A Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Food

One of the fun things about traveling on a motorcycle as opposed to a camper, trailer or motor home is that you are forced to eat meals "out" somewhere.  It doesn't always mean that you go to a restaurant which often happens but many serendipitous things happen regarding food.  The restaurants you go to are also varied, especially in Alaska where we have many communities without a single "chain" restaurant present.  Exploring some of those homey places that miss the message about marketing to the masses is kind of fun - for two reasons.  Sometimes you discover a great place, good food, friendly owners and sometimes it's a disaster which makes for good story telling later.  We end up eating at a lot of places we might avoid when we are at home but when they are the only game in town, you man up and sit at the table.

On the road on a bike just makes eating a lot of fun.  I am six feet, six inches tall.  When I ride, I usually wear the typical riding chaps and leather riding jacket.  I look pretty intimidating I am sure to a lot of people when I stride up to their front door.  But what it does is prompt a lot of conversations.  Since you can't help but notice me, lots of people want to know where you are from and where you are going.  They want to tell you about their bike and where they have been.  Usually it makes the wait for your food pretty short filling up the time with conversation with strangers.

The other thing is meeting up with friends in distant communities.  Whenever Christian people want to visit, food is usually involved.  Since we generally don't go out drinking and dancing, food is the next best thing to do.  On this particular trip, we had contacted a couple of friends at the far end of our trip to see if we could....go get a bite to eat or something.  Well, the word was out and other people we know heard and wanted to see us and others heard as well and before you know it, we had a genuine potluck going.  Someone offered to host as a place to meet and bingo, soon you have chicken on the grill and Mexican dip and the latest fresh fruit to arrive at the grocery store.  Awesome.  

There are the necessary meals that offer good meeting times, breakfast is especially good for this.  Since you may want to avoid the morning chill, it is a good excuse to linger over an omelet and visit with friends.  Our first morning out on the road found us in Wasilla for breakfast.  Our friends had some of their best friends who live in that community.  We agreed on a place to eat which was a ways out of town but had lots of seating for a group like us.  It ended up being a great place because they offered an all-you-can-eat brunch which in my understanding means you get to eat bacon like it is going out of style.  Wow, all of that salty, fatty goodness goes great with conversation with friends.  

The biker rally is also a good example of getting lots of good food on the road.  The motorcycle-food connection isn't really talked about much, but there is a definite connection.  It is easy to call up a friend who lives 100 miles away and say, "hey, how about we meet in the middle at that restaurant?"  An hour later both bike riders arrive at the same place and there is soon food in front of you.  

Since you are eating at different place than you do when you are home, you get to do some adventure eating, ordering things you have never ordered before.  I don't know about you, but when I find something I particularly like at a local restaurant, it is very difficult to not order it.  You want to avoid disappointment when it comes to paying for food.  So, when you are poring over the menu at a greasy spoon in that distant town, you can throw caution to the wind and get something you hope will be satisfying.  Just a note here:  If you ever are driving through Tok, Alaska, eat at Fast Eddy's.  Great food.  Order the "deep fried mushrooms" for an appetizer.  A platter big enough to feed a dozen people will arrive heaped with golden morsels of goodness.

Food really is part of the adventure.  I admit, I love food, it is my vice.  But we all got to eat and at least when you are riding your bike putting many miles underneath you, you can't be standing at the refrigerator door reaching in for a "snack".  So when you are riding you are visualizing your next meal and how good it is going to taste and who you will be visiting with.  I think I will take a ride tonight.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Biker Rally

The whole excuse for taking this ride was to attend a biker rally.  I didn't know what to think when I was invited to tag along on this ride a year ago and attend my first biker rally.  I was as much attracted to the idea as I was intimidated.  Isn't there a little "wildness" in us all?  At least enough to find out what you don't know.  What on earth does a biker rally consist of?  What do they do?  Will  it end up with me getting arrested?  "Honestly officer, I was only an innocent bystander!"  

Rumors of hard drinking, fist fights and bad behavior are all I have ever heard about bikers when they get together.  At church we have "fellowships".  With friends we have "get-togethers".  Bikers have "rallies".  Essentially it's all the same, people gather together around a common interest and talk about their common interest, the biker rally including a little more alcohol and tobacco (mostly) smoke than I am used to in my "fellowships".  

If you read my blog from a year ago about this same trip, same rally, same excuse to ride, you know that this rally is an annual event between the Christian biker club, the "Black Sheep" and the "HOGs" or the "Harley Owners Group."  The idea is that the Black Sheep want to forge strong ties between the two groups with the goal of evangelizing a HOG now and then.  So it's an invitational from the Black Sheep to the HOGs and the Black Sheep put on a spread to entice everyone to come.  Last year they slow cooked a real hog with lots of side dishes to boot.  They charged us $20 each and since it was for a good cause, I didn't mind.  This year it was a full Thanksgiving style dinner with turkey and ham, cranberry salads, and beans and it was $30 bucks each.  That was a little steep for me, good cause or not.  But we paid it, by far the most expensive meal of the trip.

I digress.  The "rally" is really interesting.  Many of these people obviously know each other from years and events past.  There is loud, boisterous talking, lots of laughing while everyone is waiting for the call to dinner.  Once the dinner is ready, there is short blessing over the meal and a long line forms while people wait for their turn at some food.  My wife and I were served up and we headed for a table with some open seating.  We met some great people, most of them sporting facial hair, one biker lady in a pink tutu and all sporting leather somewhere on their person.  We chat about our bikes, the weather, and riding in general.  Little bits and pieces of personal life are woven into the conversation.  I am amazed that no one asks me what I do for a living.  That is usually a conversation killer once they find out I pastor a local church.  I don't ask what they do for a living either and it never comes up.  There doesn't seem to be any real point to the rally, except renewing friendships and getting out on the bikes.

At the rally are some personalities that I particularly remember from the year before.  The most notable, Peppermint Patty.  She is legendary among the HOG riders.  

She is fierce, spunky and most of all, dedicated to riding her Harley Davidson.  The most often asked question directed to Patty is, "how many miles have you racked up by now?"  The reason they ask is because Patty has almost 550,000 documented miles.  Those are verified miles.  She lives to ride, rides to live.  At the drop of a hat, she will head out with someone, anyone, and ride until they are done.  Sometimes that means riding from Alaska to somewhere in the lower 48 and back.  "I do what I want to do", she told me.  Then there is a very tall woman whose name I can't recall but has a resemblance to Gomer Pyle when she smiles.  She is Patty's most often riding companion.  She is tall and slender, kind of the other end of the spectrum from Patty.  She is quieter than Patty and likes her Jack Daniels.  Si shows up in his Harley "TriGlide" or trike.  He is a gentle man with a long white beard kind of looks like ZZ Top and wears a well-worn leather vest with many patches.  He is cheered at his arrival.  

