Road to Bethlehem

The name sake is given because they grow wheat in the town. We traveled there because I was participating in a sceince event "Science Unlimited" where they present various topics to high school students. I was excited to get back into a classroom and talk about the exiting world of laser materials processing. We were meeting some of my colleauges from work there as well. They actually do this all the time all over the country, very impressive!

On the road you commonly see the make shift shanty towns and it is always humbling. Not that we haven't seen this before, but it always reminds us of how lucky we are.

Just as humbling is the shear size of the open lands and how breathtaking the landscape is.

As we approached our destination the sun was ready to rest for the day. What a beautiful setting, we felt so blessed to see this natural beauty.

The shows went well on the first day and we were done around 3pm so Steph and I drove to a small town nearby called Clarens. It is an artisitic town and also had this German restaurant so we just had to go! Here we are sitting out back of the German restaurant with another breathtaking view.

We then did a walk around the main square of the town and came across the Clarens Museum. Unfortunately it was closed.

We are always amused by the signage, not sure if you can see it but it says "potholes" next 5km, funny enough after the 5km it says it again! Would be nice to have that in Chicago huh?

Steph was taking some great shots on the way back home...

We were driving into the storm on our way home. We tried to get some shots of the lightning but it was almost impossible.

It was a great trip, first because I met a lot of great young minds who were eager to hear our story! In addition we saw some natural beauty that is hard to describe without seeing it for yourself!