A Jeep by Any Other Name...

I'm a proud Jeep driver. I'm on my second Jeep, actually. I started out with an old, square body Cherokee. It was fantastic. When it was time to replace it, after much dismay that I couldn't get a newer version of the same vehicle, I settled on an '07 Wrangler.

I love my Jeep.

One thing that I was quite excited about that was included on the tour I took was the inclusion of a four-hour Jeep ride through the Wadi Rum desert. How cool does that sound? I was pretty excited for it.

So imagine how perplexed I was to find on arriving in Wadi Rum exactly ZERO Jeeps. None. Hmm.

Well, apparently outside of the US, people call SUVs of most sorts Jeeps. I think it dates back to the war. You know. The big one. With all the Jeeps. Yah, that one.


I might have been a bit peeved about it, but then I saw that instead we would be riding in these sweet old things:

Yah.

I was excited all over again.

It was sweet and old and covered in dust. The upholstery was ripped and faded and worn. And if I could get my hands on one of those in the US I would love it! Except I don't know anything about cars and repairs and restoration, so I would just have an old, probably broken down, sweet Toyota Land Cruiser in my driveway.

I need to date a boy that knows stuff.
Stuff about cars
Amongst other stuff.
But that's another subject altogether, isn't it?

We drove around for hours. Wadi Rum is in the Sahara Desert. It is now a preserve for the Bedouin tribes that live there. On the four hour tour we saw rocks.

This is called the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom." It's quite famous. Lawrence of Arabia loved it.

Red sand-a-plenty.

A giant sand dune.

Which, yes, I did indeed roll down. How did you guess?

And a kid that tried to shoot me with a fake gun. After all, boys will be boys, no matter where you are.

Oh yes, and we stopped for lunch by some more rocks.

This is when I got food poisoning. I recommend skipping the yogurt from the store at Wadi Rum. That is, if you want to keep your lunch down.

The pink speckles are actually sand from a sudden sandstorm. I lucked out with the sand. It stopped me from finishing the yogurt or I would have become much more ill than I was...

After lunch, Matt decided to entertain us by building a pillar of rocks. He (and the other guys) then proceeded to try to knock it down. Yes, they threw rocks at rocks.

See what I mean about boys being boys?

I spotted this inscription on the back of one dusty windshield. The locals wouldn't tell me what it said. They said only that it was not "Wash me."
So I asked my tour-mates what they thought it said. Our British tour-comedian, Chris, replied "It says: I wish my wife was this dirty."

After lunch we wandered around for a while longer in the Jeeps and looked at more desertous stuff. It was fairly fascinating and a lovely afternoon. Especially when, at one stop, I noticed my driver doing some maintenance under the hood of the "Jeep." I walked over and leaned in with him and asked "Well, is it broken?"

He replied. "No, no. It is not broken. I am just fixing it."