Beaches and Bank Runs

Quick update!

We're going to Eilat this weekend--scheduled to get on a bus at 4am tomorrow morning (in other words, really REALLY late tonight), hike all of Friday, sleep outside on Friday night, hike Saturday day, sleep at a youth hostel Saturday night, beach it Sunday morning through early-afternoon, head back to haifa Sunday at 1pm.

Things I'm particularly excited for:

1. THE EXERCISE!
2. The views
3. The scheduled Kabbalat Shabbat on Friday night
4. The bonding time
5. The hiking tan
6. The beach tan
7. The warm weather (at the beach--not so much on the hike)
8. Potentially seeing my camp friend at some point during the weekend

Things I'm not particularly excited for:

1. The scheduled bonfire after Kabbalat Shabbat on Friday night (not that I don't love bonfires--I'm just not so comfortable with the idea of lighting a fire immediately after praying to G-d to welcome the Shabbat, the one day of the week when fire is explicitly forbidden...Do we think it's the thought that counts here, too?)
2. Starting a full day hike after waking up at 4am the night before and enduring a long, likely sleep-deprived bus ride
3. The possibly cold conditions under which we'll be sleeping in the desert on Friday night
4. The desert creatures I may encounter during said outdoor slumber.

I'm all for sleeping in tents, but the last time I slept outside (on the Trail with Abba two--was it three?--summers ago), I could not stay asleep for more than 10 minutes at a time out of fear that bears/snakes/mice/many-legged insects were going to eat me.  And for the record, the snake fear was not completely unjustified: earlier that night, I happened upon a baby rattlesnake close by our camp site...(The funnier part of that story was that the thru-hiker who was sharing the site with us for the night tried to catch the snake, in the hopes of posing with it for a picture to send back home to his mother down south.  This baby rattle turned out to be too feisty even for a snake-catching pro like [What-Was-His-Trail-Name??], however, and after a few moments of deliberation--in which WWHTN had the snake pinned by the neck at the end of a stick--WWHTN freed the snake from his immobilizing half-nelson, no picture taken for dear mama.  I hope she wasn't too upset.)

Off to meet with an economics professor to comprehend his generally incomprehensible lessons...Anyone want to start a bank run?