Kentucky Jones and the Temple of Doom

The RPette and I made a detour on our visit to Israel to check out the Jewish State’s most friendly neighbor, Jordan.  We checked out Petra, one of the seven modern wonders of the world, and the hype was no exaggeration.

Our first visit was to the Treasury, Petra’s most elaborate ruin, which is hewn into the sandstone cliff.  Harrison Ford and Sean Connery filmed Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade here, so I tried to bring some Kentucky blue to the Hoosier mentality.

The majestic work, which was probably constructed between 100 BCE and 200 CE ,was named for the rumor that pirates often hid their loot in it.  My attempt to throw around the fact that I ran the Kentucky Treasury for eight years was met by confused shrugs and offers to ride a camel.

We moved on to Petra’s famed amphitheater, which was built by the Nabataeans  out of the rock around 1 CE. It originally had 11 rows with 300 seats.  Later, after the Romans conquered Petra in 106 CE, they increased the seating capacity to between 3000-4000 people.

I delivered what I thought was a very powerful speech about financial literacy and Texas hold ’em poker, but unfortunately the historic address met upon deaf ears, except of course for one very embarrassed teenage girl.

Finally, after the Jordanians got wind that I was an inveterate gambler — and after one two many awful “Air Jordan” and “Crossing Jordan” jokes — we were thrown out of the country to return to our Zionist roots.

The picture at left was snapped by a Jordanian security official upon the condition that should the RPette ever return, it would be with her mother instead.