the new house actually walked UNDER it.
Oi.
/

A monster in the sky??

.

One of the vintage 1985 houses on my street is getting a thorough redo. 
Yesterday afternoon a cement mixer truck and this red extra tall cement pump were working for hours. 
I guess it has to be that tall to reach safely over the electric wires. 
Meitar's neighborhoods that were built after Stage Alef and Stage Bet have all their wires and infrastructure underground. 
.
(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
.

What is a Messerschmitt but doesn't fly?

.

Ta-da!  It opens up!
Lihi, the nice guide of the Open Museum at Omer Industrial Park, is proud to show us this special microcar.

It's a 1960 Messerschmitt Isabela, with a 690 cc, 2 piston engine, made in Germany of course.

After the war, the Allies for a time did not allow  Messerschmitt to build aircraft.
In the early 1950s the company turned instead to small motor vehicle manufacture.

The collection of 32 antique cars exhibited at the Omer Open Museum is owned by Eitan Wertheimer, son of entrepreneur and industrialist Stef Wertheimer.
I'll show you some more in future posts. 
.

Desert safari trucks

.

Desert safari trucks for adventure tours in the desert.
These two were parked in the small town of Mitzpe Ramon in the Negev.
.
(S for safari for ABC Wednesday.)
.

R is for rebar

.

While I was waiting for my ride to Latrun monastery, this heavy-laden truck stopped for a red light.
Maybe it was not loaded with rebar exactly, but close enough.
I can't resist saying, for ABC Wednesday:
R is for reinforcement steel rebar rods! 
.
UPDATE:  I am surprised that rebar is new to many readers.  Here in Israel you can't walk more than a few blocks without seeing rebar in its various uses.   But then, we build only in stone and concrete, not with wood like in Europe.
To see examples of rebar's uses, see my posts:
1.  The First Station (of the train, not of the Cross) 
2.  Steam Chimneys  see how workers bend rebar
.
(Linking also to signs, signs.)

Pink

.

This car makes me smile every time I walk by it.

It makes me fantasize how I would celebrate summer if I had a car.
There would be places to go, people to visit.

But then again, there would be payments to make, insurance to buy, fuel to fill, repairs to make.
In truth I am grateful for two good legs, a daypack,  and the ubiquitous Israeli bus network.
.
City Daily Photo bloggers around the world are posting today on our July 1 theme, Celebrating summer.  Pay them a visit. 
.

Noise maker

.

Yeah, so the local country club (the 3 pools  post) had a healthy living happening on Friday.
Venders set up booths to explain and hopefully sell everything from Speedo bathing suits to health food lines.

But what caught my attention poolside was this ATV.
Meitar's neighbor, Kibbutz Kramim, apparently has a company called Tslil Noded that offers guided off-road tours on these  Terracross 2-person  buggies.
Anything from a 1.5 hour tour of the kibbutz and the surrounding forests to a 2-day adventure in the Negev desert.

You might be surprised at the other activities the tourism department offers!

I might have to go check out that kibbutz myself.
So far,  all I can see of them from the entrance road of Meitar is Kramim's huge solar field off in the distance.
Enlarge the photo with two separate clicks  and see the many ground-mounted  solar panels.
.

Home for the holidays as the nations keep talking

.

While walking from Beer Sheva's shuk (market) to the Central Bus Station earlier this week, I was surprised to see a long flatbed truck parked at the side of the busy street  loaded with two army vehicles.
Then I remembered:  I'm not in Jerusalem anymore. 

It looked like they had been working hard.
It made me wonder where they had been, where they were being taken, and who and where were the soldiers who patrolled  in these open  vehicles.

With the nations talking and talking and talking about Syria, at least the reserve soldiers who had been called up last week got to go back home for the Rosh Hashana holiday for a few days.
.

Taking stock

.

It was exactly one month ago today that I said goodbye to the Jerusalem Hills sky and moved down to Meitar in the Negev.

In packing I thought I had way too much stuff, but my boxes filled a measly one-third of the moving van.
Now  if I can just finish UNpacking, I'll be happy to sit back and enjoy my new place.
.
(Linking the little bit of my former sky to SkyWatch Friday.)
.

Devouring Nature

.

While on a bus trip from Jerusalem to Beersheba today  I saw  the massive Highway One upgrade underway.
It was my first time to see it and I was shocked.

The 2.5 billion shekel project is supposed to improve safety and journey time between Sha'ar Hagai (Bab el Wad) and the entrance to Jerusalem.
But meanwhile  huge machines are destroying the forest and tearing apart the mountain on the south side and are destroying  nature in the valley on the north side.

To learn about the grandiose plans read this article.
This will go on for YEARS. 

Drivers are asked to use alternate routes, but the people  who live along the way and have no choice but to exit onto Highway One are suffering from the disruption and congestion.
It is our major Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway (and to points beyond as well). 
.
(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
.

Formula One. In Jerusalem.

.
Today  Jerusalem was treated to (or subjected to) the Jerusalem Formula  The Peace Road Show.
It will continue tomorrow, the whizzing sound of Formula One cars and big motorcycles on our main streets near the Old City.
70,000 people came to line the streets or sit in the specially erected grandstands.
It was not a race, thankfully.

