This is making the rounds on the Internet:

"Gabby Douglas signed a $90 million deal with Kelloggs and Obama immediately issued a press release saying, 'Ms. Douglas didn't earn that gold medal. Somebody else built the roads to the gym. I do think at a certain point she's made enough money. Spread the wealth around. She didn't build that.'"

For some reason this was a bear to format for punctuation

It started to put punctuation marks that should go at the end of the sentence at the beginning so I just left them out

Sorry Marsha

LETTER FROM ISRAEL

Dear Lois

Michigan's lakes sound cool and refreshing during these hot summer days in Israel.  The last of the season's study vacations seems very far away now.We toured the Beit Shean area in the lower Galilee, meeting in Afula in the Jezreel Valley and going on to the Jordan Valley. Our first stop was the Jordan Valley Youth Village. The almost-new village is the Israeli link in an international series of villages offering medically-supervised vacations for children who are either disabled or suffer from serious illnesses (cancer, multiple sclerosis, etc.). The children are invited for two-week vacations with others with the same condition (blindness for example) or disease. There are individual caregivers/counselors and a small, fully-equipped hospital with staff who are experts in that particular disease or condition. The children come without their families. The campers and staff are fully screened and vetted before arriving. There is extensive training for the staff and preparation for the children before their vacation. We saw the huge dining room which is also used for shows for and by the campers, a beautiful arts and crafts building with separate rooms devoted to ceramics, paper mache, drama and dance, painting, etc. What an inspiring place

 We visited the Museum of Yarmukian Culture at Kibbutz Shaar HaGolan which features  artifacts and knowledge learned from several digging seasons at an 8,000 year old  Neolitic village on the banks of the Yarmuk River. The Yarmukians  used pottery and had human figurines made of clay and etched on smooth pebbles. The collection is the largest assemblage of prehistoric art objects found in Israel. From there we drove to our hotel, the Country Lodging at Kibbutz Ashdod Yaakov. The next day we toured Beit Shean National Park . Excavations started in 1920. Major excavations have continued since 1986, and have so far uncovered only 10% of the city's area! Beit Shean was first settled in the 5^th millennium B.C.E. and has been ruled by the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Philistines, and the Israelites). The site was destroyed in 732  B.C.E .by the Assyrians. The Greeks founded a city on the site; it fell to the Hashmoneans (the Jewish Maccabbi Dynesty), the Romans, and under the Byzantines became largely Christian before being conquered by the Arabs. Final devastation came with the earthquake of 749 C.E. The Abbassid Moslems built a rural settlement there later called Beisan, and during the Medieval Period the Crusaders built a fortress near the destroyed Roman amphitheatre. It remained a small settlement under the Ottoman Turks. When Israel was established a development town was established called Beit Shean. Modern Beit Shean, outside the ancient walls, is a thriving town. A great place if you like history and ruins as we do

    The 3^rd day brought us to a student village to hear the students organize enrichment activities for school children and help them with their homework as part of a long school day program. Students sign on for one or two years, some pre-army and some post-army and before university. We then visited the "Naharayim Experience" telling about the historical hydroelectric power station on the banks of the Jordan . This was the brainchild of Pinchas Ruttenberg, a Russian Jew who raised the money privately after World War One (when the Turks were defeated and the British moved into Israel).  A model demonstrates the workings of the power station, now in Jordan. The model shows the complex system of dams, bridges, and turbines that generated electricitybefore 1948.   Our last stop was the Birding Center in Kibbutz Kfar Rupi

   On our last day we visited a Jezreel Valley pre-military training program. There are many such programs. Boys and girls have their army service deferred for a year while they are prepared for the physical and mental challenges of army service. This particular program was unusual because it combined both religious and secular participants.  The man who initiated the project told us that both kinds of parents were unenthusiastic … the secular parents were afraid their sons would come home for a weekend wearing skullcaps, and the religious parents were afraid their sons would come home bareheaded. Both fears were unfounded, but the dialogue at the Spartan living quarters is lively and friendly  

Our last visit was to the Eden Experimental Agricultural Farm, a place where local farmers can come with particular problems. One example is experiments on how to deal with an insect which eats palm trees from within and has caused the collapse of the date plantations all over the Middle East. Another is requests from basil growers on how to keep the plants moist and warm during the cold but dry nights in the Jordan Valley. The scientist/farmers are experimenting with heavy plastic "sleeves" for the rows of basil, filled with water. They are checking on the temperature of clear, dark, or semi-colored plastic. We also visited a nearby herb farm and had a taste quiz on the various herbs

