Mad'in Saleh Trip Day 2

Last week I posted about a trip last month and challenged folks to identify the structure in the image below. My wonderful daughter Shannon came closest with " I'm guessing the circles in the sand are from some kind of plate that was set down during a meal break... Either that or desert 'crop' circles!"  No, not a plate imprint, but it is a kind of crop circle.

If you click on the image to see it full size you'll be able to see what I mean, but I am calling this a Wind Circle.  The grooves are dug by the plant as the wind rotates the plant in a full circle! These are very cool and I've seen several of them - fortunately sometimes I look down while walking!

The second day of this trip started with an SUV trip into the desert. We started from the hotel at dawn and had breakfast in an amazing canyon at 0900.  I don't know a name for where we went, but it was just outside the town of Al Ula, and only a few miles from Mad'in Saleh. It is surprising how much life is out here in the sand! It didn't matter where we went there were some amazing plants - some tiny, some big trees, sometimes just a wispy bit of green but there would be so much a whole field area would be tinged with it. It was an amazing place to see.

         

The sand in some places is hundreds of feet deep and completely buries the mountains, and we were just racing all over, up and down these dunes. There were seven cars with experienced drivers, and it was more fun than I expected it to be, especially when we lined up at the top edge of a dune and then raced down. Quite a ride!

This whole place was amazing - in some areas it looked like the Grand Canyon in the U.S., just not as deep, but the canyons went on for miles.  In other places the erosion patterns reminded me of Bryce Canyon in Zion National Park in the U.S. - tall pillars eroded out of the mountain and standing alone. Very impressive place.

We had a traditional Arabic breakfast in a canyon, on carpets. It was simple fare but delicious after being up and very busy for many hours already!  But everyone was game and we had a great time.

 After breakfast we headed back to another area of tombs, in the mountains overlooking Al Ula. These were situated high up on the cliff face, just rectangular openings chiseled out. At this point it was midday and very hot - which is why we started at dawn so we could a large part of the day done before the heat set in. Lunch was in the middle of a date palm plantation at the edge of Al Ula, and it was delightful under the trees, sitting on red carpets laid out for us, and eating grilled kabobs and vegetables with slaw, beans, and macaroni and cheese!

In case you missed the video in the last entry, click on the palm trees above to view it here!  After lunch we reloaded the bus and headed for the city of Ha'il about 3.5 hours away to start the flights back to Dammam, and I arrived back in my room just after midnight. This was an aggressive trip, and physically demanding, but wow did we pack a lot in!!  If you are in Saudi Arabia and wish to see the country, I highly recommend the tour operator who put the trip together, www.amazingtours.info, and look forward to my next opportunity to travel with them! #Mada'in Saleh  #Saudi Arabia

My Trip to Mad'in Saleh

Trip to where?? In the northwest part of Saudi Arabia is a World Heritage Site, Mad'in Saleh (lots of ways to spell this, and more ways to pronounce it - the closest I can get is "medeheen sally").  It was the Southern end of the Nabatean empire, of which Petra was the capital.  Many months ago I saw an announcement for a tour, and having been to Petra while in high school, I very much wished to see this historic site.

It was a busy weekend about a month ago. I had to leave my hotel in Dhahran at 0330 to catch a flight to Madinah, then we took a bus north for 3.5 hours to the small town of Al Ula, where we also spent the night. There were about 40 of us on the tour, all expats working in KSA from all over the world - Brazil, Australia, Ireland, Portugal, and the U.S. It was a pretty good group!

We stopped first at a place called Elephant Rocks - can't image where they got such a silly name - because it was on the way into town where we had lunch.  This structure is fantastic, and I'm guessing around 150 feet tall. Pretty good appetizer for the rest of the trip!

Mad'in Saleh, like Petra, is known for structures carved from stone. I mean as in pick a mountain and carve away everything that doesn't look like a temple facade!  They started at the top and carved away til they reached the bottom. Stunning workmanship, too - these were plumb and square and level, and the detail was amazing. All carved out, with hammer and chisel,
before the time of Christ.

And these were not homes - these are tombs and monuments to honor a family or king. They all face into a circular area, and the residents built homes of stone in that space. I guess you could say they were family oriented.  The image below is one of my favorites from the trip - can anyone guess what this is? Send me your guess in a comment and I'll announce the winners in my next post (which will cover day 2 of the weekend!)

We spent the afternoon at Mad'in Saleh, then late afternoon at a spot nearby - more on that in the next post. And don't worry, it wasn't too hot. I think it stayed in the low 100s, so it was very comfortable. I only really felt hot one time at about noon of the second day. Here is a group shot at the main monument at Mad'in Saleh.