Speaking of vests, the leather vest is something every biker seems to own.  On their vest is their "patch" signifying their biker club and many other pins and patches denoting something important about their club.  Many have documented mileage patches showing how many miles they have ridden their bikes.  Then there are the "chains."  My theory about the vest chains is this.  Whenever a person gets inducted into their biker club, they are  presented with a vest that is "patched".  The vest probably fit them at the point it was given to them.  Most motorcycle vests have "expansion lacing" on each side under the arm which can be let out over time to accommodate their owners, ah, growth over the years.  When you let out as much lacing as you have, you get some "chains".  Chains are about 4" long and have a snap on each end.  As you continue to grow, you snap in a chain on each side of your vest where the buttons are and the chains hang in between connecting the two sides, holding the two sides together but allowing you to continue to wear the vest.  This way, you never have to discard your vest after all of your patches and pins have been attached to it.  Kind of genius and stylish in a biker sort of way.

In between my own conversations, I catch snippets of other conversations.  One person is explaining to another that the Black Sheep and the HOGs are almost the same except that the Black Sheep are the "religious arm of the HOGs."  Religious?  Interesting.  Another tells of a unexpected skid down the highway in which her Harley was totaled.  Others talk of trips taken and those that will be taken.  I listen to some of it amused and some of it causing me to ponder.  

As the food is consumed conversations continue as there really isn't much else to do at the campground.  Some cigars come out and I discover it doesn't take many cigars to make a LOT of smoke that seems to drift everywhere, even against the light breeze.  Suddenly a couple men in a side by side 4 wheeler pull up and shout louder than the conversations that they LOVE AND APPRECIATE THE HOGs AND BLACK SHEEP.  They are the owners of the Grizzly Bear campground and they have been hosting the "Meet in the Middle" biker rally for 12 years running.  They show their appreciation by gifting the group a case of Alaskan Beer and a box of wine of some kind.  Cheers!  Hugs!  The passenger in the side by side gets out, an older man who is wearing enormous bear paw slippers.  

He is obviously Mr. Grizzly Bear of the campground.  Lots of the bikers seem to know him.  On their way over to pick up a beer, they stop and shake hands and the women hug him.  

After being incredibly warm all afternoon, the sun finally dips behind the ridge behind the camp and things start to cool.  The laughing gets louder as the alcohol turns up the volume.  A song begins to be sung out loud to guffaws and approval.   Some drift off to their cabins.  The cigar smoke remains heavy.  Others like us decide it would be good to take a walk after spending so much of the day sitting.  We wander down all the little lanes of the camp which is quite large even if you don't realize it all at first.  From tent campers, to cabin rentals to motorhomes large and small, they have a place for you.   There are numerous Harley Davidsons parked everywhere.  I am finally beginning to recognize what seems like an infinite number of models the company makes.  We study many of them looking for cool mods and accessories dreaming of the bike we will ride someday when we grow up.

The hour of the day approaches 10:00 pm and I am ready to lay down on my hard as the earth bed in our hotel room.  I'll take a hot shower first and perhaps that set me up for a good snooze for the night.  As I get ready to turn in, the room is too warm so I open the sliding glass door to the balcony.  The swift rushing Nenana River is right below us and the sound of it is soothing.  Along about 2 am in the morning someone fires up their very LOUD piped bike and revs it up for our benefit.  Must be the alcohol talking I think to myself.

As it turns out, the bed was the hardest thing I have slept on in many years.  I tossed and turned all night.  It might have worked out if one side of me was perfectly flat like the mattress.  I've got too many curves and lumps and bumps to be sleeping on an apparent sheet of plywood.  I get up somewhat relieved to be off the bed and shower again.  I want to go down to the "church service" that is going to begin at 8:30 am.  I get there just a minute or two early for church but by the same margin too late for the coffee.  It's gone.  I was hoping to recoup some of my $60 I paid for dinner by getting some coffee since I am eating "low carb" and all they offer are Costco muffins. There is also a few of the beers and the box of wine left.  I pass.  I take a seat near where the speaker is going to speak.  

It's the first church service I have attended where stogie smoke waifs through the air.  

I wonder how long do those cigars last?  The speaker is actually very good.  Well spoken, good illustrations and he keeps it moving.  I think a couple of HOGs are actually in attendance which is the goal of the whole event.  20 minutes max and it's done.  No singing this year which with this crowd is maybe an improvement.  We say our good byes and begin to load the car with the heavy stuff then we don our gear as it looks as if it could rain on our way to Fairbanks.

It's kind of ironic that the rally takes place so early in the trip.  In a way it is the reason we are even here or at least that is how this trip got started.  Now it is over and I find myself looking forward to what is ahead, especially if we can avoid what looks like threatening rain.  

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - The Open Road

"Because it is there".  Probably the most often repeated phrase people use to explain why they do what they do when they can't articulate the reason they do what they do.  I know a lot of reasons why I like to ride my motorcycle yet there are still some elusive reasons I haven't fully pinned down yet.  Somehow to me there is the lure of the open road and more than other types of vehicles, the Harley Davidson helps me access that.

Especially after a long hiatus from riding there is a kind of excitement and joy that goes long with rumbling down the road on a big machine, wind in the hair (so to speak) and the adventures to be had doing it.  The joke is that motorcycle riders need ride with their mouths closed to avoid getting bugs stuck between their teeth.  The reason riders get bugs in their teeth is because they are smiling, sometimes laughing as they power on.  It is stress relief therapy for people who ride.  If we didn't wear full-face helmets you might see more of this.  

I have lived on the Kenai Peninsula for 27 years.  There is essentially three roads, the Seward, Sterling and Spurr highways.  I have traveled over these same roads with their spectacular views so many times I couldn't even estimate the number of trips taken on these roads.  Not to sound jaded to the sights that people come the world over to see, I have seen those mountains and that water more than a few times, from a car.  Get on a bike and it's like starting all over again.  It's a new road, new sights and new adventures nestled in the trappings of old ones.  The motorcycle kind of puts you in touch with all of that in a new way.

So it is with this journey of a thousand miles.  I have been on these roads lots of times.  Some I haven't been on for a long time, like 30 years or so.  But I have never been down some of them on a motorcycle.  It is like seeing those sights for the first time and getting all of the "wows!" and wonder all over again.  It's thrilling.

