Israel Day 1 - Tel Aviv

The first night we stayed in Tel Aviv, close to the airport. Honestly, take away the Hebrew signs and I would have almost thought I was in any California or Florida beach town. Until you get into the market (sorry no pics). Its all open air, no Giant or CVS. Otherwise a very modern city. We walked into the city and along the beach that night. The water was warm and seemed pretty clean. Nice beach. Tomorrow we leave for Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee.

View from our room

The Promenade extends for quite a ways

Tel Aviv Gallery

Florida: Shark Valley

Oops, one more Florida site I wanted to show you. At the northern side of Everglades National Park is a place called Shark Valley. That's a strange name. I was thinking that maybe "Iceberg Mountains" may have been a more appropriate name for someplace in Flatrida but believe it or not once I asked the guide it made some sense. You see there are these really itsy, bitsy mountains... No, it really is a valley, its just that the high points are only 20 feet higher than the low points. And as the guide explained, the dictionary definition of "valley" doesn't require real mountains, just a low point between high points. Ok, maybe, but where are the sharks, we are at least 25 to 50 miles inland? Turns out that the water pours out into the Shark River, so called because shark's breed where the river meets the ocean.

Anyways, its a great place to see typical Florida wildlife up close and there is a 15 mile loop road into the swamp. You can bike, hike or take a tram ride. As the pictures show, lots of birds and gators and classic everglades topography. I've been deeper into the everglades and this is just about as good and still less than 2 hours from a major town, like Ft Myers.

Cooling off

Ready to strike

The rest...