California day 7

August 7

The day started out lovely. We had our first opportunity to see Franklin and Sharon's daughter Maayan awake and active. And we got to see the interaction between her and her parents. This Maayan is a special child (her name, of course makes her all the more special). She is a contented 18-month old with wonderfully inquisitive eyes. She is able to communicate with words, but even more impressive is her repertoire of baby signs for communicating without words. I have a great-niece in Missouri who also knows these baby signs, but this was the first time I'd seen them employed in person. Most import among them, Maayan has signs for "please" and for "thank you." She politely gave the sign for please whenever she asked for things, and thank you when she received them. We look forward to meeting Maayan again when her parents visit us in Israel sometime in the future.

Razelle taught Sharon the "little birds" song with all the gestures ("Way up in the sky, the little birds fly, while down in the nest the baby birds rest..."). Franklin was excited to hear these lyrics; he knew another version that had a more morbid twist to it.

Sharon had a sack full of oranges and a press for squeezing the juice out of them. The juice of these oranges was so delicious that I must have drunk three glasses worth. It was fun squeezing my own oranges, and it encouraged drinking the juice with all the vitamins still intact.

We truly enjoyed having the opportunity to spend time with this family. We knew we could return there for another night if we needed to, but our plans were to continue visiting in the area and then reach Palm Desert, CA by late afternoon. I had scheduled a visit with Jeanne and Steve in nearby Redlands, CA for 11:00 AM, so, although we stretched out our goodbyes with Franklin and Sharon, we eventually tore ourselves away, with a promise of seeing each other again in Israel next time Sharon's work takes her there.

Jeanne came out of her house as we pulled up her driveway a half hour later. It was great to see her after all these years. She looks sooo good! The years that have passed since we lived on the same Kibbutz in Israel and attended Ulpan had been good to her. We met Jeanne's mother, who greeted us in Hebrew. She has a natural talent for languages and her vocabulary was entirely taught to her by Jeanne and retained. Jeanne's husband Steve is a wonderful man, too. We all hit it off as we sat around a table in the shade near their pool and got sprayed randomly by the robot that cruised its bottom, cleaning it. The spray was a refreshing surprise when it came at us. We sipped lime-aid and covered all the intervening years since we last were together. Razelle filled everyone in about our lives in Israel and talked with Steve about health care and retirement. She appreciated having someone our age to talk with about these issues.

Jeanne's son also put in an appearance. His first words were, "Your van is really awesome!" It was really nice to hear that someone liked our van. Considering its features, (Razelle has been calling it a "bordello on wheels" because of its mirrored ceiling and mood lights and DVD player, but Jeanne's son gave it a new name: "the Shaggin' Wagon"). He is about the same age as our son Shalev and his reaction showed how appropriate the features in this van are for his age category, rather than ours. I guess we scored some brownie points with her son. We told him he could buy the van from Adventures on Wheels after we get it back to New Jersey by the end of our trip. This appealed to him. Steve helped me fix the GPS mount with some special automotive adhesive so it wouldn't wiggle anymore while we drove. Steve has some cars he plans to fix up someday, so he has this kind of stuff at hand.

We ate a nice salad Jeanne prepared, along with a bowl of sugar-roasted walnuts Steve prepared. Jeanne brought out a photo album with a few pictures taken in the days of our Ulpan and seeing her in them from those days brought back memories. We tried to identify some of the other faces, but Jeanne's memory of their names is better than mine and I couldn't help much in identifying the ones she didn't already know.

Our visit ended too soon. This family had to travel to visit Jeanne's daughter and needed to leave on schedule. We took photos of each other and said our goodbyes. It was a short and sweet reunion, but well worth the time we had to visit there.

Our next stop was in Highland, CA, very nearby. My best friend from junior high in Orlando has parents I'd visited there years ago. I'd written them many times over the years, but then the letters stopped. Because of their age I am not sure if they are still alive. When I reached their street I couldn't find any evidence of them. Their phone number went unanswered. There was no answer at the number I found on the Internet for my friend's brother, either. I had no other leads and no reason to remain there on their street, so we moved on.

I called Bev, then, to inform her that we would be arriving in Palm Desert in about two hours, after we drove through Palm Springs. Bev said, if we were going through Palm Springs, she'd like it if we could pick up a kosher chicken at Ralph's Grocery Store. This was an intriguing request. I was very interested in seeing what the kosher food section of a regular grocery store in the US looked like. Driving to Palm Springs, we passed the largest number of wind turbines I've ever seen. I wonder if anywhere in the world there is a larger wind-farm than this? At the entrance to Palm Springs we found a visitor's center. The person inside told us the heat that hit us when we stepped out of the van was 109°F (43°C). We have experienced hotter temperatures at times in Israel. It wasn't so extreme that we couldn't take it. We drove through residential parts of Palm Springs and noticed how the housing changed and how very wide all the streets were. The first Ralph's we came to didn't have any kosher chickens, but the second one did. Razelle and I also bought a couple of gallon jugs of drinking water. We had been told by Sharon and her mother that this was essential to driving across the deserts that lay ahead of us. I paid for the chickens and the water but didn't realize that my change included the paper bills that were handed to me and the coins that were not. These were dispensed into a tray I didn't know to check. I went back inside to get them (all of 23 cents) but the customer after me had already scooped them up with her change and they were gone. Live and learn.

At the gate to Bev's condominium I noticed that the engine was very hot. The indicator was at the top of its range. Trying to find Bev's gate – and then trying to find her house once inside her gate – I was very nervous about the condition of the engine as I circled slowly looking for a place to stop. A new warning light came on I'd not seen previously; it said "Check Gauges" as the indicator climbed up to the red line. Bev came out of her house to cheerfully greet us and I stopped the engine. I was beside myself. I stayed behind the wheel of the shut-off van a long while after Razelle and Bev disappeared inside. This HAD to be reported to New Jersey. I called and the voice at the other end asked me if the people I was visiting knew of a garage where this problem could be fixed. That was his response! I sat a while until I could gather my wits and go inside. This van was not going any further today; maybe not ever. I couldn't believe that our round-the-world trip had ground to a halt. At least I was with people who could take us in until we figured out what to do next.

To distract us from dwelling on our predicament, and to repay Bev for finding us our motel our first night on the mainland, Razelle and I took Bev, her roommate Sue and Denise, who takes care of them both (and who drove us there because we were not going to move the van), to a restaurant call "Outback." It was reminiscent of Australia. Their specialty is a "Bloomin' Onion," a creative Australian variation of the onion ring, with a horseradish-laced dipping sauce that I tasted and really liked. There was something for everyone (I had mashed potato and cream-of-broccoli soup).

We ended our day back at Bev's. Our hosts are wonderfully consoling for us and great company. This reunion came at the right time in this trip. I don't yet know how, but we'll get past this obstacle and look back at this some day and smile. For the moment I can only sigh and try to maintain an even disposition. All our round-the-worldly possessions had to be dragged into Bev's house tonight in preparation for tomorrow's search for a repair shop. We went to bed with all of them piled up at the foot of our bed.