And one more for all my adoring fans:

If you've read this far, thank you! I have a treat as a reward! I have too many beautiful images to share, and can't share enough to do justice to the amazing places I've seen, so I am going to try something new. I had forgotten that Dana and I have a subscription to a great service for making videos, but decided to make one with my favorites from this trip. I'm not sure if this will work or not, but please click on the image below and let me know what you think! If this works well, I'll go back and maybe make some more of these - after writing about the rest of this trip. Best to all, Mark

#Mada'in Saleh  #Saudi Arabia   #desert photos

Back in KSA

OK, you already know I've been back for over a week, but I want to close out the journey travelogue, if y'all don't mind. Beyond a couple of regulars, I don't know who reads this, but it's fun for me and I get to make stuff up if I want to, so I'll keep it up. This then starts on my flight from Dallas to Dubai:

I'm at FL330 (33,000 feet) in a Boeing 777 over northern Canada, approaching the North Atlantic coast. The ground is covered in snow and all the lakes are iced over at the end of April. It just seems surreal. It's beautiful, but a strange contrast to where I've been for the past year!

Earlier I left DFW and we flew right over Northwest Arkansas, and I could see Fayetteville out my window, and later we flew north of Montreal on a great circle route to Dubai. (below, Fayetteville and Springdale)

I left Saudi Arabia 3 weeks ago to go home, and the long, pleasant, mild Saudi spring was nearly over. Since then the temps have returned to upper 90s and low 100s every day.  I arrived in Arkansas to a glorious spring of mild temperatures, beautiful blue skies, and stunningly clear night vistas, which you don't see in KSA because there is so much light pollution. Here's the Arkansas forecast I left:

 Dharhar forecast (what I came back to!):

 

The 14.5 hour flight DFW to Dubai was uneventful, and I actually got about 6 hours of sleep - something of a record for me. Generally I cannot sleep on planes. My pilot senses just never let go of what's going on and I can't relax enough to sleep. I was so tired this time it wasn't too hard to rest. The following shots are approaching Dubai - one of them what it looks like everywhere here. It is a land of brown. The other shows a small town outside Dubai, and folks that's about as green as it gets here.

I took pictures on the ground in Dubai, but nothing new from my trip home except for this one, from the subway between terminals. I just like it, and am pleased that the iPad camera captured this motion so well.

I'm now boarded for the final leg of this journey, from Dubai to Dammam, and I'm sitting in a non-window seat for the first time in years! Hopefully I'll make it ok! Here's what business class looks like on a Boeing 777 with Emirates Airlines, in case you've wondered! It's a snug fit for someone my size, but it still stretches out full length which is wonderful on a 16+ hour flight.

We touched down at Dammam at 1700 local (0900 cdt us), just under 24 hours for the trip from XNA, and in 25 minutes I was through immigration, had my bags, and on the way out the door with my taxi driver - gotta be some kind of record! 

I do want to add a word of praise and appreciation for Dana. This past year was tough for her. While I was gone, she shot a busy schedule of portraits and weddings without me, dealt with significant health issues and problems at home and difficult people. It was hard, but she managed it, issues were dealt with and the work got done. Many women have told me they could never do what Dana is doing, and many men have told me their wives could never do it. I'm so proud of you, sweetheart. 

The night after I arrived we had a big storm here. Guys who've been here for 20 years say they've never seen anything like it. The damage looked like a tornado hit - signs bent over, panels stripped off buildings, walls stretched on the inside, and hundreds of trees broken or uprooted. Luckily this is a very green oasis and will recover. Many of the downed trees have been cleared, but there are still areas without water, and our building has very low pressure so there are some restrictions while things get repaired.

But then yesterday I was walking and came across this little lovely in the afternoon sun! It looks and smells like a magnolia - must be from the same family. Whatever it is, it made me smile! 

This weekend I'm taking a local excursion to see what could be an amazing place. I will post pictures when I have them ready. Here is a link with some information if you're interested!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mada%27in_Saleh

Best to all!! Mark

What I did on my trip home

Written weeks ago while home:

It's great to be home surrounded by green! I miss green in the desert. It's wonderful to be with Dana, and Sunday was Darby's birthday and we got to spend some time with her. Next weekend we'll see the comedian Sinbad at the Walton Arts Center, a comic we've always enjoyed and laughed with - what a treat! Lots of landscaping and planting and yardwork to do, which is great! I love being outside working with rocks and dirt and green things!

