The Voyage of the Mighty Tenho: side trip to Jordan

When we left Washington DC eight months ago, I never thought we’d make it all the way to Israel, much less Jordan. And yet a couple of days ago, there we were, driving our rental car down the border between Jordan and Israel to the border crossing, following the rift valley between the African plate and Arabian plate, as the kids learned as part of their study of tectonic plates. A few hours later, we were walking through the ancient city of Petra, the center of the caravan trade of the Nabatean people. The weather was nice and cool and the desert flowers blooming…only drawback was the large number of vendors selling donkey, horse and camel rides to the small number of foreign tourists.

The Nabateans controlled trade between the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean between roughly 400 BC and 100 AD, most notably incense such as frankincense and myrrh, and eventually they became part of the Roman Empire. After seeing Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns in the Greek/Roman areas of the Med and lotus flower column tops in Egypt, it was interesting to see the elephant-topped columns of the Nabateans.

And on a completely unrelated note, we received great news today that both our kids were accepted into the same school in Washington DC for next year. That certainly starts to give shape to our re-entry into our previous life in DC, although jobs and when to move back into our house are still up in the air. Should make for an interesting year, as the kids make the transition from a year of self-paced studies and following their learning interests into a more structured environment.