One week from today I will embark on a much needed vacation. It will be good to get away from the heat of California.

Here you can see that there were three days with triple digit heat earlier this week and one day in the forecast for next week. Also a lot of upper 90’s.

During my vacation time the weather here in California will not be quite as hot, but it will definitely be summer time. Which is what it should be as summer begins the same time as my vacation.It will be just a bit cooler where I will be during my vacation. However, I will be outside for much of my vacation so I will definitely be feeling the heat.

Here is where I will be spending most of my vacation. This is Khirbet al Ra’i which is the dig site where I will be working for two weeks in Israel. There are some alternate spellings for the site, like Khirbet el Rai.

If you want to learn more about this site you can watch a lecture by Yosef Garfinkel. I will give a link to a Holy Land Photos page that also gives an outline of the video: Garfinkel Lecture

I can say that we will be digging up items from 3,000 years ago from the time of King David. It is always cool to be the first person to see something for the first time in 3,000 years.

We will be not too far from Lachish where I have been in two previous years.

Even though it will be very hot, we will not be working in the hottest parts of the day.

We will get up very early in the morning and be on site before sunrise. During the cool morning hours is when most of our work is done and in the afternoon we will be napping in our air conditioned rooms.

I will definitely be working harder physically, but it will be a good break from my every day work in my cubicle or classroom.

I will again be with my good friend Luke. This will be my 4th trip to Israel with him, and I am also looking forward to the weekend when I am sure I will see some places in Jerusalem that I have not seen before. Luke is already in Israel leading a tour and it is making me really look forward to joining him at the end of next week.

Steven