The Foulds Family: Meda'in Saleh

While (Uncle) Michael & (Auntie) Blair where here visiting us we all took a 3 day road trip to Meda'in Saleh. According to Google it was a 7 hour trip, we made it there in 6 1/2 and on the way home only 6. What awesome road trippers our children are! That and their Daddy may have a led foot...

I have oodles of pictures to share, but I'll first tell you some tidbits about the trip and then all the pictures will make a bit more sense, that and you should click on the Meda'in Saleh link above it will explain a few things and then I wont have to. :)

We saw many, many camels. There were lots of "watch for camel signs" just like we have watch for deer ones in Canada.
Jeriah was very impressed by the trucks we saw, and many times exclaimed (loudly) "Look at the truck! Mommy take a picture of the truck!"
We booked 3 rooms at the hotel, one for Jem, one for Michael & Blair and one for the 5 of us, we weren't totally sure what to expect, but figured we could make it work whatever we ended up with. Our room had 2 chairs and two single beds, and a door that we asked to be unlocked that went into Michael & Blair's room so... we pushed the 2 single beds together and into the corner and Jeriah slept against the wall and Ian and I in the bed with him. We then took the 2 chairs from our room and the 2 chairs from Michael & Blair's room and made them into beds for Marin and Corban. They loved and and called them their "nest beds".
The sandstone mountains are gorgeous and along with the blue sky and perfect temperatures it was refreshing and beautiful place to be.
The drive up there was also through some really neat dessert mountains.
The palm trees that are in Al Ulah, the town that is near Meda'in Saleh, are like "date orchards". Underneath them they grown many other things one of which is oranges. While filling up our SUV with gas we bought some from the man working there. Appox 40 fresh pick mandarin oranges, for 15 SAR ($4 USD)! They were tasty! We later learned that at this time of year the oranges and other fruit like that is in such abundance that they have a hard time giving it away. Guy who sold them to us probably thought "white people, they are not from around here, lets see if I can make a couple bucks" and then laughed at us as he stuck the money in his pocket. Ha ha! Oh well, they tasted great and $4 is nothing for that many oranges.
We where "mobbed" in a positive way by a group of local tourists wanting to have their picture taken with me, I was not wearing an abaya, and the women wanted their picture taken with me. Ian had his picture taken with one of their husbands as well. There were loads of kids too and they followed us around for a bit calling out the English phrases they knew. "Thank you very much", "I love you". They followed us around for a while taking pictures of us especially Michael and I (it's the blond hair and blue eyes) until the men called them all away from us. There was also a separate group of young men who asked for a picture with Michael.
Corban loved hiking up the sandstone hills/mountains. Ian and him where hiking buddies, it was to keep him safe! When it came time to listen to the history about the tombs Corban was not at all interested and played in the sand near our feet as we stood and listened.
Marin enjoyed seeing the small rocks embedded in the sandstone. At school her class was in the middle of a unit on the environment and geology type things so it was great for her to see things like erosion effect and the different rocks.
Jeriah was Uncle Michael's hiking buddy. You'll see a cute picture of Jeriah trying to copy Uncle Michael.
We drove up a crazy switch-back road to the top of a mountain plateau. (I may or may not have expressed concern about the craziness of the road and caused my daughter to almost cry... bad mommy...)While at the top we got to see a 180 degree view of the valley and a really pretty sunset glow.
We got to check out the (unfinished) reconstruction of the railway station that was there during WW1 and the whole Lawrence of Arabia thing.
We got to see old Al Ulah. Some of the houses have been built over top or turned into 'date orchards" but before they were all destroyed they were declared a historical sight and they are now protected.
We had a dessert roadside picnic on the way home, we tried to find shade by one of the shrubby trees but when we did it was full of camel poo. We opted to hang out in the shade of the SUV stand, and eat.
We also get to go see the elephant rock which is very neat. The English translation of the description below it is really good for a laugh. I took a picture don't worry. :)