Shana Tova!!!

In a couple of hours those of you living in Israel will sit to the holiday table and celebrate Rosh Hashana. We, in a different time zone, will be doing the same a few hours later, and wanted to wish everybody Shana Tova U'metuka!!!

I also wanted to share some more happy news with all of you. Anat is pregnant, and we're expecting our third child in early February. So far the pregnancy is progressing just as it should and we're all very excited about it. Other than that, due to the unpleasant events back in July-August, my previous posting neglected to elaborate about our wonderful travels in the Pacific North-West. As I previously wrote, I have a lot to tell, and I'll try to catch up now.

To begin with, we embarked on a very long vacation, in American terms - 17 days. We flew out to Seattle and spent a few very pleasant days with our friends Lisa & Ron and their lovely daughters Laila and Maayan. Not only did we enjoy their wonderful hospitality, but we also went hiking and camping together in Olympic National Park, a fantastic park not too far from Seattle. As an aside, Seattlers have 3 nearby beautiful National Parks. Lucky them... It's been a long while since we lived close to Ron & Lisa in Israel, and getting together again was terrific!

We decided to skip Vancouver and most of British Columbia (can't win 'em all) and had a long drive (about 11 hours) to Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. As you probably know, Canada is a gigantic country, second largest in land-area (yep, Russia is still the biggest, even without being the USSR). When you think that there are only 33 million Canadians (compare to almost 300 million Americans), you realize how sparsely populated this country is. Indeed, that vast majority of the Canadians live within 200 miles from the border with the US, but still even in this belt you could drive for hours and see very few people. We split the long drive into two days, and on the way stopped in a local park (called Well's Gray) which turned out to be surprisingly attractive. We didn't plan this part of the trip in advance, and were thrilled to discover that the park boasts several huge and magnificent waterfalls. One of the things I love most in nature is waterfalls; I can watch waterfalls for a very long time, fascinated by the perpetual movement of inconceivable amounts of water. Add to that the relatively sparse crowds in this park (as opposed to, say, the Niagara Falls), and you'll understand how pleasant the visit was.

We travel a lot in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, and not infrequently also further away, camping and hiking in state parks, be it Pennsylvania, West Virginia or other nearby states. As beautiful as these places are, one thing I've already learned is that in North America places declared as National Parks are indeed something else, on a different order of magnitude. A perfect example would be the breathtaking views one absorbs when driving into the Canadian Rockies, especially Mount Robson. In the Rockies, both in the Canadian part (Jasper and Banff National Parks) and in the US part (Glacier National Park in Montana) you get nature in all its majesty: snow-capped mountains, turquoise lakes, lots of greenery, extensive wild life and many glaciers. We took full advantage of these and for about two weeks our days included gorgeous hikes, along with occasional sailing and other activities. One excursion worth mentioning is a tour we took on an ice-Explorer, which is a unique bus-like vehicle that drives you on an Ice-field, which for all practical purposes is a gigantic glacier. There aren't many ways for us, with two young daughters, to wander around on a glacier...

Generally speaking, of the two parks on the Canadian side, we liked Jasper better. Banff is equally gorgeous, but to our taste too crowded and touristy. A funny anecdote, though we didn't witness it first hand, is that Banff is extremely popular with Japanese tourists, to the extent that there is a Japanese soap opera taking place in Banff, and Japanese couples sometime choose the location for their weddings. Pretty odd ;-) Glacier National Park in Montana is probably one of the most amazing national parks in the US. It's noteworthy that despite it being also part of the Rockies, the scenery is significantly different from the Canadian Rockies: it is rockier, with less vegetation and more interesting shapes of the mountain tops. Interestingly, there are very few glaciers in this park nowadays - the name comes due to ice- age glaciers that shaped the mountains. It is not nearly as crowded as Banff, which was commensurate with our preferences. The park still throngs with tourists, but you definitely get the feeling of nature most of the time, and in most trails. We were told that the average visit duration in the park is a meager 8 hours, we spent almost a week there and still didn't see all we wanted...

I wouldn't like to tire you with a day-by-day account, but for those of you who might plan a trip to the northern Rockies, I'll list the places which we found most impressive: Lake Maligne and Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper; Lake Moraine, Lake Louise and the Gondola in Banff; The astonishing drive on Highway 93 between Jasper and Banff, arguably one of the most beautiful drives in the world (well, at least that's what the brochure writers and other Mavens say :-); Lake Grinnell, Sun Point and Lake Avalanche in Glacier National Park. On another note, in such a trip it was inevitable to conduct mental comparisons with our New Zealand travels. Here are some aspects I found worth mentioning:

- The distances in Canada and the US are nothing like the short distances between attractions in New Zealand. In NZ we drove 5000 km in 2 months; this time we drove about 3500 km (more than 2/3) in about two weeks. Clearly our daughters' tolerance for long drives has greatly improved. Generally speaking, Americans drive a LOT, and it's not uncommon to see in Montana vehicles from many states, some of them as distant as Florida, Oklahoma and Texas. - Hadas literally doubled her age and is no longer a baby: no diapers, she was walking on her own feet most of the time. A huge difference! (yes, yes, I know that soon traveling for us will be *with* a baby again)

- Noga is also much bigger and a better hiker. With Hadas on my back, we could extend the range of our hikes significantly, Noga being able to walk as long as 5 miles. It makes a big difference, and the selection of possible trails is greatly increased.

- Nature is fantastic in both places, but while in New Zealand it's the whole country, in North America it's encapsulated in parks and reserves, which is probably the only way to preserve and protect the natural resources.

- Unlike in New Zealand, the great weather in the Rockies during summer time enabled us to camp most of the nights - mostly in tents, sometimes in camping cabins and once in an Indian Tipi (!). I must say that for me camping is an important aspect of the trip. It's hard for me to explain, but lighting a fire, cooking outside, sleeping in a tent and smelling the morning freshness outdoors - are all a big part of the experience.

Last but not least: wild life. One of my hopes was to spot a bear. Grizzly Bears and Black Bears are very common in the northern Rockies. We saw a lot of wildlife - moose, deer, mountain goats, but not a single bear. Very disappointing... Fortunately, a few weeks ago, this was corrected. On Labor Day weekend, we went camping and hiking with our friends Tamar & Amir in a beautiful State Park in north-east Pennsylvania. In an early morning hour, when we were having breakfast, a cute black bear came wandering through the campground. Shortly after we spotted it some other campers made intentional noise to scare it away (which is obviously the right thing to do), but at last I got to see a real bear in nature, not inside a cage in the zoo ;-)

So, as you can understand, we were preserving the momentum - hiking in the surrounding state parks, enjoying several visits of grandparents and siblings, and we even spent a weekend in Washington DC. We should hurry up before winter comes along and the only reasonable outdoors activity would be skiing and snow sledding...

Shana Tova to all of you,
Hadas, Noga, Anat & Giora