Virginia through Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania to New Jersey

October 9

We awoke in our van while it was still dark outside. The pre-dawn air was pleasantly cool. We took care of preparations for traveling (including one last visit to the Rabbi's house to use the bathroom) then turned the key and drove off.

The GPS told us our destination in New Jersey was some 350 miles and at least 7:30 hours away. I expected it to take longer. We wanted to reach my cousins' house in Matawan, NJ at a decent hour so we could spend some quality time with them; and there were some sights along the way I thought would be interesting to stop for, since we were in the area.

The van needed to be gassed up before we set out (fuel prices were good in Hampton, VA). We also needed to replenish our cash supply; however, the ATM at the gas station had a limit on how much cash it would dispense that was lower than our intentions. A bank we came to next had a drive-through ATM, but it was closed. These stops delayed us and we didn't quite reach the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel by sunrise, which occurred a few minutes after 7:00 AM. The toll booth was no problem; the woman inside cheerfully took our fee. This is the third bridge we've had to pay to cross (the other two were the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan and the Governor Nice Bridge in Maryland). Otherwise, we've avoided and hope to continue to avoid paying tolls.

We had the bridge-tunnel almost completely to ourselves. The sun was up less than half an hour when we stopped at a rest plaza to take pictures of it, glinting on the open water. Seagulls posed among the salt-sprayed rocks and we found bait-sized squid dumped in the parking lot beside our parking spot. It seemed odd that those seagulls hadn't bothered to pounce on them. The entire bridge was lined with light posts at regular intervals; each light fixture had its attendant gull perched upon it and as we drove this gauntlet of gulls, Hitchcock's movie the "Birds" came to our minds.

We drove north through the Delmarva Peninsula, still in Virginia, and I watched my GPS counting down the miles to Maryland. We finally entered Maryland once again and drove past a lot of green landscape but saw no banks from the highway in any of the towns along the way.

We then entered Delaware, our 33rd state. Oddly, as we drove within this state, we saw almost no license plates from this state. These had eluded us throughout our trip and they continued to be elusive even now that we were in Delaware, proper.

We pulled into Greenwood, DE for fuel and cash. I saw a drive-in ATM at the bank across the highway so, while Razelle was busy in the convenience store attached to the gas station; I walked across the highway and patiently stood in line behind a car with an elderly couple in it taking care of their ATM transaction. When they pulled away they looked at me suspiciously. The cash withdrawal limit here was $250, same as everywhere else. I resigned myself to that and followed through with my transaction.

At the food court where Razelle was waiting for me I studied the giant map of Delaware on the wall. I saw that ahead of us lay two choices, a toll road (Delaware 1) or a free road (US 13 – the DuPont Highway). We haven't taken a toll road yet and I planned to keep that record intact today. Avoiding these meant that getting through Dover took us a while, so we stopped at a Walmart in Dover to use the bathrooms (we certainly know our way around a Walmart store by now). There were a lot of Delaware license plates parked here, but not an overwhelming majority.

Half way to Wilmington, DE we finally entered expressway traffic and drove along with a vast number of other Sunday-slash-Columbus-Day-weekend drivers. We entered Pennsylvania, our 34th state and within the first mile came to a visitors' information center and pulled in. I had it in mind to drive within Pennsylvania up to where George Washington crossed the Delaware River (Washington Crossing, PA), so I asked for tourist pamphlets for that section of Pennsylvania. When I got back to the van, Razelle was on the phone with someone we were scheduled to see in the coming days – so much tight planning, so little time left to do it all. I explained to Razelle that Washington Crossing was my next destination, but she wasn't interested in seeing it. OK, so I altered the route in my GPS and pointed us toward the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia instead. I didn't want to just drive past this whole swath of geography without stopping for something of tourist value.

Still avoiding toll roads I steered us into Philadelphia's highway system. Within Philadelphia we left the Delaware Expressway and took the Vine Street Expressway, and ran right into the tightest congestion of Sunday-slash-Columbus-Day-weekend drivers one could have only wished to avoid. By now the Liberty Bell had also lost its appeal to Razelle. The Vine Street Expressway dumped us in slow-motion onto the Schuylkill Expressway (I can't pronounce it; it's lucky I got the spelling right), which afforded us a glimpse of the back side of one of Philadelphia's most important museums ("Rocky" ran up and down its front steps in the eponymous movie) across the water (when retaining walls didn't block our view). Our speed picked up after that and forward progress looked promising. We'd had our fill of Philadelphia by now and our thoughts turned to New Jersey.