As we near departure time, we double check our bikes to expend nervous energy and then put on our riding gear.  It's late morning yet there is still a little bit of cool to the air.  The car is loaded and we start our bikes.  It's road time.  I am chosen to lead because I have cruise control on my bike.  It keeps the group together when the leader rides at a constant speed.  We work our way through town and to the next place and then we feel like we are on the road for real.  We open things up a bit and set the cruise.  The bike sounds great thrumming consistently and strong underneath me.  The sun is out in full force.  I begin to sweat.  I open up my "vents" on my riding jacket.  These are nothing but illusions as no air gets through those things.  Pretty soon I am unzipping and thinking I've got to shed some layers.

We get on the north side of Cooper Landing when we have to pull off on the side of the road beside Kenai Lake.  We dump our heavy coats in the car and don just our leather vests with long sleeve shirts.  It's still the month of May and it's the warmest riding I have ever had.  Things are much better now and we up our speed a little.  There is virtually no traffic in our lane.  Everyone seems to be heading in the direction we are coming from and few seem to be going where we are headed.  Perfect.  

We make it to Anchorage after a stop in Girdwood for someone to fill up their tiny gas tank.  Then we power on.  The girls go ahead to take the car into the dealer for some work.  We will meet up with them then.  The road to Anchorage is great and we arrive in a short time.  The temps are still rising and in the city traffic the heat from our engines are poaching the backside of our legs.  I hate riding in traffic waiting for lights.  This is everything riding is NOT about.  I can't wait to get on the road again.

Our goal for the day is a modest one.  We just have to get to Eagle River to stay at the house of some friends who are loaning their house to us for the night while they are away.  After dinner on the far side Anchorage, it is only a few minutes later we arrive at the home of our friends and get ready for the evening.  Greg and I take a short ride about town before we call it quits for the night.  

The next morning the trip for me begins in earnest.  We get to Wasilla to meet friends for breakfast, join up with another rider and his wife and son and get on the road for real.  I love it.  We pull out heading north on the Parks highway with the goal of Cantwell for the night.  The morning air is cool and the dark foreboding clouds up ahead promise rain.  Whatever, I am ready to ride.  

We power up and flow with the Memorial Day traffic until Trapper Creek.  For some reason past this point the traffic always seems to disappear.  The road is open, the pavement is dry and the sun comes out again.  The rain never makes an appearance.  We shed heavy layers once again and are riding in vest and long sleeves.  The curves and hills stretch out before us and the miles go underneath our bikes easily.  It is good to be riding again, this is the real deal and it is great.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - Lodging

One of the things you have to figure out on any trip longer than a day is "where are we going to stay?"  Lodging is one of the fun and interesting parts of any trip.  When I travel by myself or in this case with another friend, I am up for keeping it affordable, cheap, spartan, and when I can, free.  It is my minimalist tendencies kicking in again.

Perhaps it comes from the road trip adventures my dad took us on early on in my life.  We usually didn't stay at motel/hotels until we were older.  When we were really small, we would sleep in the back seat of the VW Beetle while dad drove through the night.  The back seat actually folded down into a flat surface big enough for my sister and I to fully stretch out.  Usually a sleeping bag was spread out to cover the itchy wool material that covered the area behind the seat and a blanket to cover us made it down right cozy.  One memorable adventure was when Dad and I took a box van truck from Fairbanks to Haines, Alaska.  It was full of mattresses bound for a youth camp in Southeast Alaska. There was other equipment in there too, like a washer and dryer, but it was all covered up with mattresses in different levels.  We had to pull off on the side of the road somewhere between the two towns for a couple nights and I rolled out my sleeping bag on a little loft of mattresses stacked up high.  It was fun sleeping in the back of that truck.  

Honestly, that little memory kicks in anytime I am traveling light or on my own and I rather delight in the idea of tucking myself away somewhere cozy for the night.  I also like the idea of free lodging.  So, when planning this most recent trip, we planned to take advantage of our many contacts around the road system in Alaska who are connected with a church.  Many churches have little rooms with a bed or a place to roll out a sleeping bag for the night.  I have done that many-a-time in my years in Alaska as a youth pastor on youth choir tours.  I've slept on pews scooted together forming a fairly decent sleeping surface (if you don't mind the high spot in the middle), couches, daycare napping pads, nursery crib mattresses strung together, anything to cushion this aging body from the cold, hard floor.  

In our planning, we would need lodging in the Wasilla area, Denali, Fairbanks and Valdez.  No problem as all of those places have Assembly of God churches with friends as the pastor.

As I wrote the last time, we had invited the wives along on this trip which was not in the original plan.  This requires different thinking when planning the lodging.  Although I am OK with no shower now and then, my wife is not OK with that.  She requires hot water, electricity and coffee with creamer.  We quickly realized that we needed to upgrade our lodging ideas.  Usually that means staying somewhere that is going to cost a little money.  

When you are just a couple, you can sometimes stay with friends.  Lots of people have a "guest room" or at least a room with an extra bed.  But who has two guest rooms?  Not many have the ability to house 4 adults and in my case "full size" adults for the night?  Without going into a long story, we had mutual friends who have a nice house in Eagle River who were going to be gone at the very time we were going to be in their area.  "Would you all like to just stay at our place while we are gone?", Ann the wife offered.  Sure!  

Jack and Ann have a wonderful home, very comfortable and one we have stayed in several times.  They were very generous to allow us to use it when they were not there.   So that took care of our first night.  It was quite nice as usual and I slept very well.  We even were able to park our Harley Davidsons in the garage for the night.  Deluxe accommodations you might say.  The wives were certainly on board for this idea.  Lots of room, hot water, electricity and coffee.  I was feeling a little giddy about being off to a good start.

Our next place we needed to stay was the meeting place for the "Meet in the Middle" biker rally near Denali Park or Cantwell to be a little more accurate.  We had planned to stay at the Grizzly Bear Campground all along for this night.  

