Special thanks

Special thanks to all of our precious friends and family who visited or hosted us.
And to our loyal readers who accompanied us on our adventures from all around the globe - south america, north america, europe, africa, asia and down under. Hope we get to see you all in Israel!!!
Peace and love.

Interview with Dafi

Q: What do you think about the trip?
Dafi: It's something very special that we always wanted to do and I'm glad we found the opportunity to do it. No words can describe how wonderful it was.

Q: How was the trip comparing to your expectations?
Dafi: I knew it was going to be good and it was even better!

Q: What will you miss after settling in a real non-mobile home?
Dafi: I'll miss waking up every morning to a different scenery. Staring out the window while still in bed and enjoy the sights. To be able to open the door to nature.

Q: Where will you visit again, where will you not?
Dafi: I would like to go to Algonquin park again (Canada) in summer time, take a canoe and go deep into the park for a week, sleeping in the rustic campgrounds. I could skip Nebraska...

Q: Did you learn anything new about yourself and/or your family?
Dafi: I thought that after spending so much time together with my family I would go crazy but now I don't know what I'm going to do when it's over.

Q: Would you recommend this kind of trip to others?
Dafi: Hurry up! Life is short.

Q: What is the next dream?
Dafi: A year in a nice villa in Tuscany.

Q: What photo represents the trip for you?
Dafi: One picture is hard. I choose my dear ones hiking in a Canadian forest in fall colors.

Interview with Dagan

Q: What do you think about the trip?
Dagan: life is tough, but somebody must do it. Hope it will be the first of many to come.

Q: What was the most stressful place you drove in?
Dagan: Two that I recall: navigating narrow streets and low-clearance bridges and tunnels downtown Boston (at night!) and the steep-narrow-wiggly-road at Clear Lake where we were not even sure we are on the right way and it was clear that we will not be able to turn around if needed...

Q: How do you feel about not seeing your family 24/7 soon?
Dagan: I think I will miss it a lot, but we all can enjoy some privacy and some time to spend alone.

Q: Where would you go rv-ing next?
Dagan: I would like to do New Zealand and Australia but it doesn't have to be tomorrow.

Q: What's the most spectacular view you've seen?
Dagan: Impossible to select: Yosemite, sunrise at Maine, Sedona, Grand Canyon, Lake Louise (Glacier NP, Canada), Algonquin Park (Canada) and many others

Q: If you were to live in the US, where would it be?
Dagan: Need number of seasonal houses. One in Maine (the best ocean view), one in New York (for the night life), one in California (for parks and nature), one in Colorado (because we missed it in this trip). Picking one - it would probably be in California.

Q: What animal did you like most?
Dagan: the Armadillo was maybe the coolest but I liked many others as well - moose, ermine, bobcat...

Q: What picture represents best the trip?
Dagan: there are more than 9,000 photos we took during our trip and it is not so easy to select one. I picked the one taken at the sunrise from Cadillac mountain, Acadia NP (Maine) because it shows the RV (aka HOME) along with the spectacular view.

Interview with Adi

Q: What do you think about the trip?
Adi: It's perfect, I liked the scenery and activities and the parks.

Q: What was your favorite animal?
Adi: Armadillo because I never saw one in my life and he's cute.

Q: Did you like having guests?
Adi: Yes, a lot. We get to do things with other people.

Q: What kind of campground do you prefer?
Adi: Full hookup county parks

Q: If you were to embark on another rv trip, what would you do differently?
Adi: I would drive to different places and do different activities and stay for different amount of time.

Q: What was the most fun moment in the trip?
Adi: Going to Yosemite NP for the second time.

Q: If you could choose, where would you prefer to live next?
Adi: Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Q: What picture do you think represents the trip best?
Adi: a picture of the whole family:

Interview with Aviv

Q: What do you think about the trip?
Aviv: I think it was a great experience and opportunity for us to learn and interact with nature. It's something we don't do all the time.

Q: What was your favorite room in the rv?
Aviv: I liked the main room best because everything was happening there.

Q: What's the best book you read during the trip?
Aviv: All of the books by Gary Paulsen were very good.

Q: Who was your favorite park ranger and why?
Aviv: My favorite park ranger was Ranger Mike because he was very funny and he dressed up like a mountain goat during his program. He taught us a lot about mountain goats in Glacier NP.

Q: What was the hardest part in the trip?
Aviv: Although the trip was a lot of fun, sometimes it was hard to live in a small space.

