On the Second day of Galilee, we again all had a big field trip day. The first two days both classes had field trips. For the rest of the time, we only had one bus, so every other day we'd go on field trips, and the other days we'd have our religion classes. And Brother Manscill's class (because we now had Emmett) would alternate with us.
So, on November 17, 2009 we woke up early (the whole trip was breakfast around six thirty, be on the bus at seven, or seven thirty, so we were running the whole schedule starting just a little bit earlier than we were normally in Jerusalem), and we made our first stop to Hazor. (Pronounced Hat-zor).
Hazor is a biblical site where the was a big Canaanite civilization and then a burn period on top of it with an Israelite layer on top of that, so it is archaeological evidence of the Israelite conquest, which is pretty neat. There was also a little stone in a temple there that could be something like a stone in the Bible called an Ebenezer, that they would bless as a kind of symbol/sign of their praise and thanks to God. It is interesting because it was a tall skinny stone, set upright in the earth. So that was cool to see that. Do you remember the lyrics in Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing? "Here I raise my Ebenezer, here by Thy great help I've come." So that is what that means. I love that song, so it was really neat to see it there and learn about it.
It was kind of a cold day, and when we got to Hazor, this fog was moving across the valley towards us. So a minute or so after I took this, we were in a big blanket of fog. It was really neat.
This is me with part of the stone temple in the background..
Admittedly this is a terrible picture, but Kyle took it and likes showing only the person's head in the corner, and then most of it just the background. So there you go. Picture a la Kyle. 
This is us descending the steps to the Cistern...that's Shelly Smith.
There were two staircases, one up and one down. And it was so, so muddy everywhere from the rain. The metal stairs were so slippery. And, this picture doesn't do it justice, because that mud was several inches deep. It was crazy. So that's Brother Emmett doing the mud dance to avoid it.
The steps down into the Cistern..
This is the stone temple from the other side. You can kind of see the burn layer, too.
And that stone sticking up out of the ground (that has been there for centuries, which is kind of cool) is the Ebenezer! Very cool. And who would have learned that if not in the company of Biblical scholars?
It was so, so green in the Galilee area. It was beautiful!
Roommate picture! Thats me, Kathryn Hawker, Michelle Neely, and Amanda Yockey! Love those girls.
Next we went to Caesarea Phillipi, which is mentioned in the New Testament quite a bit, as a place that Christ definitely came to. There was a Pagan religion that was strong there where they worshiped the god Pan. When Christ was there he taught about Living Waters, which is important because Christ is the living waters. He compares the religion they were practicing to stale, stagnant waters (which is what water from Cisterns would be like), and said that instead of partaking of the Living Waters, they were drinking from stagnant water sources. Understanding the land and the geography and culture of the Bible helps you understand the symbolism so much! It would have been especially poignant there because there is a fresh spring that comes straight from the rock. So Christ was using the symbolism in calling Himself the Living Waters, and saying, "You prefer using the water from this natural spring (maybe even pointing to the spring there) rather than using water from a cistern that is stale and disgusting....yet you are drinking from a stagnant water supply with your pagan worship. Come to me. I am the Living Waters." (Of course that is a paraphrase, but thinking about that really helps the bold, amazing ways of His teaching really come to life.) We had a class discussion there that was really great. Brother Emmett really hit home talking about the Living Waters. And we got to go explore around the site and be near the spring, which also has a picture in our scriptures. It was fantastic!
This is me holding up my scriptures right in the place where the picture of Caesarea Philippi is, while I'm standing there! Very cool. I should've taken more of these pictures. Oh well!
Some of the artifacts from the Pagan temple.
This is their holy niche, in their temple.
This is Anna Daines, Megan Richards, Victoria Clemmons, and me standing on the little water breaks in between the different levels of the falls.
Artsy shot :). And when the sun finally came out, it was bright!
Part of our stop to Caesarea Philippi, we went to the Banyas waterfalls. Banyas comes from the word for the pagan god, Pan, and is another name for the area. They were beautiful!
Amanda and I ran ahead of everyone so we could get pictures before there were a thousand people. But this is the little trail leading down to them.
It was a little bigger than it looks. But there was so much water crashing down. It was great. I love pretty waterfalls.