Since the rally occurs here each year, it only makes sense to stay right there.  There is an Assembly of God church in the community of Healy which is not very far from this campground, but "when in Rome" as they say.  When I mentioned to my wife we were staying at the Grizzly Bear Campground, she looked very sternly at me and asked, "am I going to have to stay in a sleeping bag?"  I assured her that no, this was not the case.  Even though you could tent camp it if you wanted to, they have nice little rooms with beds, showers and balconies overlooking the Nenana river.  It's quite nice actually.  A night I look forward to.  This did the trick for her and we were back on.  The only trouble with our room was the two double size beds instead of the king size I asked for.  You have to understand that sleeping together on a double size bed is OK when you are first married, I mean you are in love and all of that and we were a lot skinnier then.  You tend to overlook a few things when you are first married.  I generously gave my wife half of the bed even though she is half my size.  I slept diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner and she got the other two corners.  This doesn't fly anymore.  There is also some ridiculous talk about somebody snoring and stealing too much of the covers.  So, we staked out our own beds.  Probably a good thing too, as mine was as hard as a sheet of plywood.  I think I tossed and turned so much that night that I would have tossed my wife out of bed just from the shock waves traveling to the opposite corners of the mattress.

After a somewhat restless night, we enjoyed a long, hot shower which I felt helped me justify some of my $170 for the night.  I think Mr. Grizzly Bear does pretty well with his little campground.  We checked out and headed to our next destination, Fairbanks.

Now I was a little nervous about where we were staying in the "golden heart city".  Originally, I was planning to ask the pastor of Fairbanks First Assembly if we could sack out on sleeping bags somewhere in the church.  Knowing I had to upgrade my plan with my wife along, I went to the next best place: Priceline.  I carefully read the descriptions of the many hotels and disregarded all of them and chose the cheapest place listed, a Best Western for $99.  I thought, if the Grizzly Bear had beds like a buck board wagon, what is a $99 Best Western going to have?

As it turns out, this was the most wonderful hotel of the whole trip!  We got to the "golden heart city" a little early for checking in but I wanted to unload our stuff from our friends car and let them go on to stay with their son, his wife and baby granddaughter.  So, first I had to find this place.  There are two Best Western hotels in Fairbanks.  One is right on the main drag and you can spot it easily right away.  Our Best Western is a little more difficult to find.  I had to head down Peger Road, cross the Chena River (on a bridge, I just rode over it) and turn right on an industrial road that headed to the rail yard of the Alaska Rail Road.  It didn't look promising.  Then, a little sign pointed down a very winding and fairly long street with no other businesses, houses or other buildings around, just woods and nothing to see.  I rode down this street thinking, "I hope this place doesn't stink."  I finally arrived to a quite nice place, rather newish looking.  There were almost no cars at all in the parking spaces and I assumed the place might be fairly vacant.  

I parked my Harley and walked in.  Nice so far, clean and the pool even looks inviting.  I went to the counter and "AJ" a young and fairly small lady of what seemed to me Indian (as in India) descent was there to greet me.  I said, "I know I am a little early to check in, but is there any way I can do so?"  Her fingers clicked and clacked across her computer keyboard for a few seconds and then her face brightened and said pleasantly, "yes, we have a room available."  Music to my ears!  I said thank you as she handed me the little key cards to our room and I went up to the third floor and down the hall to the room assigned to me.  I opened the door and peered into the darkness.  What?  This room is big!  I flip on a light.  It is a suite!  Sweet, I say!  The bed?  King.  Soft.  Perfect.  My wife is going to think I am a genius.  I scored a hotel suite on Priceline for $99 bucks.  I am a genius.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful night of sleep.  We had lots of room for all our stuff and it was very comfortable, even the couch was comfortable.  We took our time in the morning and used our fair share of hot water in the shower.  The other cool thing is that the Best Western hotels offer a "free" breakfast.  It actually isn't bad.  We and 5,000 of our best friends (the place was not deserted after all) ate our fill of scrambled eggs and little sausages and JoLynn had a waffle. The coffee wasn't actually coffee, it was Nescafe which I hadn't had for over a year since we were in Israel.  It was kind of a memory trigger of that wonderful trip.

I was feeling a little better about our next destination, Valdez, since I had booked a room there for Greg and I to stay in and split the cost.  The plan was that the ladies would stay in Fairbanks an extra day and return home via the route we arrived.  Greg and I were going to push on to Valdez, about 385 miles away for the next night.  I Pricelined this room as well but the choice wasn't too hard as there were only two hotels to choose from and the review on one complained about the running diesel engine of the 18 wheeler that idled all night just outside their window and the noise from the harbor was just as bad.  The other choice, the Best Western also offered that free breakfast...visions of little sausages were dancing in my head.

It was a long haul from the "golden heart city" to Valdez the next day.  By the time we arrived, our backsides had about all the saddle time they were going to allow us.  We were beat and I was hoping the room was another surprise suite.  No such luck.  It did have two double beds for which I was grateful for this time as I didn't think Greg would go for the opposite corner scheme.  The beds were passable for two weary road warriors.  I conked out after a hot shower.  I think I could have even slept on the buck board bed with an 18 wheeler idling outside our window that night and been OK.  

Yes, lodging is a great part of the adventure.  As it was, it was partly a great trip as we didn't have to sleep on the floor of a church as we would have originally planned which would have necessitated carrying even more stuff like foam pads and sleeping bags.  Staying in a hotel helps keep things light and less complicated although at a little more cost.  I hate to admit it to myself, but even being a minimalist at heart and my training, I kind of like the hotel thing.  At the end of the day this pudgy body likes to rest well and that more and more sounds like a bed worth paying for.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles - Traveling Light

It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  That first step is very careful planning, especially when that journey is on a motorcycle.  You see, you can only carry so much when you ride a bike.  But that is the beauty of the thing.  Simplicity, lightness, freedom and a feeling of being unencumbered is what biking is all about.  No hatchbacks here, no way.

So, you must take serious consideration what things are necessary to bring that are irreplaceable to you on the road, such things as a tire patch kit, a small air compressor, essential clothing, oil, as well as a little food and water.  As a biker, it is a good thing to be a minimalist.  Light and easy I always say.  Don't get weighted down by all your stuff when you are trying to travel light and fast.  Yes.

I try to get all my stuff into the three compartments on my Harley Davidson Ultra Glide.  It is a "bagger" which means it has in my case, three stowage compartments into which to load essential gear.  These compartments look pretty big until you try to load your stuff into them, then they look amazingly small.  They also have little stickers on the inside that tell you their maximum weight capacity.  My saddle bags?  A maximum of 10 pounds of gear, each.  My tour pack? A maximum of 15 pounds of gear.  That isn't a lot of space as motorcycle gear is usually kind of bulky and heavy by nature.  