Written today to explain what I wrote weeks while home:

It was lovely to be surrounded by green!! I had no idea, before living in the land of brown, how refreshing, positive, and rejuvenating it is to be surrounded by green, luscious, living things! And as a bonus, I was home during spring when so many things were blooming!

I took these pictures with my iPad just to see how it would do to capture some detail. Then I went in and got my big camera to get some better shots. Sadly, I forgot to download those pictures and bring them with me, and somehow while home I managed to disable the utility that let's me connect to my home system from KSA. At some point I'll get Dana to help with that because I'd like to see those shots and share them. For now, though, I hope these will do!

And everything was blooming! The dogwoods, redbuds, daffodils, and wild flowers everywhere. We live in the woods and there is an amazing variety of beautiful little flowers that come up out of the leaves. 

Another thing hiding under the leaves is rocks! Our hillside grows them better than anything. The layer of topsoil is relatively thin over a layer of stone, and when the oaks and hickory trees push through they break up the layer into smaller stones. Sadly this also means we have many mature trees that souls live for another 50 years in good soul, but that have reach their limit in the fragile foothold they have at our place - they tend to blow over at some point, and we have several we'll need to remove soon. 

But Dana and I have been planning some landscaping projects for years that are finally underway! A big part of that involved me moving several tons of rock that I dug up to make a new walkway and rebuild a wall.  We also moved part of our fence, put up some lattice to cover the area below a deck, and planted a whole bunch of flowers, but sadly we ran out of daylight and energy before we could get them all in the ground. 

There's never enough time on one of these trips to get done everything you wish to. It's tough to jam in a year's worth of doctor appointments, dental cleaning and a new crown, work with our accountant, and re-landscape our place in a few weeks. I don't think we could've gotten much more done! And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I loved working outside and doing hard, physical tasks. 

My next big trip away from KSA will be in August - more on that later but we're gonna have a blast! This coming weekend I'll take a short trip, though. When I was in high school I was fortunate to be able to go on a choir trip, and part of that was in Jordan where we saw the ancient city of Petra, carved out of the mountains (below).





This weekend I will go to Petra's sister city, Meddin Saleh in Saudi Arabia, at the other end of the trade route.  I planned this months ago and am now questioning my judgement to put one trip so close to the other. I'm still tired! But it'll work out and I can't wait to see what kind of images I can get - I'm a much better photographer now than I was in high school.  One of these trips home I will take a few hours to find those Petra images (which were pretty good, if memory serves) so I can have a matched set. I'll let you know!

The rest of the way home

I do apologize. I had every intention of writing a couple of posts while I was home, but it turned into quite a marathon of appointments, doctor visits, dental work, yardwork and landscaping! Dana and I only went to see one movie (Captain America: the Winter Soldier; I recommend it!), but we did hit most of my favorite restaurants!

What follows then is a description of the rest of my trip home, and some images I took along the way and at home. Most of this was written enroute on my iPad with the hope of posting blogs along the way, but I haven't found a way to upload images from the iPad to the blog server.

We arrived at Toronto after an uneventful flight, and I learned that I'd missed my American flight to DFW, but was rebooked and pre-checked in on a later Air Canada flight. All I had to do was get through immigration, collect my bag, go to get a boarding pass, go through security, and get to the gate. No problem, eh?

Well, yeah, of course there was on a Pirate day. Arrrrrr! After doing all of the above I got to the Air Canada desk to get my boarding pass 45 minutes before departure, only to be told that I could go, but couldn't check my bag since it was less than an hour from takeoff.  Aaarrrgghhh! Another good plan shot down!

At this point there was only one obvious choice - give in. I got the Air Canada agent to rebook me for the first flight out in the morning, then went to find the Emirates counter. The very nice gentleman behind the counter set me up for he night at the airport Sheraton hotel with dinner and breakfast vouchers, and started work on arranging a flight from DFW to XNA late afternoon the next day.

I checked into the hotel and it was great - the most quiet airport hotel I've experienced.  I never heard a sound all night! The room was great, and after letting Dana know about the plans I went down for dinner and enjoyed a terrific steak. BTW, if you want a taste of scotch and it isn't on the menu, ASK the price before ordering. I paid as much for a double Chivas as I did for my steak, and could've bought a bottle for that price. Silly.

Afterwards I went to the spa for a massage, which was badly needed. I've had a painful kink in my neck for weeks, and haven't found anything to take care of it, but it is amazingly all better this morning. The Chinese lady who worked on me, Angela, was brutally effective. It hurt. But she got to the root areas which were tied in knots and got them worked out. I woke up pain free for the first time in a month! Oh, so nice!

