Maryland day 4

October 6

I spent this morning finishing up a set of blog updates (three more are now written, bringing us as far as Detroit). I was in the process of composing them when Razelle called up the stairs to tell me that Tanya and Mel had arrived (right on schedule) and were waiting for me to come down so we could go to a restaurant with them. I signed out of my programs and shut down my laptop's open applications, then switched it off, which took a few minutes, then descended the stairs to find an affable Mel and an impatient Tanya. She must have been on a tight schedule, yet she managed to squeeze us world-traveling relatives into it; my slowness in joining them must have been cutting into other tasks she had scheduled.

There wasn't much time for conversation in the front hall as I got myself ready to walk out the door and follow them down to the vehicles parked in the street. We followed Mel and Tanya's car with our van and drove out Reisterstown Rd yet again. We understood they wanted to take us to a kosher Chinese restaurant, so when the Kosher Bite came into view we assumed they were taking us to the same restaurant Ralph and the boys had taken us to. But, no – our destination was a little farther up the road: David Chu's China Bistro.

I have to say this place had a convincingly authentic Chinese atmosphere to it. There were so many dishes to choose from on the menu I didn't know where to start. The waitress spoke with a Chinese accent. Tanya and Mel made small talk with us at the table while we waited for the food we'd ordered to arrive. We spoke of our experiences on this trip as we always do. Mel asked general questions, Tanya asked more specific ones. Eventually we came to the end of the meal and rather than tarry over a cup of tea and converse some more, Tanya paid for the meal and announced to us what size tip Razelle and I were to leave on the table. She was in a hurry to leave and she took Mel with her. That was our visit with these relatives. We had not seen Washington DC to our satisfaction earlier. Today would have been a good day to go back there to catch what we'd missed two days ago, but our pre-arranged family visit with Mel and Tanya had taken precedent over going there today. Yet here we stood, Razelle and I, in the parking lot at David Chu's, watching Tanya and Mel entering traffic and vanishing from sight and we felt that the time with them had been an empty formal social exercise and not much more.

I needed to shop for shirts because I hadn't packed a white dress shirt for this trip that would be appropriate for Yom Kippur services. We drove further out Reisterstown Rd until we found a Target store near the Baltimore Beltway. I went straight to the Menswear Department. I found socks my size (a rare occurrence) but no white dress shirts. I took the socks to the cashiers' area and selected a $50 Virgin Mobile card good for unlimited data access for a full month, while I waited in line to purchase both. I'd learned yesterday that it would be a waste of money to spend less. Back in the van I called Ralph to ask where he bought his white dress shirts. He suggested we head for a store called Casual Male XL, located in Towson, MD. I set my GPS to take us there, but on a whim, I changed the GPS settings to first take us to a closer shopping plaza that had a JC Penney and a Macy's in it at the nearby Owings Mills Mall. That's where I found the shirts I was looking for. The shirts looked so good that Razelle prevailed upon me to buy more than just white ones. I didn't know my size so I tried on several shirts in the dressing rooms until I had the right sleeve length and collar size. I made a point to leave all the pins and cardboard parts on the dressing room bench where they could be used again to restore the shirts I'd tried on to their original display appearance. It really was a pleasure to go shopping and come out of that store with flattering clothes. I never liked shopping for clothes when I was huge, but this time I was excited about the prospects of wearing these nice threads.

Razelle went to Macy's at the far end of the mall and found something her size there she'd been looking for all across the country (since Hawaii!). The clerk was very helpful and she and Razelle quickly became fast friends. They commiserated about the fact that this clerk had a bad back, but was not allowed to sit while she was on duty. This clerk was impressed with our round-the-world stories and said we had inspired her to travel also. Razelle gave her one of our magnets and her email address so the clerk (being Jewish and about our age) could look us up when she gets to Israel.

Razelle also found a nice selection of clip-on earrings in Macy's to finally replace the ones she'd purchased in Singapore and left behind, sadly, somewhere in Western Australia. The price was good, but it would have been even better if Razelle had applied for a Macy's membership card. This required Razelle to give them her social security number. She balk at that and forwent the discount. All in all, we had a very successful day of shopping. We both came away happy.

We returned to Ralph and Anita's in good spirits. Razelle returned to the mission at hand, which was to finish reading the rest of "The Land of the Painted Caves." I went back to composing notes on all that had transpired during our trip so I could work with them later while writing the remainder of the blog. I activated my Virgin Mobile card and had no more restraints on how much data I could consume on the Internet. This evening I was finally able to post the entries I had been working on. For those who have been following our progress on our blog, it will seem we have just reached Detroit now, even though a month has passed since then. Those who have been following us on Facebook at least know we have gotten to Baltimore.

In the evening, when Ralph and Anita and the boys were all together, we had a chance to talk about the next leg of our journey and how best to get through Baltimore tomorrow (either before or after rush hour) so we can reach Hampton, VA before Yom Kippur begins and fasting commences. Because it seemed best to me that we leave earlier than rush hour, we decided to do all our packing tonight before retiring. We had more clothes to pack away now, but our bags can accommodate this. And storing things in the van is not a problem, either; it just means more clutter and less room to stretch out. We have been carting along a pair of camping chairs we purchased in Thousand Oaks, CA at our first Target. I don't recall that we ever used them. We think they may be handy for seating in Ralph's Sukkah, so these are staying behind in Baltimore and we hope they get used well here, with our blessings.

One last gesture remained. Anita let Razelle go through her cache of paperbacks to see if anything appealed to her for reading material along the way. Razelle came away with perhaps eight more books to keep herself occupied. Anita was glad she could do this for Razelle.

We needed to get up early the next morning so we didn't stay up late. We went to bed reflecting on how nice our stay in Baltimore had been.