See some video and photos and more information at
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/IsraelExperience/Lifestyle/Pages/f1-in-jerusalem.aspx
and
http://www.timesofisrael.com/thunderous-engines-applause-as-race-cars-thrill-jerusalem/
and
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9889

This is not something that would draw me into Jerusalem, this Formula 1 spectacle.

The closest I got to the event is shown in this photo from last Monday, on my way to Jaffa Gate for the Light Festival.
A stand at the foot of the Old City wall was being set up to sell Ferrari and Jerusalem Peace Road Show memorabilia.

Mayor Nir Barkat stated that the total cost of the Formula 1 events reached around 15 million shekels ($4.15 million) and that most of the funding came from sponsors.
.

A sad morning on the road to my village

.

A head-on collision of two cars  yesterday on the narrow winding road that goes down to our village in the hills.
The 8:24 bus to Jerusalem that I needed didn't come into the moshav so I knew something was wrong and started walking.
After a 20-minute climb up the steep hill I came upon long lines of cars in both the right and left lanes just standing; the drivers had turned off their motors.

The two policemen on the scene must have rounded up several men volunteers.
They were pushing and trying to guide the wrecked car off to the very narrow shoulders while a delivery truck slowly backed up and tried to tow it with some blue strip hooked to the smashed rim.
The metal made a chilling screech being dragged.

After the first car was off to the side, I could see the other one.
Its windshield had the telltale round smashed glass at head height.

But I was glad for the metal barrier; perhaps it saved the cars from going off the road and tumbling down into the deep wadi.

I haven't been able to find out who was hurt and how badly  but I pray for them, there in the nearby hospital.
And I pray that all drivers  will have the sense to realize they are on a mountain road with sharp curves and that they need to slow down enough to be able to stay in their own lane.
.

A mistake with "The Beast"

.

Trust me, the photo shows 2 of the 7 helicopters that just came over our place carrying President Obama, Peres, and Netanyahu.
Such a short flight from Ben-Gurion Airport to Jerusalem.

But what a fashla  just as Air Force One was approaching Israel's shores!
"The Beast,"  the very special armored limo of the President, would not start!

Jordanian and Israeli officials quickly coordinated the airlift of  a replacement  presidential limousine from a US storage facility in Jordan.

According to The Times of Israel  live blog,  the Americans had filled the tank of  The Beast with diesel**  fuel by mistake!

Just when you think every little detail has been taken care of for this historic visit . . .
I'm just glad it was not Israelis who made the mistake.
.
UPDATE at 9:00 pm:
The Jerusalem Post is reporting this:

. . .  Various news reports said it had been mistakenly filled with the wrong fuel, but the Secret Service did not confirm this.
"One of our protective vehicles experienced mechanical problems in Israel earlier today. This is why we bring multiple vehicles and a mechanic on all trips," Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary in Washington.
"Situations like this are planned for extensively by our advance teams so that the president's itinerary is unaffected by these types of issues."

**UPDATE #2 at 11:00pm:
Now it's the other way around. According to CNN, The Beast should have gotten diesel but was filled with gasoline by mistake:

The official limousine awaiting President Barack Obama's arrival in Israel malfunctioned after its driver refueled it using gasoline rather than diesel fuel, an official said Wednesday. The limo failed to start, and required towing . . .

.

(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
.

A shiny black car draws a crowd

.

Two black cars in Ein Kerem on a Sabbath day. 

Not the kind of car you normally see in Israel.
.
Which one would be yours if you had to choose?
.
If you enlarge the photo of the Pontiac Solstice you can find some curving reflections of the village buildings and the Israeli tourists who flock there on Shabbat--for Weekend Reflections. 
.

Old City garbage collection

.

See his eyes? 
The driver seems to be thinking, "Ya zalameh! Am I going to clear those hanging dresses?"
If you hear the garbage tractor coming, you had better squeeze over or duck into one of the bazaar shops.  Give him room!

There he goes, with the second worker sitting on top.
Jerusalem's Old City streets were not built for cars (let alone garbage trucks).
.
See also my post Old City vehicles.
.
(This quick view in the Muslim Quarter is linked to  Our World Tuesday.)
.

Tractor as trellis

.

I always wondered what the top of the old mosque looked like, the one built over Mary's Spring in Ein Kerem.
So I trudged up the steep winding narrow lanes to a vantage point way above.

You can enlarge the photo and find the Church of the Visitation and Gornensky Convent beyond the mosque. 

But the true treasure I discovered parked next to an ancient terrace wall, at the side of the narrow lane!
"Tractor as trellis" would be perfect for today's ABC Wednesday.

I sat on a rock near the tractor, ate my peanut butter sandwich, and tried to imagine the life the tractor had many decades ago.
.

A press car with paranoia

.

This  vehicle--what is it, a Land Rover?--looked strangely deserted sitting in an empty lot near Jerusalem's Malcha train station.
Judging from the thickness and color of the dust clinging to it, it might have been through the desert.

I think the license plates are United Kingdom.  (Enlarge the picture to read the fine print.)
Wait, what's that written on the windshield?  PARANOIA

PRESS,  PARANOIA?!  

A mystery, but a good one for P-Day at ABC Wednesday.
.