We exited onto Roosevelt Blvd (US 1) and continued to move along well – until we came to our first traffic light. We were now in a residential neighborhood of strong ethnic character (black). The boulevard consisted of the express lanes we were in, separated by a divider from the local-traffic lanes used by drivers getting on and off at side streets. Express or no, every mile or so we came to another set of traffic lights – and they were always against us. While we sat at red lights we heard car radios beside us blaring rap music with the "N-word" in the lyrics; very puzzling to me how such a word that is so offensive to them can be so casually incorporated in their music (and played so loudly). Finally, with the residential traffic behind us, we came to the Delaware River and crossed it without having to pay a toll, to enter New Jersey our 35th state (thank you New Jersey for the free pass).

New Jersey – that magical word pair. For more than 12,000 miles our focus has been on getting our van back to New Jersey without incident, through all kinds of terrain and climatic conditions, and we did it! Our van bore New Jersey license plates and it was finally on home soil. We blended right in with all the vehicles around us.

We thought traffic in Philadelphia was bad. New Jersey wasn't an improvement. We only had 40 more miles to go to reach Matawan. Most of this distance was between and not within cities on an arrow-straight section of US 1. The maddening thing was that because this section is straight, we could see all the cars in a line ahead of us, stopping more than going for most of those miles. We called ahead to let Mark and Evelyn in Matawan know we were about an hour away (when that seemed to be the case) but it took us much longer than that to reach our turn-off from US 1 toward Old Bridge and Matawan.

By the time we reached North Brunswick, NJ we needed to fuel up again. We were lucky to pull right up to a pump. A single harried turban-wearing Sikh gentleman was responsible for pumping everyone's fuel. An argument broke out with a customer who had pumped her own gas. In New Jersey, as I understand it, self service is forbidden. Security cameras monitor such things. The customer gave the Sikh gentleman her phone number so she could explain to whoever might want to fire this attendant that she was to blame, not he.

It was a relief to get off the road by the time we pulled into Mark and Evelyn's driveway, some ten hours after we had set out this morning before sunrise. We would have been here sooner and with less angst if we had taken toll roads: the bane of the East Coast from my perspective, but a fact of life from Razelle's perspective. From now on, I won't avoid them anymore.

Mark and Evelyn came out to greet us when they heard us pull into their driveway. Mark is my first cousin, and close enough to me in temperament to be practically a sibling. My affinity for him and Evelyn is such that in no time at all we found ourselves conversing on a wide range of common-interest topics and enjoying ourselves immensely. Razelle has a great deal in common with them too, with their background in cinema and literature. We four never exhausted the topics that came up; each segued into another. Meal time didn't interrupt our conversations and our fascination with them. We gathered around the table as Evelyn, who had taken our dietary needs into consideration – I with my ring and Razelle with her food allergies – brought out a number of different dishes for us to choose from. We found plenty to eat. The featured main dish was salmon. Once this trip is over we should consider compiling a "Chinook Cookbook". Each of our hosts did something different to personalize their presentation of this fish.

Mark is a movie critic and he sometimes has the privilege of viewing films before the general public does. He was excited about a documentary on "Shalom Aleichem" he had reviewed and thought we'd appreciate viewing. It turns out, through research I had done on our family tree, that the towns in the Ukraine our forbears (Mark and mine) may have come from are quite likely the same towns in the Ukraine that claim Sholem Rabinovich as their favorite son. Razelle and I watched this documentary with great fascination.

I began to have trouble staying awake by the time the film ended. Mark and I took apart the couch we were sitting on, tugged on it this way and that, and – voila! – it was a bed! Razelle was very impressed with this item of furniture – an authentic Castro Convertible. She has always wanted to own one of these. It wasn't long before I was fast asleep on it.

Virginia day 1

October 8

Yom Kippur

We woke up often during the night. Apparently all the hydrating we did had to go somewhere. We have jars for this purpose in the van, but we had never filled them as full before as we did last night. I wondered what the point was in hydrating so thoroughly when it all seemed to have been processed by daylight.

