12. Tiyul Ba-Sharon

Dear Emilee,

It must be some kind of a pattern for Mr. and Mrs. C.: one or two days of rest and then an adventure. Suites me fine.

Yesterday, we went on a day trip, Tiyul in Hebrew. A bus with 20 senior citizens picked us up by our house and drove us to an area of Israel that is called Sharon. It is sort of in the middle of the country. This is why they called it Tiyul Sharon.

We visited the biggest electrical factory in the Middle East. The guides showed us the big tower that is 140 meter high, even higher then Eifel Tower in Paris which is only 120 meters high. Then they showed us the very first water pump that made electricity in Israel. It was carried on boats in 1906 and placed on the ground before they build the walls around it to house it. The pump ran by coal. But the people were too poor to have buy coal to feed the pump, so they fed the pump with trees to make it work. Then, in 1926, they replaced this pump with another, much smaller, which was a diesel pump but was twice as strong and it pumped the water from the Crocodile River near by and made twice as much electricity.














1906 Coal Pump..........................................1926 Diesel Pump

Can you see me on the pumps?

They also told us that because Israel does not have enough water they used all the water twice over and they even reuse re-clean sewer water to irrigate the agriculture land.
The land of the electrical plant was a very large area, surrounded by orange trees and palm trees with lots of vegetation and parks to play. Very green.

In Caesarea we stopped at some archeological excavations and saw a huge mosaic floor with pictures of birds and animals which was made 1800 years ago as a living room floor. The floor was so big that we can build a whole house on it. But, what I liked the most was the special work that the third grade children made in the park around it. The classes have competitions. Their last project was making special outdoor sitting arrangements from recycled materials. All kinds of wonderful chairs were along the forest trails from the excavation sight back to the bus. Mr. C. took two pictures of his wife with me sitting on them.




Orchids Utopia was a hot house we visited next. Mr. C. got so excited there that he run out of batteries in the camera. Most beautiful flowers were there, and a maze made from bushes, and live deer and live Chinese chickens and all kinds of trees and butterflies, and aquariums. It was like the Flower Pyramids in Edmonton AB and Butterfly Garden in Victoria BC all rolled into one with a little animal zoo and pools of goldfish for added fun They showed us 5 varieties of plants that eat bugs and Mrs. C. thought that maybe she should buy a few to control the mosquitoes and the flies population around the house.



We had some lunch and our last stop was at The Turtle Bridge over Alexander River. Giant Sea Turtles live under the bridge. We tried to feed them chips, but the cat fish ate them instead. Mr. C. throw in some grapefruit pieces, but they did not like them either. I think they just eat some bugs. Because Mr. C. cameras was out of batteries, we couldn’t take pictures. We’ll have to go another time. The turtles live in very muddy water, but I guess one can take their pictures when they stretch their heads out and they climb on the stones by the river. They live very peacefully there with some cats and a muskrat, lots of very large cat fish with huge moustaches and the odd duck. During their migration, the Cormorant flocks fly in for the night rest as well.

We were at home 12 hours after we started out and went right to sleep. It was a full day.
Today, the rain started again, Yes!

Resting, your reporter Flat Stanley