The Dead Sea - Avery's Blog

We took a trip to the Dead Sea yesterday. We saw the caves in which David hid from King Saul and the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, we floated in the water, Noah and Abba coated themselves in the special mud, and we got souvenirs made of salt.

On the road down to the sea, we saw the caves that fill the mountains nearby. These caves were where David hid from King Saul, and where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Saul was hunting down David because he was too popular, so David went to hide in a cave. He hid behind a cobweb, and Saul didn't think he was there. David cut out a chunk of Saul's tunic to show that he could have killed Saul, but he didn't.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient pieces of parchment found in the caves around the Dead Sea. A Judaic sect lived in the caves to practice their own form of ultra-strict Judaism, and the scrolls were made up of the Torah and their domestic rules. The heat and lack of humidity kept the scrolls from disintegrating in the thousands of years since then.

We drove past the caves and came to the beach. Everything is supposed to float in the Dead Sea. Whenever Momma tried to stand up, her legs floated out from under her. I couldn't control where I was going, so I just floated into people. In the deeper water, if you stood up, you would just bob. You didn't need to tread water to stay up.

Along the edge of the beach, there were pits of boiling mud. Apparently, the mud is good for your skin. If you cover yourself with the mud and let it dry for about 15 minutes, it will smooth and clean your skin. Abba and Noah coated themselves with mud, and looked like mud monsters.

Outside of the authorized swimming section, salt had crystallized into sheets next to the water. I found a really nice piece of salt, with large crystals sticking out. Noah chipped off a piece of the sheet, and Abba found a chunk of salt as well. We kept them as souvenirs.

Going to the Dead Sea was very fun. We saw the caves in which Saul was hunting David and in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, we floated in the sea, Noah and Abba slathered themselves in mud, and we got pieces of salt as souvenirs.