Services began at 9:30 AM so we had time to just relax in the van and wait for that hour to approach. We were fasting so there wasn't much else from our usual morning routine to do, except to freshen up a little. We went to the social hall ahead of the scheduled time and waited for others to arrive. We sat in the same seats we had occupied the night before. Sitting there in the seat beside ours was the woman chazzan who had led Kol Nidre and the other cantorial prayers so movingly last night. We told her how much we appreciated the quality of her voice and the sensitivity of her interpretation. I told her I could tell she must know Hebrew because her pronunciation was so consistently correct. People arrived steadily and filled up the seats and we had the chance to watch them and notice what they wore and how they greeted each other. I find this a fascinating aspect of being a guest in the congregations we've joined in prayer each Saturday and on this Holy Day.

It was both a Saturday and a Holy Day (Yom Kippur is considered to be the Sabbath of Sabbaths). The services incorporated all the elements of a Saturday service, plus all the added prayers that remind us that this is the Day of Atonement, the last day to pray for forgiveness for our sins of the past year. The Torah was read clearly, followed by the Haftarah, which I found hard to follow because of the reader's accent. So many extra prayers are incorporated into the Yom Kippur service that the praying goes on a lot longer than at any other time of the year, except Rosh Hashanah. This is good, though, because while we are involved in prayer so intently, we don't dwell on the fact that we haven't eaten or drunk since the afternoon of the day before.

When services were over we went straight to the van to lie down a while; resting quietly while fasting helps make the time pass better. However, it was too warm in the van to rest comfortably during the middle of the afternoon, so we eventually gave that up and retreated to the Rabbi's air-conditioned house. Shosh was in the living room with her little ones. Razelle and I began to talk about all the places we have visited and all the synagogues we've worshipped in along the way from Singapore to Australia to Hawaii to mainland USA from California to Florida to here. The more we talked the more entertaining we became. Rabbi Gila was working on a study session that was scheduled for 4:15 PM before the afternoon prayers were to begin. Overhearing us, she decided that our experiences would fascinate the congregants who would be showing up for this study session. It isn't every day one gets to meet round-the-world travelers, especially not Jews like ourselves who placed such an emphasis on visiting Jewish congregations along the way.

At 4:15 PM we moved our discussion to the sanctuary. We would be praying in this lovely space for the rest of Yom Kippur now, instead of in the massive social hall. I really like the architecture of this sanctuary, and I'm glad that Razelle now had the opportunity to sit in it as I had on my previous visit and pray here. It's interior is constructed of the warmest wood and is very inviting. That's how I feel about it, anyway.

An intimate number of congregants arrived at 4:15 PM. We were introduced to them as members of the congregation in Beer Sheva where Rabbi Dror had previously served. They were told that we had paused here to worship among them on Yom Kippur on our way around the world. We expected to be asked questions about the trip, but instead they focused on the fact that we were from a Conservative congregation in Israel and wanted to know more about our synagogue and its members and our ritual practices. We answered their questions until it was time for the afternoon prayers.

Before these prayers began, an officer of the congregation whispered into my ear that the rabbi had told him I knew how to blow the shofar (ram's horn). He asked if I would be interested in blowing the shofar here at the closing of the prayer services. My heart skipped a beat. I was thrilled to be asked and consented without hesitation, except that I didn't have a shofar with me. This officer led me into the Rabbi's study where three shofrot were set on a table. I picked up the one that looked most like my own at home and tried to see if a tiny sound would come out. I blew a staccato breath into it and a tiny toot came out. This one seemed promising so I wrapped it in a prayer shawl and took it back to my seat next to Razelle. I gave her a peak at it and a beaming smile lit up her face.

The Torah service came up quickly and Razelle and I were invited to have the honor of raising and dressing the Torah scroll after it was read. Next, the Book of Jonah was read by a congregant and I couldn't help chanting along under my own breath because I have had this honor many years in a row now, back in Beer Sheva.

During the silent part of the evening prayers that followed next, the members of the congregation were encouraged to go up to the ark one-by-one on their own initiative to say a personal prayer while the ark remained open for the last moments of Yom Kippur. I took a turn. I gazed upward into the open ark and prayed for so many things in one go: for health of loved ones, for safe passage the rest of our journey and for the safety of Israel.

