Jordan Rocks, part 7

The Dead Sea. Just the name of it conjures up cool images in my head and besides our best pals Wendi & Nathan, this was the thing I was most looking forward to on our trip. 

We headed out that morning from Wendi & Nathan's hometown and had a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive ahead of us. But hey, when with friends, who cares, right? Here's the beginning of our drive - beautiful mountains!

That opened up to an enormous expanse!

 And in the FAR distance, Wendi told me that we could see Israel! Isn't that crazy cool?

 Remember, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, so we had to go down, down, down these mountains to get there! (Lucy got car sick. Blah.)

 Then we got to the hotel! Yay! It was a great hotel with amazing pools and kiddie play areas IN the pools! Here we are at lunch - Lucy was "cold". She's certainly growing up in the Middle East to be cold! 

 As you can imagine, it was Hot there! And the pool water was Hot! But the kids - well, all of us - had a great time playing and sliding!

 Lucy and Evie were tight!

 And Brad (and I) joined in on the fun, too! Plus, the kiddie pool was much cooler than the bigger pools! (Weird, right?)

See what a cool kids thing?

There was a big kid slide, too!

 Lucy & Evie sliding together.

 Lucy went by herself one time. She totally got stuck and Brad ended up walking halfway down the slide to give her a push. (It was a slow slide...)

 He walked back up the slide, too, so that he and Evie could slide together - and they went fast!

So, enough about the pools, right? :) I know you're all waiting for the Dead Sea! 

So, after lunch, me and Brad, Lucy...well, everyone but Joshua and Sadie... headed down to the Dead Sea.

There are instructions for entering the Dead Sea. Did you know that if you swallow any of the water, you have to be rushed to the hospital within the hour and have your stomach pumped? It's that salty! And you must be super careful not to flip over onto your stomach! 

But isn't it pretty? I was expecting it to LOOK dead. It did not. It was beautiful!

 (Wendi took over as the trip photographer at this point.)

Dead Sea Mud is famous and supposedly very, very good for your skin. They had 2 bins near the water with "Free Mud" written on the sides. I walked over to see it. It looked like mud, alrighty. I did not partake of the smearing it all over myself. It was gross-looking!

Here we are, about to get in!

 And here we are, floating! This is Brad's first time to float, ever! And can you see how high I am in the water? I could float perfectly vertical! I could float with my knees bent like I was sitting in a chair! 

 Here's Nathan!

Wendi then joined us in our floating. Brad got out because Lucy was at the edge of the water, wanting to get in and we were NOT going to let her get in! (Remember all that danger stuff?) So, Brad took Lucy and Lailie back up to the pool and I stayed and floated a little more with some of the Parvin clan.

It was very cool. Not your typical beach, at all. No one playing in the sand or hanging out by the water. It's certainly hot and certainly dead down there! (Nothing can live in the water because of the saltiness! Nothing!) Oh, and I need to also tell you that the water is HOT! Not like warm bath water hot, like some pools can be, but HOT! Certainly not pleasant to be in for long periods of time... hence the name... Dead Sea. 

And I bet you didn't know that they have to have special kinds of boats to float on it! Regular boats will flip because of the buoyancy being all off! CRAZINESS!!!

We then headed to wash all the salt off so our bathing suits wouldn't be ruined and so that we could jump back into the pools! It was such a fun day! It was our hottest day, by far, but still fun! We like the HOT.

And finally, Lucy passed out asleep. She slept like this, sweating, for about an hour. I ended up pouring water on her a few times to help her cool off. 

 

And my skin felt all nice for the rest of the day!