So, with careful planning and sacrificial mindset I pare down my essentials until they fit within the limited confines of these small spaces.  It is difficult because in Alaska, you never know what kind of weather you will encounter.  It could be literally freezing one day and a heat wave the next and then the day after that, pelt you with rain.  Do you chance driving your bike with hypothermia as you rumble down the road or do you swelter as the weather plays "gotcha" with you as the sun beats down mercilessly on the rider clad in black, heavy, insulated garb or would you rather enjoy riding soaked? You make some calculated guesses and pay a lot of attention to the weather forecasts.  You can't take everything, but what will you wish you had with you?   

I hate to admit this, but there is also the issue of vanity.  What do you want to look like as you traverse the country side in your Harley Davidson?  The Grapes or Wrath? The Clampetts?  I've seen motorcycle riders with a rats nest of ratchet straps, bags, duct tape, bungees, and string securing monstrous containers of who-knows-what to a tiny little sissy bar on the back seat.  It's a pitiful sight.  The graceful lines of a beautifully designed motorcycle blighted with what looks like a biker bag lady owner.  No, a bike should be freed from the extra weight and the ridiculousness of the jury rigged luggage.  To the outside observer, it should be difficult to tell if you are on a long ride or not.

Days ahead of time you set out your essentials.  Hmm...I'll be gone 5 days, If I take two pair of underwear and each day turn them inside out, that's four days worth.  Since I won't be walking in the garage or outside in my socks, those will last at least two or three days each.  You can really minimize if you want to. 

This new Harley has some very neat "bag liners" that are little duffle bags that are designed to fit exactly into the saddle bags just right.  That way when you go in for the night, you can pull all your stuff out all neatly stowed in the liner instead of several Wal Mart plastic bags and wads of dirty socks.  The problem being, not much fits into the liners.  

Once in awhile you check in with the other rider that you are taking this trip with.  What are you bringing?  How much stuff you got?  Usually you admit that there is just too much to take with you and too many contingencies to cover with too limited of carrying capacity.  What to do?

You decide to take drastic action.  You invite the wives to go along.  "Say, sweetie, how would you like to spend a few days with your bestie in the car and follow us on the bikes?  Wouldn't that be fun?  Remember how jealous you were last year that you didn't go with us? It will be fun. Sure it would, you could talk and see the sights and eat out.  Oh, and could you bring your car with the hatchback?  We have just a few things that would be better if we could put them in the back.  It would save a lot of trouble."

So the wives chat and decide it sounds like a lot of fun.  They take the bait!  Now it is on.  We can ride free and easy and the car can haul all the junk.  No more economizing on gear, take it all.  Take all the just-in-case stuff and leave the minimizing for the next time.  Woo Hoo!  Just like having cake and eating it too.

So it turns out, the ancient wisdom of the journey of a thousand miles? Invite the wives along to carry the big and heavy stuff.  That's the real secret to traveling light.

On The Road Again

You can tell it has been a long time of waiting to do something you really want to do when you start dreaming about doing it again in your sleep.  So it was with my desire to ride my Harley Davidson motorcycle again.  The winter was among the more mild ones to be sure and there wasn't a ton of snow to melt away before we could get out and ride, but maybe that is what made it a little more difficult to wait.  The conditions to ride were so close to acceptable that it made me want to jump ahead a little just to get out.

A motorcycle rider has to accept a little more risk to do what he enjoys.  You aren't as big as a car or truck so people don't see you as easily.  Some drivers don't respect motorcycle riders and even go out of their way to make riding a little more hazardous - probably a whole blog topic in itself.  The rider also has to worry about things that the driver of an automobile gives scant thought to such as, the little gravel bits that accumulate on the sides of the road and in intersections.  The motorcycle rider sees those as little ball bearings scattered about ready to turn his banking turn into a roll on the pavement.  

A particular concern in the late winter/early spring is the ground temperature.  What may be melting snow in the sun could very well be ice in the shadow as the ground is still colder than the air temperature.  Riding from the relative warmth of the sun on asphalt into the shadows could also produce an unexpected appointment with Mr. Pain.  

Perhaps not finally except for this article is the presence of "road snakes".  Snakes in Alaska?  Yes, especially in the spring, big ones.  The winter is very hard on Alaska roads and the pressures of frost and ice expanding in the ground produce fissures in the asphalt that sometimes resemble the San Andraeus fault.  Yes, those "cracks' in the road that squiggle along are sometimes wide enough to swallow a motorcycles' front tire.  Instead of going where you thought you were going, the road snake sends you in the direction it is going.  The rider caught enjoying the scenery too much can get surprised and lose control of his bike and again, an unplanned meeting with the ground, bitten by a "road snake."

One small additional consideration for me in particular is that I live on a dirt road.  For some reason right in front of our house the road builders must have run out of good road building material and substituted what is essentially mush instead.  Honestly, our road is most of a mile long and we live in the middle.  Before you get our our house the road is firm and dries quickly. When you get past our house, the same.  But right in front of our house it is ooey, gooey, mush. Call me a priss but I don't want to ride my Harley through 30 yards of mush.  

So, there is finally a day when all the conditions are acceptable and I get out to ride.  Instead of taking a right turn out of my driveway, I can take a left and go the long way around our block to avoid the quicksands of death in front of the house and then hit the relatively new asphalt of the main street into our subdivision and I am off.

It is exhilarating to finally get out on the road.  I was able to take my first short ride in the month of March this season.  Unheard of.  It was chilly and you have to dress in layers but it is pretty great to get that rumbling lump of V-Twin Harley under you again and sail down the highway after too long of waiting.  

The first thing that occurs to you after the first ride is that it is too cold still to think about going too far.  I discovered the dividing line for me is about +40 degrees.  Any cooler and it is too cool.  Anything warmer is better.  I made the mistake of riding south about 50 miles to meet a fellow rider friend who came up about the same distance to have a bite to eat as an excuse to get out on the bike.  It was about 40 degrees when I left home.  While we visited and ate our meal, the weather cooled about 4 degrees.  It was a very chilly ride home that evening.

Pretty much short rides are the rule.  It helps, but what a person really yearns for is to go on a real ride, at least a 100 miles or more.  It doesn't help that spring is a very intensely busy season for me.  From mid April to mid May, most of my days are obligated in one way or another limiting my ability to take advantage of sudden nice days.  This year, the month of April was more like the revenge of winter with more snow days than the rest of the winter season combined which didn't help.

This past week on Monday was my day off, the weather was decent and I had no obligations.  I was anxious to get out and ride for real.  I chose Seward, Alaska as my destination.  It is about 180 miles round trip.  I geared up, gassed up and got on the road.  I am planning a 1500 mile trip in a couple of weeks and this will help me get ready for the longer ride.