Finally we reached the end of the prayer service. Four gentlemen (myself included) went up before the congregation and lined up in front of the ark. I was left-most among them. Two of these men had long showy horns, the one to my right had a short horn ornamented with silver, and I stood there with the short, unadorned horn I had selected in the Rabbi's study. The note was called out and all four of us started at the same instant. The congregation held its collective breath as the four horns mixed their sounds in a blast that reaches the innermost parts of a listener's very being. Soon the longer horns both became silent, and only I and the man to my right with the ornate horn continued. Finally he ran out of breath too and I continued solo as long as I dared before I stopped with an upturn of the note I'd held so long. I was pleased with myself and very honored to have been asked to do this here.

The congregants appeared visibly moved. The man to my right shook my hand. Apparently he is actually a musician and he knew what kind of breath control this required. Rabbi Dror told me she missed hearing me do this. It was she who had taught me in the first place and it pleased me to be able to do this here for my teacher. I looked out at Razelle and she was crying. I came to sit beside her and she was too moved to speak.

Following the service we all filed into the social hall again. Food and drinks and tables and chairs were set up there for us to break our 25-hour-long fast: bagels and lox and cream cheese – again. Razelle had seen the High Holiday prayer book in the window of the gift shop. The woman in charge was willing to sell us two before she went home to her family. I had to go out to our luggage and come back with some money because I wasn't carrying any on me during this Holy Day. She waited and I even rewarded her patience by presenting her with the exact amount. We now own our own set of these prayer books.

It had been a long day for all of us. We went back to Rabbi Dror's house for a short while so we could say our good byes. We intended to start our journey before sunrise tomorrow. We wanted to reach the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel by sunrise so we could appreciate the effect. Rabbi Dror needed to get some rest after all the officiating that her function requires of her. It was wonderful for us to have been able to see her in action and to interact with her on this personal level, too. We bid her good night and went out to our van. We fell asleep still glowing from the events of the day.

Maryland to Virginia

October 7 

Erev Yom Kippur

We woke up early this morning. Ralph was the only member of his household awake also. A low sun was hidden behind low clouds as I dragged our bags out to the van and did my best to avoid the heavy dew on the tree lawn. It was cold enough in the van to warrant turning on the heater. A swipe with the wipers to clear the dew off the windshield and we were off on a new day of travel.

The route I programmed into the GPS showed we had 4:45 hours to our destination in Hampton, VA. This route was designed to avoid the congested interstate loops around Baltimore, Washington and Richmond. We headed directly into the heart of Baltimore on Reisterstown Rd and noted the look of the old row homes we drove past. They must have had a glorious past. They looked stately, uniformly made as they were of dark red brick with white trim. Many had bay windows. Sadly, poverty lapped at their doorsteps – wooden porches on too many of them needed repair, or had been ripped away altogether. Some were boarded up. A patina of poverty spoiled their historic dignity. We came to the business district and traffic moved along well. A broad boulevard named for Martin Luther King flowed well also, as it took us up to the baseball stadium and around the football stadium to where the Baltimore-Washington Parkway begins. We picked up speed and were pleased with ourselves for taking this route directly through Baltimore without any delays. The Beltway was flowing too, as it took us to the beginning of Interstate 97 which set us on our southward course to the Crain Highway (US 301). I depended heavily on my GPS to keep track of all these different names and numbers and Razelle marveled at how many of these had to be navigated just to get us through the municipal maze.

We passed through bucolic Chesapeake landscape and made good time. I was weary of a school bus we caught up with as it drove its morning rural pick-up route, but I managed to get past it before it made any stops. We pulled into the Walmart in Waldorf, MD to buy beverages to drink for the rest of the drive. We would be starting our Yom Kippur fast late in the afternoon, so drinking fluids as much as we could before we had to stop eating and drinking by that time was an imperative now. The chill of the morning had turned into a bright warm day. It felt good to be cruising along watching the scenery pass (I speak for myself; Razelle didn't get the same pleasure out of this).

Just before coming to the Governor Harry Nice Memorial Bridge we pulled into a visitors' center on the Maryland side for a pit stop. The staff on duty thought we'd just entered Maryland and they wanted me to sign a guest register. I humored them and signed, even though I was leaving their state. I showed them that I hailed from a very distant land. They showed me a signature that came from an even more distant land: from the United Arab Emirates. That was certainly a "gotcha!" in Maryland moment.

Before we could cross this bridge we had to pay a toll. Not a problem – they accepted cash. The bridge itself is quite narrow – one lane in each direction – and an amazing piece of engineering with steel elements going every which way and forming a webbed tunnel high in the air above the broadest part of the Potomac River. Upon reaching the opposite shore we were in Virginia once again.