Q: What's your greatest achievement on the trip?
Aviv: Learning to ride bike and earning junior ranger award from all over the country.

Q: Will you ever want to live in the US?
Aviv: I think it's nice to visit here but full time might be a little... I don't know... I would rather just come to visit.

Q: If you were to live in the US, where would it be?
Aviv: I would like to live in a national park

Q: What picture in your opinion represents the trip best?
Aviv: Mushroom Rock in Death Valley NP:

Back to our starting point

Two days ago we got back to where we started our journey. It feels like we only left yesterday. We started taking all of our stuff out of the rv yesterday and haven't finished yet. We still don't know how everything will fit into our bags. It's actually like moving out of an apartment. We also cleaned everything inside and took some pictures to put on ads. We're only missing a buyer(-:

Yosemite - the sequel

For our Yosemite 'grand finale' we decided to hike 11km to the upper yosemite falls, the tallest waterfall in the US, about 740m high.
We started climbing early in the morning and on the first stop Aviv suddenly whispered: "a cat! a cat!" And there it was - a bobcat very close to us in the woods, seeking a breakfast hunt.
As the trail winded up we saw the beautiful valley below us and it became more and more difficult to breath. The kids didn't share this shortage of oxygen issue and ran up the trail ahead of us.

After about an hour and a half walk, we reached to the lower level of the falls. The water is falling on a snow bed and continues to the lower falls.
The trail became steeper and narrower with bigger snow patches
We saw another friend along the way - an ermine, which is actually a weasel in a white wintery coat. The cutest creature ever!Getting rid of some layers...The valley below
Steep cliffs all around us
Almost there...
And we made it to the top in 4 hours, according to the schedule. We had lunch, enjoyed the view and the accomplishment and started going down

The way down took us another 3 hours and here we are, all exhausted with shaking knees back in the trail head.
Needless to say, the next day we (the adults) weren't able to move. 3 days later, we're still recuperating. The night before we were concerned if the kids will be able to make the streneous trail and eventaully we were the ones to worry about(-:

This is a picture that should have been included in the previous post and somehow was left out
We're staying with our dear cousins in Mountain View at the moment, a warm and cozy home after some freezing cold night in the Yosemite.

Yosemite in winter - a different world

We've been to Yosemite NP two and a half years ago in July and it was a completely different experience. We followed the weather forecast and planned our visit to a 5 days window between 2 storms, so we had a nice sunny weather. The nights though, were very very cold. The only campground that is open this time of year is Upper Pines in the valley. This is the entrance to the park, coming from El Portal:
El Capitan:
Yosemite valley:

On our first day we walked around Mirror Lake, a 9.6Km round trip. Most of the trail was flat and covered with snow and ice.
Mirror lake was half frozen and half not

The kids had to collect one bag of trash as part of their junior ranger program
On the next day, we went to see the lower yosemite falls.
Waiting for the shuttle...
Half dome
At the visitor center, the kids completed their junior ranger program and received a badge and a patch (for the last time in this trip).
A jay on the way
After having lunch in the sun, we joined Ranger Dean for a walk. He explained about the trees of the park. Since we were the only ones to attend the walk, it was a private one

We spent 2 more days at the park but since it's getting late and since we don't want this blog to ever end up, we will write about them on another day.

take a walk on the white side

After a day in Monterey aquarium, we drove up to Sequoia National Park today.
"Do you have any ranger led programs today?"
"Oh sure", says the ranger in the visitor center. "We have a snowshoe walk at 2. Just that it's for children 10 and up, so... I don't know... Why don't you go to the Giant Forest museum and talk to the ranger over there. The snowshoes might be too big for your young son."
With little hope and big desire we continued to the museum.

We started to go higher and higher in elevation and the snow became thicker and thicker. The road was icy but we didn't need chains. Snow tires were enough.
And then we arrived to the museum and to the big sequoia trees near by. Those trees are BIG!

At the museum Adi tried on the shoes that were about his height and somehow they fit! What a relief, we can join the hike! We got an old fashioned snowshoes (Maine style) that look like tennis rackets and off we went
We explored animal footprints and learned how they survive in the winter low temperatures.


By the end of the walk we were very cold, unable to feel our toes.
They have a strange habit to name the sequoias after generals. We went to see the biggest tree in the world (we believed), named General Sherman(-:
On the way out of the park we saw this beautiful coyote