It was wonderful.  For some reason I seemed especially favored with the weather and traffic.  There were rain squalls here and there and sometimes it was evident that I was mere minutes behind them but I never encountered rain.  Sometimes the clouds blocked the sun, but sometimes the sun's rays would give their warmth to my leather clad body and all would be well again.  It also seemed like the traffic all parted away from my path and allowed me an uncrowded road with nothing ahead of me the whole way, something that will be increasingly rare as the campers and motorhomes begin clogging the skinny two-lane roads of the Kenai Peninsula.  

The ride to Seward was awesome, great scenery, open roads and no trouble at all.  Getting to Seward was about a 2 hour ride, just right for taking a break and stretching the legs.  I also rode around town checking the place out for anything new.  I got a cup of coffee at one of our favorite haunts in town just to warm up my hands and to catch up on FaceBook via my phone.  It was almost $3 dollars for a cup of regular drip coffee which the guy worked fiercely to pump from the bottom of the pot that had been standing there nearly empty for long before I got there. 

What the coffee lacked in special was made up with the ambiance of the place and a chance to sit and relax. Finishing my unremarkable coffee I then rode through town checked out my options for lunch which was two Chinese buffets, a number of diners with the regular fare one would expect for a diner and a Greek restaurant.  I chose one of the Chinese buffets.  It also was unremarkable but was quiet and clean and I did find some spring rolls and ate all of the few California sushi rolls they offered.  

Since there was nothing of note happening in Seward this early in the year, I decided it was time to head home.  I fueled up and checked my miles per gallon, which figured out to 47 mpg, the best I have seen yet from this Ultra Glide.  I powered up and headed out of town seeing the same sights in reverse order as I came in.  For some reason the trip home seemed about half the time as it took to get to Seward, even going the same speeds.

I am still working up my riding stamina, my backside was pretty worn out by the time I got home and my shoulders were cramping up something fierce as well.  Both things that tend to work themselves out over time.  The bike had bugs stuck all over it and needed a bath, but I was ready to take a break, satisfied that I had finally been back on the road again.

Day 10 Part 7 Heading Home

There is nothing I would like to do more than lay down for a nap but there is no time.  We must shower, change our clothes into something comfortable for the 12 hour flight back to the U.S.A. and get our suitcases out in the hall so they can be packed on the buses for our trip the the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

We are treated kind of special as the hotel has given us our own banquet room with our own buffets.  The food is the same, but we have fewer people to contend with as we fill our plates.  By this time I have tried about everything they have offered us at least once and I choose the things I like best among the offerings.  I heap up the dill pickles.  The dill pickles here are the best I have ever had.  I wish I could take some home.

We eat with friends and the farewells begin as we will all take different routes as we head home.  There are several speakers to address our tour as we finish eating our food.  One is the owner of the tour company, a Mr. Amie.  He seems like a nice man.  His mother was a holocaust survivor and he offers us a free book of her story.  Dr. Wood, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God who has been with our "Red Bus" group most of the time addresses the tour as well.  Our guides, Eli, Ilan, Wave and one I can't remember his name, are all recognized.  Eli as typical gets the loudest ovation.  For some reason, Eli very much endears himself to everyone.

There is more but we are eventually instructed to go outside the hotel and find our suitcases and take them personally to our bus and ensure they are loaded on board.  It takes a few minutes but I am able to find both of our bags among the hundreds.  I escort them to the Red Bus and they are loaded.  I think this might be a good time to use the restrooms.  I find the banquet room restrooms and enter.  They are pretty much the most over-the-top nice rest rooms I have ever seen.  I don't know why here in Israel of all places where I have experienced the most primitive of potty  rooms, but wow.  I enter a private commode room that is huge with marble floors. It is big enough to throw a party in.  It is richly paneled.  It has a huge, heavy locking door.  Inside this commode room, it has it's own wash basin and fresh cloth towels.  Beautiful framed pictures adorn the walls. Fresh flowers in a vase on it's own shelf.  Care for a little cologne?  There are a few that you can try.  The mirrors are large and well lit.  I think I would like to hang out in here for a little while it is so nice. I leave feeling like I have seen how the rich and famous have it.

I find Indiana Jolie and we board our bus.  It will be just over an hour's ride to Tel Aviv and the Ben Gurion International Airport.  Ilan, one of our Israeli guides is our helper to get us through customs and security.  We are coached as we drive to the airport as what to say and what not to say when we get to customs and security.  Essentially we are told to keep it to "yes" or "no".  Do not volunteer information.  Do not elaborate.  Do not lie.  If we are singled out for questioning keep our answers short.  None of this is to be devious, it is just some experienced advice.  The more information that is volunteered, the more the security people have to cross check with the other security guards.  More information leads to more questions.  More questions lead to more volunteered information which leads to more questions, etc., etc.  Keep it simple, keep it short, keep it truthful.

We arrive at the check-in gates.  We get our suitcases checked quick enough.  Sure enough, while the entire group is standing there I am volunteered by one of the security people for some questions.  We step about 20 feet from the rest of the group.  She is a collage age lady that is home after attending university in America.  She peppers me with questions.  Where have I been?  How long have I been here?  What did I purchase?  Did anyone give me anything?  What is my occupation?  Who is the group I am traveling with?  Do I have anything I need to tell them?

This lady was pretty good. They way they ask the questions makes it easy to say too much.  The last question I was unprepared for, I wanted to think of something to tell her but kept my mouth shut.  After about 15 minutes and her conferring with other security people I am allowed to return to our group.  Everyone wants to know what she asked me.  I am a little nervous to talk about it much as she is still standing near by.  I shrug and say it was nothing.

From here we descend to another floor and we wait in line for customs with our passports in hand.  We get a short line but the guy in front of us must have had some sort of a rap sheet as they question him for a long time.  We are next to see the agent but we must wait for Mr. Terrorist to get done being questioned.  They finally take him somewhere else and after another five minutes of our agent fiddling around in his cubicle he motions us forward.  We slip our passports under the glass and he looks us up in his database.  We must look pretty benign because we pass pretty quickly.  

We walk down the long concourse to our gate and wait for our flight.  it is the beginning of another endless night since I can't possibly sleep on airplanes.  Hopefully my seat will have a working movie screen and a working earplug port this time.  

We board and the flight is very full.  Our seats are right next to the restrooms.  Oh joy.  There is a cute Jewish family in front of us.  The young dad and mom sit across the aisle one row in front of us.  Their two young boys are right in front of me and Indiana Jolie.  The boys are a non-stop whirl of motion.  They wrestle, they climb up and down the seats.  The need this, they need that, and the parents are the accommodating kind.  They have me worn out before we taxi to the runway.

