Thursday Update From Andi Neugarten

Another beautiful day. Started with the clearest, brightest morning on the Kinneret. The air was simply beautiful when I woke up at 6am today. Crisp and fresh. Thank goodness the temperature had dropped overnight as yesterday was well into the high 90s when we rode. Today promised to be MUCH cooler...
We left Ginossar and headed along the Kinneret towards Tiberius...we could have continued straight, and we would have saved ourselves a LOT of climbing and about 15 miles! Instead, we took a right and climbed to the top of Tiberius. Its a huge climb...about three times Torrey Pines! Its relentless, but it felt so good to climb up and then stop to see the incredible view. WOW, it was worth it. The view of the Kinneret and the valley was breathtaking. The king and queen of the Mountain were Ulla and Allan. They were so fast. I'm sure they just wanted to get the mountain out of the way! Ulla rides without clip in pedals, which is even harder, so she was Really fast and strong
From there, we descended a fast 1000feet, back to the banks of the Kinneret, below sea level where we stopped at the place where Jesus was supposedly baptized. Pretty cool to see all the Christians being baptized.
Then we headed to point on the Jordan border for lunch. The mountains above us on the one side were Jordan. We could see Jordanian villages all along the mountain range. But we were safely in Israel. I can only imagine that the Jordanians were watching us very closely from their hidden lookout points in the Mountains!
We had a beautiful picnic lunch. Of course, the food is so good that we over-ate....but a short ride to the end of our say in Bet Shean followed.
We changed quickly and headed out to Sachne, the warm mineral pools. After some wine, beers and snacks, we all lazed around and took a leisurely swim. The water was wonderful!
We are all excited to head to the Med tomorrow. We will be in Caesarea for Shabbat and we have a great two days planned!