This part of Virginia has so much to offer history buffs. We passed signs leading us to landmarks worth spending the day – if not an entire week – stopping to take in. But we were hard-pressed to reach our destination before the fast began and the solemn Holy Day commenced. At Port Royal, VA we took the Tidewater Trail (US 17) all the way to Newport News before getting on an Interstate highway. Signs pointed out the way to the birthplaces of Madison and Washington and to historic Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg. We said to ourselves, "next time we're here we'll see these." We've been saying this everywhere we've been along this trip.

When we reached Hampton, VA my GPS failed to give me sufficient notice which lane to be in and I missed my exit. Odd that it would be lagging behind all of a sudden. I maneuvered my way back to where I needed to be and we reached Rodef Shalom Temple just as Rabbi Dror was leaving to run a quick last-minute errand. The timing couldn't have been more serendipitous. She let us in so we could rest in her living room then, shortly thereafter, she returned. I had been here once before on a previous visit so I felt comfortable with this. Rabbi Dror and I had communicated by email and she was expecting us – welcomed us – to observe Yom Kippur at her congregation and stay here for the duration of this sacred day. She had prepared a meal for us in her kitchen: baked salmon and steamed string beans. We had been hydrating ourselves all day and continued to drink water here up to the last minute before the fast began. Rabbi Dror gave us instructions how to stow anything uneaten and rushed off to prepare herself to officiate during the service. I had time to take a quick shower before we had to go to the Temple building ourselves.

We climbed into the cocoon of our van in travel clothes and emerged as butterflies, dressed in our "going to worship" apparel, including a shirt I'd just bought for this day, and a set of earrings Razelle had bought for herself at the same time. As we entered the synagogue, I scanned the faces looking for any I might recognize, so I could reintroduce myself to whomever that might be. No one recognized me.

Razelle and I took prayer books from a table and found seats in the far corner of the large social hall where the service was being held. When Rabbi Dror took the podium to begin the service Razelle and I looked at each other and smiled broadly. Of all the congregations we'd been to on this trip, this one was the most significant to us. This was our Rabbi – our Rabbi Gila. She may have been gone for 10 years, but as far as we were concerned, she was only away on permanent loan. She still belonged to us. We settled in and enjoyed the service.

The Kol Nidre prayer was about to begin. A woman chazzan came to the podium and we all rose for the prayer. Her voice moved us. We were most definitely in the right place for Yom Kippur. Razelle and I followed the service in our prayer books and noticed how wonderfully these had been compiled. Razelle decided we had to order a pair of these for ourselves. Rabbi Dror gave her sermon. It was special to us because her delivery and content took us back to the days when she had led services in our synagogue.

When the services were over we returned to the Rabbi's house. We adults were all fasting now. We sat in the living room and talked. Her daughter Shoshanna was there with her little ones, a precocious 5 year old daughter and a newly born infant. We knew Shosh from Beer Sheva and had been at her wedding. Shosh and Razelle talked a bit, but the little ones needed attending to, so Shosh excused herself and turned her attention to them. Rabbi Dror showed us what sleeping arrangements we could improvise if we stayed in the house, but this meant one of us on a single bed and one on the carpeted floor beside it, or alternatively, one on an upstairs single bed and the other on a downstairs single bed. We really did weigh these options, but in the end we opted to sleep in our van as we had originally planned, parked as it was beside her house on an unobtrusive patch of perfectly flat pavement in the cool night air with a breeze whispering through the branches of the woodlot at the edge of the pavement and the chirping of crickets to lull us to sleep. We pulled the van doors shut with us inside and made the bed comfortable for a good night's sleep. We hadn't slept in the van in a long time and we missed its coziness. It was the right choice.

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. 

Maryland day 3

October 5

Razelle spent the morning reading Anita's copy of Jean Auel's "The Land of the Painted Caves" the final novel of the "Clan of the Cave Bear" series (as we call it), recently published and only available in hardcover so far. Razelle has to get through this book and leave it behind when we leave Baltimore so she was intensely involved in that silent endeavor.

While Razelle was at this, I took time to explore the neighborhood on foot this crisp sunny autumn morning and go buy a charge card to top up my laptop, this being the last day my $50-unlimited-use-for-a-month Virgin Mobile card had left on it. Since we have only 10 days left in the US before we move on to the next country, I thought it would be a good idea to only buy a $10 card (or at least worth trying), which should be good for 10 days (if I don't overuse it). I walked down to the corner traffic light at Reisterstown Rd and Northern Parkway to the Walgreens store. They didn't have the right mobile card denomination so I continued down Reisterstown Rd another block and found what I needed at a Dollar Discount store.

