Our group of 62 travelers is divided among several flights. To my knowledge, no one has a direct flight from Dallas to Tel-Aviv, so many folks had to start their long journeys very early. My group's flight has 2 layovers, the first in Washington, D.C., then in Vienna, Austria. We departed DFW at 7:20 a.m. on Thursday and will arrive in Israel at 2:55 p.m. local time Friday. That's about 7 a.m. back home.
24 hours. 7,005 miles.
Some people might consider that pretty grueling. But, it might help to put it in a little bit of historical perspective.
Mary and Joseph had quite a journey for their time in order to arrive in Bethlehem prior to Jesus' birth. It took them about 10 days, tradition says. I once traveled from Dallas to India pregnant. I wouldn't recommend it. We have a young pregnant woman on this trip. I'll let you know if she has kinder words for her journey than I imagine Mary had.
If we had to make the 7,005 mile journey back in those days, assuming we went over land and not water like we are, we'd have a couple of travel options available to us. Let's consider two.
If we walked it... Although walking speeds can vary greatly depending on factors such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, effort, and fitness, the average human walking speed is about 3.1 miles per hour. Assuming we travelled for 8 hours per day, it would take approximately 280 days, over 9 months, to reach our destination.
If we were lucky enough to travel by camel (a very healthy camel), with an average distance pace of about 20 mph, it would take almost 44 days.
I'll take the 24 hours by plane, thank you. Perspective sure is refreshing.