We lift off and Israel is soon a cluster of small lights in the distance.  As we gain altitude flying west we get a longer version of sunset.  Wow.  Time has passed so quickly but we have been gone from home so long.  

We are served a meal.  Do we wish kosher?  Sure, why not.  It is ok.  I eat my meal as it hops up and down on the tray that descends from the seat back that holds the fury of a miniature whirling dervish that barely slows down to eat.  

Soon all the meals and drinks and blankets and pillows are all passed out and the plane quiets down except for the perpetual motion machines in the seats in front of us and the line of people that form next to me to use the facilities.  
I look at the choices of movies that are offered.  Good deal, both the screen and the earplug port are in working order.  I look at my watch and determine that if I get right on it, I can watch four full length movies before we touch down in Philadelphia.  I do.  About the equivalent of 2 a.m., the inexhaustible energy sources in front of me pass out.  About every 20 minutes or so the stewards walk up and down the aisles offering water to anyone who wants it. They must be hoping to prevent dehydration or deep vein thrombosis or something.  This of course keeps the line to the restroom always past where I am sitting.  Indiana Jolie sleeps blissfully through most of the flight.  

When we arrive in Philadelphia we grab a quick breakfast at the airport before we have to board our flight to Phoenix.  We snap our pictures by the Lego brick Liberty Bell.

We have another three hours to fly before we get to where we will attempt to sleep off some of our jet lag.  Ha ha!  That is a joke.

We smartly and strategically booked a hotel that is on the light rail line that runs through Phoenix.  We arrive at the International terminal and get a shuttle to our hotel where we stashed our other suitcases while we were in Israel.  It will be great to wear some different clothes!  We are happy to check in and sleep for a couple hours before making ourselves get up at the standard time to get back on our regular awake/sleep schedule.  

We decide that we need to stay busy all day so we can sleep all night.  Indiana Jolie says she would like to visit the Phoenix Zoo.  I can think of nothing better so we head out.  We pay our $4 to ride the light rail all day.  This also covers all the transfers we need to catch two different buses that will actually take us to the zoo.  It is too easy.  We get to the zoo bright and early before it is actually open.  We are there waiting in line with all the stroller moms and toddlers.  It is a nice zoo as far as zoos go.  Indiana Jolie got to feed a giraffe as well which made her day.  We see much and enjoy the experience.  About mid afternoon we kind of "hit the wall" energy wise and decide to catch the bus back to the light rail.  We go to the bus stop which lists the time.  We have to wait an hour and twenty minutes which feels more like one hundred days.  

The right bus finally arrives and we catch the light rail back to Tempe.  We get off at Tempe to find some food which is more walking in our depleted state.  Tempe is the University town for ASU.  There are lots of fun places to eat and shop but I just want to eat and drop.  Indiana Jolie wants to look at shoes and clothes.  I in zombie like fashion follow.

We finally board the light rail and return to our room.  It is a little early to go to bed so I decide to try the spa down by the pool.  This feels fabulous. I am in the mood for an all night sleep which I do.

We get ourselves up in time for breakfast and head out to explore Mesa at the end of the light rail system.  After waking a half dozen additional block we find the places where there are some antique stores and junk shops.  We easily fill our time until we have to come back and ready ourselves for our flight back to Alaska and home.  

It is surreal that we have been half way around the world and back.  We have seen more than we have anticipated and have grown in knowledge and experience.  It indeed has been a trip of a lifetime.

The end.

Day 10 Part 6 The Southern Wall of Temple Mount

We trudge along the western Temple Mount wall until we can turn east and walk up the broad stairs that end at the southern Temple Mount wall.  We are all tired and for the first time in the trip, I see some of the elderly people on our tour begin to struggle to keep up.  

There is so much to see no matter what direction you look. Even beneath our feet.  The area is paved with smooth pavement stones as are most places in this area.  However, for the first time, I see that the material between the pavement stones are ancient pottery shards.  In this area the shards must represent millions of broken pottery vessels.  I want to stop and pry some out from between the stones but I am flagging and I don't want to get into some kind of trouble.  

As we arrive at the broad staircase on the southern wall, it feels larger than life.  Here I am staring in real time at something I have seen depicted in photographs all my life.  It is a little overwhelming.  The broad staircase looks like one part of it has been refurbished with new stone, the other half looks quite weathered, worn and ancient.  

On the left side of the southern wall is a later addition of building that sticks out from the wall.  It forms a nice shadow providing a little shade that looks welcoming in the heat. 

Our group assembles there on the steps as we prepare to hear a lecture on the significance of this place.  I admit I am pretty beat and there is no way to sit comfortably on these stone stairs.  I attempt vainly to find a way to sit there in a position I can stay in for longer than a minute.  I am sure that I have missed much of what is being said because of this and because I am surrounded by such fascinating things to look at.  I can look south, straight ahead of me and I can oversee the slope of Mt. Zion down to the City of David.  To my left, east, I look over the Kidron Valley at the face Mt. of Olives and it's million graves where we began this longest day of discovery early in the morning.  It is hard to think that literally within just a few hours we will be on a jet heading west and back to the U.S.A.

One of the surprising things that Dr. Turnage shares with us is that this area where we are seated has a lot of evidence that points to it being the place of the "upper room" that is mentioned on the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.  I am trying to imagine what it must have looked like 2000 years ago.  I study the bricks of the southern wall and notice some bricked up gates with round tops on them.  
Obviously they are pre-byzantine gates that must date to the first century or so.  There is a set of two and then further east down the southern wall is a set of three round top gates that are also bricked up.  

Dr. Turnage speaks much about the history of Pentecost with it's initial start taking place right where we sit.  He invites us to stand and he begins to walk east to the top of the broad stairs and up against the southern wall.  We continue to walk along the southern wall until we are in front of the three round top gates that are bricked up.  These gates as well as the the two previous ones date back to the first century or the time when Jesus himself would have actually been in this very location.  These gates served as access points through the wall of Jerusalem Jews would have walked through to staircases that would have elevated them to the top of the mount where the Temple stood.

As is the case everywhere we have been, the possibility of walking on any surface that Jesus actually walked on has been pretty remote.  Things being built upon previous built layers or things destroyed and removed through the centuries has left little of what was the Israel Jesus lived in.  However, Dr. Turnage points to the paved stones we are standing on.  They are replacements of the original stones that Jesus would have walked on.  Except three.  There are three distinctly different stones directly in front of this three gate opening.  Dr. Turnage tells us that of all the places we have been in Israel and Jerusalem these three stones are the most like location of any that Jesus would have touched as he walked through these very gates.  