All the people I passed along Reisterstown Rd were black. I was the only white person I saw walking along this thoroughfare (alone). I tried to be nonchalant about that, but not having lived in the US for so many decades I had no idea whether or not I was being naïve about my safety. The most disconcerting thing was listening to conversations I overheard as I passed small groups of males, talking among themselves and letting the "N-word" pepper their speech liberally. I also heard music someone passing me on the sidewalk was playing loud enough to be heard; he chanted along with its rap lyrics, which also had the "N-word" come up every so often. I just glided through this scene as unobtrusively as I could to return to the supposed safely of Ralph's street. Once there, I took time to notice the shade trees that lined the pavement. My footsteps lightly crunched the leaves that were beginning to fall onto the sidewalk this time of year. These trees also dropped acorn/chestnut-type fruit (beechnuts?) onto the sidewalks and tree-lawns and into the gutters. I may learn their identity eventually, but for the time being they are not familiar to me.

When I returned Razelle asked to go out too. She was interested in eating out somewhere. We got into the van and drove up Reisterstown Rd in the opposite direction from the one I'd walked. Last night, we drove a long stretch of Reisterstown Rd from that direction when we'd returned from Washington and I had seen a lot of commercial centers, closed at that late hour. I thought Razelle would like to see what kind of choices this area had to offer (she was asleep as we passed last night so she missed seeing it). One shopping plaza after another came into view. We found an old familiar eatery that has never disappointed: IHOP, and we alighted there for a meal. For a change, instead of ordering my usual bowl of grits, I ordered a bowl of oatmeal. Our waiter was a tall thin and cheerfully talkative and attentive black man. He seemed to have had a good education and I thought he might in fact be a manager instead of a waiter, because he was older than the usual age of the waiters we've encountered on our journey across America. He talked economics with Razelle and remarked about the competitor across the street adding solar panels on the roof of their business, so he revealed an awareness of structural engineering too. Then a superior of his handed him a broom and dustpan and I realized he wasn't a manager. I hope this man can find a job some day, when the economy turns around, that can utilize his talents better. At least he is working and there is dignity in that.

We returned to Ralph and Anita's. At the top of the stairs in their house I entered our bedroom and violently ran my right knee into the bedpost. I collapsed onto the bed and waited for the agonizing pain to subside from my aching patella and feared that this might be the "end of the road" for this road trip. If my right knee were now damaged I wouldn't be able to drive anymore. I willed the pain away and after a while I dared to try standing. My knee was tender, but otherwise undamaged. Whew, that was a close call.

I worked on my blog and will soon be posting some new entries, finally. These will bring my blog up to our arrival in Detroit, a full month after the fact. I have fallen so far behind and our last several days ahead are so packed with visits to people and religious holidays that I don't see how I'll be able to catch up completely with where we are currently located as we travel. I will finish this blog, I promise, no matter what, even if it is written in retrospect from notes. I also used my new Virgin Mobile card to do a lot of route planning on the web on Google maps. It is getting to be critical now just how much distance we have left to drive. An obligatory oil change will be due by the time we complete the projected distance I estimate we still have left to finish our trip south to Virginia, then north to Massachusetts then south again to leave the van in New Jersey. I wanted to determine whether our route might go beyond the mileage still left before the oil change ends up being my responsibility instead of theirs. It will be close. Doing this research, however, I used enough megabytes that my 10-day card won't last past tomorrow – an experiment in thrift that didn't have the outcome I was hoping for.

Anita spent the afternoon cooking a special meal for us. She is a holistic nurse and prepares macrobiotic dishes that one doesn't encounter every day. This is what makes them special. There are roots and grains and vegetables in her dishes you can't readily identify from common experience because they are special too. When she tells you what they are you can't help but smile. Of course you've heard of them, many times in fact, but rarely (if ever) tasted them. These dishes take longer to prepare, so Razelle and Anita had lots of time together in the kitchen to talk about subjects that interested them and to bond as sisters-in-law. This is the longest time Razelle has spent alone with Anita since she married Ralph. By the time Ralph came home from work, all was ready. We all gathered around the table: Ralph, Razelle, Anita, Yehudah, Yair and I, to eat as one large family.

