[encantotom]

hi old and new friends. many of you knew Darlene and I had been in the middle since middle october. We got home two weeks ago with no incidents. our final two weeks were in egypt and we arrived there on the coptic christmas and the week before there had been a coptic church bombed. othere than celebrations aimed at showing unity between the christians and muslims, there was no sign af anything like what is going on now. fortunately we flew out of cairo after two full weeks of sightseeing all over egypt just a few days prior to the riots.

our time in israel was amazing as we had the time to do all of the normal sightseeing several times and more off the beaten path areas as well. we loved it there. we had a couple of friends that we met while there over for dinner this past wednesday nite as they were in the states for a work visit, and they said that israelis were concerned deeply about what is going on in egypt because there had been peace between them for so long we made many new friends in israel. as i talked about the newell, it was beyond their ability to understand that anyone could own their own bus. when i took a couple of them through it this past week when they were visiting here, they were blown away.

i gotta tell you, i have travelled many parts of the world, but as dorothy says "theres no place like home"

happy saturday.

oh yea, and the newell started right up after 3 months....

tom