    Our farewell lunch was at the communal dining room at Kibbutz Beit Alpha, a far-left kibbutz, and shows the cooperation among the various kibbutzim in the area despite their wide political and religious differences. We were supposed to eat at the dining room at Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, a religious kibbutz. (All AACI food has to have a kashrut (kosher) certificate because we have many religious participants; in any case we want to be an inclusive, not a divisive organization.) When a member of Tirat Tzvi scheduled his wedding for that day, making their dining room unavailable for the whole day, they contacted Beit Alpha. A representative of Tirat Tzvi came to Beit Alpha with our food, two servers, tablecloths, dishes, and utensils. They were given a special corner of the Beit Alpha dining room for us. A member of Beit Alpha is a former activist in AACI's Northern Region in Haifa and the Kibbutz Forum in Jerusalem , and we were happy to see him

    Our next study vacation will be in September IN JERUSALEM AT LAST!! Then we'll get ready for our U.S. trip in October

 Love

Marsha

Southern end of the Sea of Galilee

Beit Shean excavated areas, overall view  

Dining room at Jodan Valley Youth Village

The hand is called a "humsa" (Arabic) and is a favorite symbol all over the Middle East for all kinds of ornaments, jewelry, etc

Roman public toilets in Beit Shean

They even socialized and held municipal meetings here

In the modern town of Bit Shean someone created a museum of items from the '50s and '60s

These "rimus" stoves were used for heating and cooking with kerosene

Notice the metal milk can, the plastic thermos and the holders for tea glasses

Even when I came in '63 everyone drank tea from glasses

He had "our" old breadbox and my old sewing box

A wonderful place

Ashdod Yaakov tourist rooms

Each has table and chairs outside with a common area for getting together

Buffet room in the tourist dining building

They didn't want to cut down the old tree

Jordanian village seen from Israel past the security fence

Various plastic "sleeves" filled with water to check temperatures and find which color best protects the basil crop

Herb greenhouse 

A TREE GROWS IN MIDLAND

In 1999 we had some landscaping done to the front of the house.  The nursery put in a dwarf Coralburst crabapple tree that they assured us would not grow to more than about ten feet high.  This is what it looked like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it looked pretty pathetic. But look at it in 2012.

Ten feet high?  I don't THINK so.  It obviously is not a dwarf variety.

So we called the nursery people to come back, and the guy said, yes, they got fooled.  The grower told them it would max out at about ten feet but ...  

We had the nursery's tree pruner weave his magic on it, and now it looks like this.

It's still bigger than we wanted, and the pruner says it will need more work next year.  So much for having a nice little tree in that space.  We could have it removed and start over, but we're not that highly motivated.

THE GREAT OHIO-MICHIGAN WAR OF 1835-36

Surely you’ve heard of it

I’ve always thought the Upper Peninsula of Michigan should be part of Wisconsin since it’s attached to it, whereas you have to cross a five-mile bridge to get to it from the Lower Peninsula.  I mentioned that to Barb, and she told me about the great Ohio-Michigan war of 1835-36, which I had never heard of.  I did some research and quote from Wikipedia:

Originating from conflicting state and federal legislation passed between 1787 and 1805, the dispute resulted from poor understanding of geographical features of the Great Lakes at the time. Varying interpretations of the law caused the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim sovereignty over a 468-square-mile region along the border, now known as the Toledo Strip. When Michigan sought statehood in the early 1830s, it sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries; Ohio's Congressional delegation was in turn able to halt Michigan's admission to the Union.

Militias were mobilized and sent to positions on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but besides mutual taunting there was little interaction between the two forces. The single military confrontation of the "war" ended with a report of shots being fired into the air, incurring no casualties.

During the summer of 1836, Congress proposed a compromise whereby Michigan gave up its claim to the strip in exchange for its statehood and approximately three-quarters of the Upper Peninsula. The compromise was considered a poor outcome for Michigan at the time, since nearly all of it was still Indian territory, and voters in a state convention in September soundly rejected it.

In December 1836, the Michigan territorial government, facing a dire financial crisis and pressure from Congress and President Andrew Jackson, called another convention (called the "Frost-bitten Convention") which accepted the compromise which resolved the Toledo War.

So the upshot was, Michigan got the U.P. which turned out to have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of copper, iron, silver and timber, and Ohio got – Toledo.  Sounds fair to me.

THE LAST OF THE PICTURES, YOU WILL BE GLAD TO HEAR

Lake Superior.

What a difference a breakwater makes.  On the left, outside the breakwater.  On the right, inside it.

The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.  They have a neat feature where if you set your boat radio to a certain frequency and press the mic send button five times, the fog horn goes off several times about half a minute apart.  We did it, of course.