This final bit of Dr. Turnage's lecture serves as the punchline of the whole day.  The group surges to see these stones and grab a snapshot, touch them, kneel down on them or just stand on them.  To think Jesus himself, in the flesh standing in this very spot.  The connection to the Bible, to antiquity and Jesus himself is very real.  It makes all the Bible stories of Sunday School and the scriptures much more a reality.  It was a real high point of the day and a good way to end the tour of Israel.

It is now time to head back to our hotels, shower, eat and dress for our flights out of Tel Aviv later tonight.  We all turn to go, descend the stairs, cross the pottery paved plaza and catch our buses that wait on the edge of the road jamming up traffic in the evening rush hour. 

We pause to assist some of the elderly who are clearly played out and can barely walk back to the buses.  I feel the way they do but have enough left to help them and get myself on the bus.

It has been the longest day of the tour both in terms of time spent walking and all that we have taken in.  We could have filled days with just what we touched on in one.  

It doesn't take our buses long to pull into the Jerusalem Ramada where we have been staying since our time in Jerusalem.  We will not sleep here tonight.  We shower, change our clothes and head down to our closing banquet of the tour.

Day 10 Part 5 Underground!

The relief from the heat is immediate as we descend down the steep ladder stairs.  It is quite agreeable below ground being about fifteen degrees cooler.  

Our eyes adjust quickly to the dimmer light which is provided by some make-shift power lines with light bulbs attached to the stone ceiling.  

It is very clear that this is still a very active archaeological site.  Very near the ladder on which we are descending into the dig are metal gates with locks on them with signs in Hebrew / Arab that clearly are warning us to stay out of that area.  

It only makes one wonder what could be so important.  If one were to access that area, it would quickly take you to the area below the "Wailing Wall" portion of the western wall of the temple mount.  Hmmm...

We assemble in a round room with a high ceiling.  We are about 40 feet underground.  

In the center of the ceiling is a square hole.  If you look up into it, you can see the blue sky above.  The curved walls of this room are very smooth and each end has a rough entrance / exit.  It is explained that this was once a cistern. The square hole is where they would lower their water jars down to fill them with water.  When the cisterns were not needed any longer they broke into the with the tunnels to provide a passage way.  There is a series of these cistern / passageways as we walk down the passage.

The history of this area is more than fascinating.  Jews hid in these passage ways when the Romans sacked Jerusalem.  When walking away from the Wailing Wall area the passage way clearly descends downhill.  

Eli, our Israeli archaeologist guide tells us that this very underground passage way ends at the Pool of Siloam we were at only a few days ago.  When Eli discovered the Pool of Siloam, they uncovered the lower entrance to this passageway which had been unknown and sealed off for centuries.  Inside the passage way they found cooking pots and personal possessions of the Jews who tried to hide from the Romans during the destruction of Jerusalem.  This is almost more than I can stand.  How exciting to find such things.  One can only wonder what fate the owners of those artifacts met.  

The passageway was the means by which the pilgrim Jew to Jerusalem would take to the Temple Mount after being purified in the Pool of Siloam.  This way they would avoid being defiled by Gentiles or other things on their way.  Originally, the passage way was a small valley that was on the west side of the City of David.  Over time, it was bridged to allow people to cross over the little valley without having to climb down and then up again to get across.  Eventually the entirety of the valley was covered over creating this underground passage way.  

Our group begins the southward descent underground.  We see below level stones of the temple mount walls that are just as impressive as those above ground.  There are places where it is obvious they are actively digging next to those stones.  

The little paper prayers are stuffed in around the cracks of the stones even here here as they are at the Wailing Wall.  The passageway meanders left and right and back again.  The floor is a bit uneven but very smooth stone.  How many Jews have walked exactly where I am walking?  

Even down below here we have our little blue receivers on so we can hear the running commentary of our guides.  They have a particular destination in mind for us to see down here.  I can't imagine what it could be.  We walk for what feels is quite a ways, hard to tell since we are underground.  The line we are walking in stops and we listen to what our guides are telling us up ahead.  Eli, has identified the very stone of the corner of the temple mount walls.  It juts out into the passage way which makes a dogleg around it.  

We all await our turn to get our pictures taken as we stand beside it.  This takes some time but that's OK as it is quite cool and agreeable to me down here.  

I eventually take my place as I grasp the corner of this great stone.  Since I am now the first one in the entire line, I can look down the passage way ahead of me as it continues it meandering downhill into the distance.  I want to breakaway and run down the passage and emerge at the Pool of Siloam.  Wouldn't it be awesome to have traveled the entire length of the passage?  I can hardly restrain myself.

Indiana Jolie and I take our pictures and then head back to where we began moving against the line of those awaiting to take their pictures by the corner stone.  I am in no hurry to get out of here and instead of feeling claustrophobic in tight quarters underground I feel quite good.  

What I am not looking forward to is the hot, dry air we will return to when we climb the ladder out of here.

We arrive at the place where the ladder will return us back to the terrestrial level just in time to see three of our guides, Eli, Marc Turnage and his wife, Amy unlock and enter the forbidden gate!  Eli obviously has a key!  We are told we cannot go with them and the door is locked behind them.  We are told that this area is highly sensitive to the Arabs and should they find out what Eli has found behind that locked gate that there could very well cause some problems.  The Arabs are very adamant about quashing any evidence of Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.  They would riot if there was found Jewish  artifacts showing Jewish heritage of the Temple Mount.  Our imaginations run wild.  What could possibly be so important back there.  Our eyes strain to see but it is too dark and twisty.  

I decide I will wait in the underground until our guides return.  Maybe they will whisper what they have seen to us.  Others returning from the cornerstone ascend the ladder back up to the surface.  I like where I am.  

After some time, our guides reappear with coy smiles on their faces.  They will not reveal what they have seen other than to say, "it is amazing."  Eli, tells us that were he to reveal what they have found that it would be very possible that we would be on the evening news that night.  And not in a good way.

With our leaders back, we all ascend the ladder.  In reverse from when we came down, the air become warmer and warmer until it is hot and muggy as we emerge from below.  I want to turn back and stay but we have the end of our day close at hand.  The heat of the day is probably at its high point with the sun heating up the stones of the southern wall and the heat reflecting back upon us.  I am withering.

We continue to walk along the southern wall until we approach the broad steps that ascend to the southern wall itself.  Here we assemble again to hear about Acts chapter 2.