Maryland day 1

October 3

After yesterday's arduous long-haul to Baltimore, neither Razelle nor I felt driven to accomplish much today. We had reached safe haven at Ralph and Anita's and we stayed put until the evening. The house was quiet when we woke up. Ralph had already gone to work and Anita was out of the house, too. Razelle's nephews, Yehudah and Yair were home, but fast asleep. Their pet guinea pig in its living quarters in the living room was awake, but not a substitute for human conversation. I got out my laptop and got busy on several fronts at once. Razelle found reading matter to occupy herself with while reclining in bed so she immersed herself in that. There is no television in Ralph's house, so silence reigned supreme for most of the morning. The weather outside was cold and overcast and the ground was wet from rain that had come down when we weren't looking, matting fallen brown leaves on the ground where they'd landed. It wasn't very inviting weather, so staying in had that much more appeal.

Ralph had several containers of loose change from charity organizations that he was in the process of sorting and wrapping for them so the coins could then be taken to a bank. They were already separated into bins by denomination, and I found myself picking through the quarters to see which states were on the reverse sides. This turned into an engrossing project, and soon I had an array of quarters on the table, state-side up, arranged alphabetically, just to see if all the states were in there. All but one – Missouri was missing; a no-show-me state, if you will.

I caught up with my email and sent out a few answers. One answer was to a yahoo-group in Beer Sheva I have signed into. Some of the answers to my posting that immediately returned were from people who thought we were already back in Beer Sheva. Soon, my dear friends, soon … 16 more days to touchdown in Israel.

My blog has fallen so far behind by now that its original purpose of keeping people informed of our whereabouts has been lost, so it is understandable that they had lost track of our location. I still want to record events so they won't fade from memory or all blur together. I used this quiet morning to make lots of notes to myself in outline form so I could put them together in the blog later; even though the entries have fallen behind, they will still reflect the events of the day as if they were fresh memories.

This morning Razelle told me she hadn't been to Washington since she was 8 years old. I hadn't realized this when I originally left Washington off the itinerary. She insisted that visiting the sights there was important to her. I immediately started putting together a plan. I spent the morning researching transportation options into and around Washington, DC. In 2002, when I was in Baltimore with Shalev, our cousin Mel took us from Baltimore to Washington and back, several days in a row. We drove to a train station in Maryland on the edge of the District and parked the car in a huge, free parking lot, then took the train into the heart of DC. I envisioned doing the same with Razelle. I couldn't remember which station it was, but I didn't think that was very critical.

There are a few important people in Baltimore I had hoped to visit during this trip. Two of these are the abovementioned Mel and his wife Tania, who live very nearby, and two more are my friend Bill and his wife Paula, who live just as close by. Mel and Tania knew we'd be in Baltimore – just not precisely when; but I hadn't had any contact with Bill or Paula since my previous visit to Baltimore in 2009 during my mother-in-law's Shiva mourning period. I'd have settled for a nice chat on the phone with Bill and Paula, but they insisted on having us over this evening.

Yehudah and Yair eventually awoke and came downstairs to make themselves a meal. We had a chance to chat and soon Razelle came down to join the three of us. She and her nephews then spent a good deal of quality time together around the table, talking with her about their hopes and dreams and career choices. I listened from the next room and was pleased at how well this family reunion between nephews and aunt was going. (Not having a TV translates into people spending more time relating to each other; having an open laptop running in your lap kind of defeats this.)

Ralph returned home at the end of his workday. We finally got out of the house. We had dinner at the "Kosher Bite," a kosher eatery practically around the corner from where Ralph and company live. The Kosher Bite had a very eclectic selection of dishes to chose from. The Jewish part of Baltimore that Ralph lives in is pretty closely packed with kosher eateries and synagogues and Shabbat-observant families, so, naturally, all of these are relatively nearby. That's what appeals to the Jews who choose to live in this part of Baltimore. At the end of a truly filling meal we parted company with Ralph, Yehudah and Yair and drove off to visit with Bill and Paula.

Bill and I had walked a section of the Appalachian Trail together, along with my two brothers and another guy. We had been in boy scouts together, and his family and mine and one other were the only three Jewish families in our old neighborhood in Toledo, OH. We had a lot of memories in common from our teenage years. In November 2009 I was able to visit with Bill and meet Paula for the first time since I emigrated to Israel. It was a very special reunion, then. All our Appalachian Trail stories were fresh and spellbinding and entertaining for Paula to hear. I wanted to introduce Razelle to them and vise versa this time. It was late in the evening of a long work day; they had a guest from Israel visiting them who is an American expat living in Beit Shemesh, and their daughter needed help with math homework, so the circumstances of the previous visit were not repeated during this one. I am very glad that I was able to see them again and grateful they made time to include us in their evening. We will have to do this again someday, but plan it farther in advance next time. We left so they could get enough sleep to function the following day.

We drove back to Ralph's and found Anita helping Yehudah and Yair study for an imminent exam at their college. We left them to it. Anita found some books Razelle was interested in reading, which made Razelle very happy. I had travel arrangements to go over for tomorrow and contacts to follow through on for stops we plan to make during the final days of our trip. These were what occupied my thoughts. I worked on my laptop within earshot, but soon found myself nodding off. I excused myself and joined Razelle upstairs where she was already starting one of the books she'd just received.