After that we went to Tel Dan. Dan is important because in the Bible it is used to describe the boundaries of the Kingdom of the Israelites. They always say "From Dan to Beer-sheeba" (and we visited Beer-sheeba when we went to Egypt. It's in the very southern part of Israel.) So Tel Dan is a big walk through a forest/jungle kind of thing. There's a river that runs all through it. We got to see a "high place" where Jeroboam (the first kind of the Northern Kingdom) set up Idol worship in the Northern Kingdom after the Kingdom of David was split into two. A High place is essentially an altar, where they made sacrifices to idols. It was also the location of one of the two golden calves that Ahab set up in the kingdom. There was a "Winnie the Pooh Tree" Which just had a sign saying that it was his home (?), and then another huge Pistachio tree, where my entire class of 41 people climbed into the tree and took pictures. It's really great. I got cut up a little...but that's just because I monkeyed onto a tree branch rather than waiting for my turn to go up by way of the trunk. Oops! It was really fun though! The best part was that Brother Brown was the one who suggested that we all climb up in this tree together. Usually climbing trees may have been classified as a "dangerous activity."
The last eventful thing that happened at Tel Dan was the walk out of the forest back to the bus. Me and another girl got lost...and so then we called the center and asked them for Brother Brown's phone number, called him, and then we found our way back to the bus. It was rather interesting because we went the wrong way, and about 15 people followed us.. Oops!
So our first stop through the jungle was tot he Winne the Pooh tree..
This is Kyle Hawkey, me, and Amanada Yockey in the tree :)
I found some fall leaves and was excited, so I threw them up into the air :)
That metal structure behind Brother Emmett and Brother Brown is a reconstruction of the dimensions of the altar that would've been there. 
This is me on top of the high place, behind the altar. The previous picture was taken from the steps of this platform. It was really cool. Stones that have been stacked on top of each other and stayed in place for thousands of years. Neat!
Everywhere in Israel has remnants of battle...so this is an old tank that is just sitting in Tel Dan. That's Will, Brother Emmett's youngest son, on the front of the tank, with Tonya Johnson behind him, and then Patrick Monson and Josh Le Duc behind her.
This is a rare thing, apparently. It's a Canaanite Mud-Brick gate that is still standing. It's a big deal. Brother Hamblin was pretty excited about it :).
This is the beginnings of the Pistachio tree climb...
And as more people got up...
These are Brother Emmett's pictures. This is the official, final picture. You can just see my face, right to the right and a little bit above Kellie, who has red hair. We're more towards the left side of the truck, just a little bit, and you can just see our faces between the branches.
This is more of a picture from the back, and you can see me better this way!.
After Tel Dan we went to a place called Nimrod's Fortress (not kidding, his name was Nimrod.) It is a Muslim castle from the Crusader period, so it has a bunch of Crusader attributes to it, which is interesting. It was set on this really high mountain, looking over the entire valley. It was really cool. There were tunnels and tons and tons of rooms to go see. And there weren't any specific routes or paths you had to stay on. If you found it, you could explore it. It was really neat. It was really cold that day though. The wind was killer. Oh and we (Emmett's class) went to the top of the highest tower and gathered acorns (of all things!) and waited for Manscill's class to come on the pathway up...and then we had an epic Acorn war. It was Brother Emmett's idea. It was so funny.
This was when we got there. It was a little stormy, and really windy and kind of cold, but beautiful!
Crazy hair!
This is me and Sarah Ingalls going down a secret passageway... it was really cool. It led from the entrance down to the outside of the castle. Very cool, pretty steep, and a little dark. But fun!
This is Lyndsay coming up from the secret passageway.
I just loved the sunlight streaming through the clouds like that!
Just some cool architecture. This big room filled with arches..
And then I climbed up onto the roof of that room where I was in the last picture... it was sweet. Dad, you would've loved the adventures!
Just a fun picture. Every site is another photo shoot right? This is Adam Bahr and Brooke Harper.
This is from the back tower, which is the highest. But you can still see the point, farthest away, where I took those overlook shots of the valley with the sunlight. This castle is huge! And it's really high up.
This is the Acorn War :)
We had the troops out for that one.
Anyway, that was our last stop of the day. After diner at the Kibbutz (which was called Ein Gev, if I haven't said that yet), we had a big bonfire on the shore of the Galilee. It was so fun. Everyone talked and laughed together, people sang and played guitar, and ukulele. An amazing night.
Then we went back to our bungalow (Kali Clark, Lyndsay Denton, and Steph Price, and I were roommates), and Kali was taking a shower and left her clothes on the floor, and when she got out, and put her shirt back on...she felt something scratchy in it. So she shook it out, and there was a cockroach, two or three inches long, that was in her shirt! It was so, so gross.
So, an eventful night followed by an eventful evening and an eventful night!
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