Oh beautiful for spacious skies...

We made it back. We're jetlagged, but we're back. A pretty uneventful trip back, other than meeting the world's most annoying family. Yes, traveling makes us appreciate the U.S., but we do not feel the need to sing "America the Beautiful" when the plane touches down.

A special thank you goes out to the Doyle family for being our hosts, tour guides, and entertainment for the last 2 weeks. Also a special shokran to the makers of Pepto Bismol...life saver (you're welcome for not being THAT real throughout our blog).

Incredible vacation, but it's nice to be home!

The descent

At least one of these people is not Korean...can you guess who?

Teira happy

Magic Hour at Mount Sinai

Church bell at the top of the mountain

Over the ledge

Michael took this picture to freak his mom out. It doesn't actually look bad here but we really were kind of hanging off the side of the cliff (or at least that's what it seemed like to the Scaredy-Zimmer)

Don't worry, Mom! The good news is that we survived.

No, Michael...

Thou shalt not pretend that's a tablet with more Commandments written on it.

Transcendental Teira

The Sun Rises Over Mt. Sinai

We just climbed Mt. Sinai

And boy are we a little slap-happy in this pic. Not working on a lot of sleep because we left Dahab in a van with a surly driver at 11:30am. Surly drove us to St. Catherine, where around 2am we started hiking. First we passed St. Catherine's monastery, where apparently they have THE Burning Bush. Not an STD. The one Moses saw.

Then we hiked for three more hours by the power of our guide's cell phone flashlight. And the moon. The stars were incredible. We saw shooting stars, satellites, and the Milky Way.

And lots of camels. They are adorable, even when they are charging down at you on a five foot wide trail on the side of a mountain. Somewhat stupidly, we didn't hire one to ride up. Call it hubris, call it bravado, or call it what it is: Michael's too cheap to spend 16 dollars on a camel. Any way you slice it, we walked.

It's about 7 kilometers up to the top, then 750 steps up to the summit.

Along the way we saw quite a few Koreans, many of whom prayed and sang as they walked. We could see a Bedouin village down in the valley. And we saw some amazing cliffs as we shuffled and stumbled our way up the rocks.

Finally we reached the top, where there is a church and a mosque, just in time for the sunrise.

We also left plenty of room in Michael's backpack in case the Stone Tablet with Commandments 11-20 showed up. No such luck.

Our resort in Dahab

A very rough and difficult life we lead.

Our lovely hosts

Must be something really cool up there.

Tip toeing by Saudi Arabia

Trying out the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba. Saudi is in the background.

The weekend ahead

Tomorrow we are flying to Sharm El-Sheik in the company of our lovely hosts, the Doyles. There we will rent a car to drive to Dahab and take in the beach!

Dirty Ankles Gunlock

The streets are a mite dusty.

Mosque and Madrassa of Sultan Hassan

Here's an interior shot of the Mosque of Sultan Hassan. Awesome.

What you don't see is the huge Armada of kids that surrounded us, waving hello, shaking our hands and saying Hello, what's your name? They were very cute.

Teira said, "Now I know what it's like to be Oprah."

Egypt The Achievements

Teira just kept begging to go the Military Museum!

The Virgin Teira

So, how many ways is that title offensive?

The dang French!

So, if you've ever been to Place de la Concorde in Paris, you've probably seen the big, cool obelisk there. Well, they got that awesome thing as a gift from Muhammad 'Ali in return for this clock tower, which, it turns out, has never ever worked. Ce n'est pas cool, France. Ce n'est pas cool.

From the Mosque of Muhammed 'Ali

No, not that one...the other one!

Solidarity, baby

Ibn Tulun

Teira likes it!

The Mosque of Ibn Tulun

Built in 879 AD to accommodate a whole army for Friday prayers.

Obeliskin'

It's what we do.

Karnak Temple after dark

As I typed this, I asked Michael what we should say. His response: "It's karnakulous!"