For some reason we got turned around as soon as we started out this morning, and wasted a good bit of time, and kilometers, climbing up and down hills in Haifa and getting nowhere. If you look at the track of todays’ ride you’ll see what I mean. It’s rather embarrassing, but there it is.

Once we found our way up to Haifa University, we were back on track and we enjoyed the mostly downhill run down through the Carmel Forest. We were following 672 south and as we got to the end of it at the little village of Even Yizhaq, we came to a gate across the road. We had sen these gates elsewhere but they had always been open. This one was closed. We couldn’t see anybody around so we went through the pedestrian gate, which was closed but unlocked. We weren’t sure of the purpose for the gate so weren’t sure if we were doing something wrong by entering, so were half-expecting to be accosted by some angry official, but nothing happened. We cycled through the village and turned west on a unpaved road which took us down towards Hwy 6, then we turned south on another unpaved road that paralleled Hwy 6. We followed a series of paved and unpaved roads roughly paralleling Hwy 6 before finally turning west to catch a short section of Hwy 4, then turned in towards the Moshav of Beit HaLevi. Here we noodled around until we found the house of Oded and Tal Danon, who are members of the WarmShowers list and had offered to put us up for the night.

The Danon’s make their living growing greens to be used in flower arrangements on 20 acres of land. After a shower and a wonderful dinner, Oded and their two children showed Jodi and I around a bit of their farm. Later this evening a friend of Oded’s stopped by and we spent some time discussing marine biology, israeli and US politics, cycling, and a host of other subjects. Now Jodi and I are tucked cozily up in the loft above the kitchen and ready for a good night’s sleep.

20111013.gpx