The bridge between the towns of Houghton and Hancock.

Two of my favorite people.

I do love the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  From Mackinac Island to the Keweenaw Peninsula, from Lake Michigan on the south to Lake Superior on the north, it's beautiful. I see why David loves going to college there, and I hope Catherine will like it as much.  The only problem with it is, it's too far from where we live - eight hours' driving time.  But I can forgive it even that because it's worth the trip.

TOMORROW:  A history lesson about a war you've probably never heard of.

MISCELLANEOUS ASSORTMENT OF PICTURES FROM THE WEEK, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Just hanging around serving no particular purpose.

David's "shoes."  I think they're called Vibrams.  He says they're very comfortable, even for hiking.  They would not work for those with six toes on each foot.

Who says Yoopers don't know how to have fun?  If I were there, it would be my first progressive poker run and scavenger hunt. 

These two were taken on a golf course we went to.

Lots of waterfalls in the U.P.

TOMORROW:  More of the same, only different

We went to see the house David and two friends have rented for the coming school year.

This is the front.  Unfortunately I couldn't back up enough to get a shot of the whole front because this is what's going on in the street.

We had to enter by a back alley

As you know, construction always draws a crowd of gawkers.

Here are other, more accessible, views of the house.

It's old but has been renovated and is quite nice.

When on the campus of Michigan Tech, I always want to visit the Mineral Museum.  It has a magnificent collection of rocks and gems and is very much worthwhile seeing if you ever find yourselves way up north in Michigan.  Last year when we went there, they were in the process of moving into a new building. This year almost all the exhibits have been moved and lo and behold, we found this!

Shullsburg, Wisconsin!  Who knew? 

Here's the whole display of things from Shullsburg, population 1,246 in the 2000 census.  A little research shows that it's the birthplace of George Safford Parker, inventor of the fountain pen and founder of Parker Pen Company!  All of you of a certain age remember the fountain pen.  I even remember when you had to fill them from a bottle of ink, before cartridges came along.

We immediately gathered in front of the case to celebrate all the rocks that come from Shullsburg, Wisconsin.  Well, you have to take fame where you find it.

TOMORROW:  Wrapping it up, Part I.

OF COURSE THERE WERE WATER SPORTS

After all, we had three boats along

David and Ken do some jet skiing.

Ken the professor doesn't water ski much anymore, but he hasn't forgotten how.  David keeps an eye on him from the jet ski.

Catherine shows us how it's done.

Catherine and Barb do some tubing.  The tubes didn't get in the water until Thursday this time.  Usually they hit the water first thing.

Jet skiing was the thing this year.  Even Grandpa got into the act.

Conditions weren't too favorable for sailing, but the Sunfish did get out a few times.  Here Barb and Catherine take a spin.

David knows how to relax wherever he is.

Every boat needs a figurehead.

Conditions for boating were excellent this year.  We spent a lot of time on the water, cruising, exploring, enjoying the scenery.  It's always a highlight of our family get-togethers.

A GEOGRAPHY LESSON

Pay attention.  There may be an exam later.

Study this picture, which I got off the Internet. 

Our rental house was on the north side of the lake, or perhaps it was the east.  I have no sense of direction.  There is a canal going in each direction out to Lake Superior.  We went both ways more than once during the week.  One time Superior was surprisingly smooth for a body of water that can be one of the most treacherous in the world.

This is what we found on that trip to the "big water."

It's never a good sign when the captain threatens to abandon ship.

And an even worse sign when the first mate decides to leave too.

Sunset over Lake Superior. Look how calm the water was.

Hey!  It was a cloudy evening!  What do you expect from me?

Perhaps you'd prefer these sunset shots, taken when I wasn't along.

 Don't you just want to hop a freight and come to Michigan?

THE END OF MICHIGAN

One day we went to the town of Copper Harbor which is at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula and then decided to drive to the very most northern tip of Michigan, since we were so close to it.  It involved going down eight miles of a very bad dirt road.  It took an hour to drive those eight miles.  There was zero cell phone coverage, so if the car had broken down it would have been a long night.

We didn't see another car for the whole eight miles, so were somewhat bemused by this sign in the middle of Nowhere, Michigan.

We decided it was meant for snowmobilers.

It was worth the trip for views like this.

The climate appears to be a bit tough on trees.

Not satisfied with eight miles of very bad dirt road, Richard drove his car across the beach.

This proves we were at the very tippy top of Michigan, surrounded by Lake Superior.

The intrepid travelers, minus Catherine who took the picture.