This was a long, long day.

Day two
I ended up getting close to seven hours of sleep, and got up rested and ready to go and on the local time. Check in and all was quick and easy this morning, and I am now halfway to Dallas, and will have a couple of hours before my XNA flight. 


We just flew over a small town, Mountainberg, a few miles from home! It was very easy to identify from the dam and reservoir that were completed a few years ago. From there it was nice to follow up the road and see Fayetteville in the distance! No details but lovely to see it from here. It's nice to be at 30,000 ft. The flight is smooth with just a little chop, and it's a pretty day!

On the ground at Dallas it felt  nice to be one step closer to home. There were two slightly surreal moments. On the train from the arrival terminal we went by the International terminal, and parked there was an Emirates B777 that I should've been on 24 hours ago, and that if I'd taken their first offer in Dubai I'd have come in on today.  Then, walking past a Chilis on the concourse, one of the TVs was showing the Bahrain Formula 1 auto race that I could've attended if I wasn't coming home!

The flight from DFW to XNA must surely have set a record of some kind. Maybe the pilot needed to pee, or his girlfriend was waiting, or something, but it felt like the throttle barely left the MAX setting until touchdown. With a departure  time of 1345, we pushed from the gate at 1340 - i cant remember the last time a flight left the gate on time, much less early! 

Even taxiing for takeoff it seemed we were going pretty quick; not unsafe, just rapid. As we approached the runway I could see a jet on final approach but we didn't slow down. I could imagine the clearance from the tower: "American 123, you are cleared for takeoff, expedite departure for landing traffic." We made a quick turn onto the runway with the throttles advancing, so by the time we were aligned with the runway it was a quick advance to takeoff power and we were almost off the ground, with liftoff at 1350! The published flight time from Dallas to northwest Arkansas is 1+05 hours. Today, from takeoff to parked at the XNA gate took 46 minutes! Wow! Reminds me of my days flying fast jets! 

It has always been wonderful to get home from a trip, and returning from a long overseas deployment is even better, let me tell you! And to come home to NWA from Saudi Arabia is like coming back to color! More on the that in my next post, but as a preview above is a shot of an oak tree ready to leaf out under a beautiful blue sky, and here is my favorite shot of Darby and Nyima who came to see me!

End of Contract Trip Home, Part 1

It is 1015 and I am sitting in a business class seat aboard the largest passenger aircraft in the work, and the airplane parked at the terminal in Dubai, capitol of the United Arab Emirates. It is an emirates airline flight and we should've taken off 20 minutes ago. That's kinda how the trip has gone so far, but I can see by the tail-mounted camera that the multiple jetways have been retracted, so that's a good sign.

(photo above, on the ramp at Dubai waiting for departure - Airbus A380 over the wing of my A380!)

I started with such a good plan! I'm on my way home at the end of my 1-year contract with Saudi Aramco as a technical writer creating new training materials. Fascinating work! I've learned a great deal and enjoyed the challenges associated with living in Saudi Arabia and working within a very different work culture than what I'm accustomed to. 

It's been an interesting journey, to say the least. And I get to go home for a three week opportunity to recharge and refresh, both of which are needed. It'll also be a chance to spend some wonderful time with Dana, who has managed without me for a long time now. 

Typical of the trip, the captain has just announced that there are bags loaded but the passengers are not, so we must stay put until those bags are removed. Good safety precaution, but one more delay!

If the trip had gone as planned, by this time I would have been almost halfway to Dallas, but it is 15 hours since I left and I'm only an hour from where I started.  I departed Dammam (King Fahd International Airport, Saudi Arabia) on time, but there were thunderstorms in the vicinity of Dubai, so we had to hold for a chance to get in. It took three hours to make the one hour trip. I was hoping my outbound flight, direct to Dallas, would be late as well, and it was. Almost enough.  

(photo above, Dubai - lower area is duty free shopping, upper areas are business and first class lounges)

It only took a few minutes to get to the departure gate, and the jet was still there, but they'd already closed it up and wouldn't let me board unless my bag could also make it (odd that they don't seem to mind if they lose my bag and I go without it then!). so, missed the flight to Dallas by  a few minutes. Sadly, this kind of thing doesn't happen very often around here - generally thunderstorms don't happen here. And most air traffic is at night so the flights from here can merge into the European flight schedule. What's sad is that they have no effective mechanism to deal with thousands of people trying to reschedule their trip all at once.

