Everyone got a good nights sleep last night with some free time yesterday afternoon so they’re fresh and ready to go today. We start the day with Mass at Mount Nebo (homily here) which is a brand new church built over the ruins of ancient churches. It’s run by the Franciscans and it marks the place where Moses looked out over the promised land and died. From there we looked out over the Jordan Valley into the Promised Land of Israel (Steve Ray’s talk here).

From there we visited the mosaic making shop and then saw the famous mosaic map in Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Church and had a marvelous lunch of “ Upside Down“ at Elias‘s family‘s restaurant. About an hour into our drive to Petra we stopped at the fortress of Machaerus where King Herod held John the Baptist prisoner and had him beheaded. I gave my talk there about John the Baptist (talk here).

Then on the last leg of the journey to Petra  prayed the Rosary and stopped at a nice rest area along the way. It began to snow along the way and people on the bus were amazed that it would snow in the desert, but it does! Checked into Petra had a great dinner and we’re ready for the “bucket list” day tomorrow ?