(photo above, Dubai - elevator bank on left, blue fountains at bottom, cascading 100' long wall of water on right, giant arching ceiling overhead - they do things big here!)

It took me 3.5 hours to get rescheduled, finally finishing at 0330.  That was 6.5 hours ago. And by the way, we are now just over an hour past our departure time and still at the gate, but the skyways are retracted again, so that's a hopeful sign!  Aramco is very generous about flying us in and out on business class, and Emirates has a very nice lounge system for business and first class passengers. So I was able to enjoy a one-hour nap in the lounge.

(photo above, Dubai - big cool architecture, duty free shop at the bottom)

I got up yesterday at 0630, worked a full day (ok, I left 20 minutes early), went to my room and wrapped up packing, took a walk to stretch my legs, got a light salad for dinner, and got to talk with Dana for 20 minutes before my taxi came. At this point, I've napped for an hour out of the last 27.5.  It's surprising and rewarding sometimes to see what your body can do for you when you need it to.  I'm also grateful for the tank of a body I have to walk around in!

(photo above, Dubai - very tired Mark about 24 hours into the trip and barely started!)

Flight update, the captain just reported we will be ready to go in 5 minutes, but due to traffic congestion we can expect an ATC delay of 20-30 more minutes.  Arrrr! Dana says this kind of day, one of which she had yesterday, is a pirate day, which seems to fit nicely! I'm amazed that I can still make my eyes focus well enough to type this, because they are really tired!

But I'm on a jet and well take off soon! And maybe less than two hours late! For a 14 hour flight to Toronto! What?? Yep. The only option they could come up with at 3 in the morning was Toronto, then Dallas. What about XNA, I asked, happy to be making progress. Well, that leg was booked with American since Emirates doesn't fly to northwest Arkansas, so I would have to handle that with American when I get back to that hemisphere.  At 0330 this sounded doable, and agreed.  

After my refreshing nap I realized I'd have been better off to take their initial offer, a hotel for the night and rebooked on the same flight the next day. As it turns out, I'm going to overnight at Dallas or Toronto, depending on when we actually leave Dubai, which, btw, hasn't happened yet, and were now an hour and a half late. And like magic, as I wrote those words, we began out push back from the gate. I'm on my way someplace! More later when I've slept and know where I'm going!

[end of part 1, more in a day or two to finish the trip!! FYI, I wrote 99% of this on my iPad during the trip, with only minor editing - if it seems a little confused you'll understand why!]

Arabian Sunset

Hello all, and thank you for reading what has become my trip journal. All I intended to do was tell some tall tales on my trip so my beautiful wife and daughters would know what I was up to, but it turned into something read in 18 countries around with world, with almost 5000 visits! Wow - I never expected that.

At the end of my last post, I said the next one would be about sunsets, and here you go:

I know, it doesn't look much like a sunset, but in a way it is. I opened this tube of toothpaste the night I got to Saudi Arabia, and tonight I'm leaving at the end of my first year. I will get one more squeeze out of this before I leave and then will drop it in the can. So in a way, it's the end of a long day here!

If you've followed the blog or my comments on Facebook, you may have perceived that I've accepted an invitation to return for another year. Yes, I'm crazy, but what can I say. They asked very nicely. It's a double-edged sword of course. One edge holds difficult challenges and great learning opportunities coupled with an opportunity to do great work and earn great compensation.

The other edge, which cuts deeply, is that I am a long damn way from home, from family and dear ones, from "normal," from bacon, from Scotch, and the list could drag on for a long time.  Looking at the long view, though, in the scheme of things I'm still young and healthy, and quite a ways from normal retirement age, so I may as well take advantage of the opportunity while I can. At least, that's what Dana and I have discussed and talked and thought and prayed and concluded. Hard as it is to be gone so long and so far, it beats a lot of other options as far as work and income.

So today I wrapped up a major project I've been guiding through development, tonight I'm off for home, and will get there Friday in time for lunch! I'll get to be there for 3 weeks to do gardening, and medical appointments, and taxes, and gardening, and relaxing, and landscaping, and just spend some time with my loved ones, and I can't wait to be home!

Again, thanks for reading this year. Hopefully when I get back I'll still find interesting things to do and see and photograph to keep you coming back. Do let me hear from you! This doesn't have to be a one-way street.  You may have noticed I've posted a few sunset shots by now - these have all been taken in the past few weeks while we've had very clear skies and exceptionally nice weather.  Best to all and I'll be back soon.  Mark