That's what this part of the trip is for: to reconnect with family and strengthen the bonds that hold families together.

Maryland day 2, including District of Columbia

October 4

Today's planned itinerary was to take us into Washington DC to see the sights and then to meet my cousin Guy at the end of his work day at the Department of Agriculture and go with him to his home in Wheaton, MD where his wife Hannah would get to meet us. That was the plan, at least.

Razelle didn't realize how long it would take us to travel from Baltimore to Washington, nor were the logistics of getting around in Washington clear to her. I had done the research and had failed to paint the full picture for her. So, as the day progressed, we found ourselves with less time to work with and progressively more adjustments to make to have the original plans come off somehow. Razelle had expressed a great interest in seeing Washington. Fulfilling her request was my noble intention.

Before we left Ralph's place I made several trips out to the van to bring in all the pieces of our baggage that we didn't want to lose while the van was left vulnerable all day in a metropolitan DC parking lot. We had the luxury of keeping it all in Ralph's house so we took advantage of that.

I set our GPS to take us to the Silver Springs, MD Metrorail station because there is a ticket agency near it where 1-day passes can be purchased. These passes cannot be purchased within the stations. It took us an hour to reach Silver Springs and when we got to the Metrorail station there, expecting everything to go smoothly, we found that a lot of construction was going on and there were no free parking lots. There were multistory parking garages, but the clearance at their entrances were too low for our van. We tried parking up the street at a lot in front of a pharmacy, but the sign said, "1 hour customer parking only." I returned to the ticket agency and sent Razelle in with instructions and money for the 1-day passes while I sat in the van beside the construction site. When she came out she told me they advised against 1-day passes so she didn't get them.

I could see that this Metrorail station was a bad choice, so I reprogrammed the GPS to take us farther away from the District to the White Flint Metrorail station in North Bethesda, MD. There were some open-air parking lots here, but they didn't look like we could use them. The multi-story parking garage entrance did have enough clearance so we pulled up to the gate. The woman at the gate had a terrible speech impediment; we strained to understand her instructions while still remaining sensitive to her disability. It eventually became clear that we had to buy two rechargeable magnetic cards that would have enough funds on them to cover the cost of our rides and still have enough left over on one of the cards to pay for parking when we returned.

Having parked the van, we headed for the station, but Razelle was hungry and didn't expect to find a place to eat along the National Mall once we got there. Across the boulevard we saw places to eat. Razelle settled on a bagel deli that looked just perfect. I had no appetite so I drank a couple of bottles of Snapple Pink Lemonade.

We then returned to the Metrorail station and finally were on our way into DC on the red line (the color was important to keep track of so we could get back to this station at the end of the day). After transferring to a blue line and riding two more stations we got off, took the escalator up and popped up out of the ground into a lovely warm sunlit fall day near the Smithsonian. As we looked around us we saw serious-looking government buildings, joggers on the paths in the National Mall, and the phallic spire of the Washington Monument poking skyward. To help Razelle orient herself I walked with her out toward the middle of the Mall so she could see the Capitol Building at the far end (the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool at the other end were obscured by the mound that the Washington Monument sits upon.

Razelle saw the distances and decided she couldn't walk toward the Lincoln Memorial and all the war memorials at that end. She said, "Just take me to see the Smithsonian Museum and that will be enough." She wasn't aware that the Smithsonian is actually more than a dozen museums spread out all along the Mall on both sides, and elsewhere around the District. She was getting more frustrated by the minute. Her knees hurt and her pain was increasing with each step. There were no benches to sit on and nubile joggers passing along the running paths only served to make her feel worse. She headed for the Smithsonian Castle with me in tow, but found that this was not a museum. She next went to the Hirshhorn Museum, where we found chairs to sit on in the outside courtyard. After she had rested a while we continued onward to the National Air and Space Museum. This was a museum that appealed to her very much. We went in and I left my driver's license with the concessionaire who gives out wheelchairs. Now we could relax and enjoy ourselves.

There is a lot to see in this museum. We paid to view a movie in the IMAX theater. In her wheelchair Razelle got VIP treatment. We took an elevator to the upper-level seats and an usher moved the velvet rope aside so Razelle and I could go in the exit and get comfortable. We watched "To Fly!" Razelle had to remove her 3D glasses to watch it because it was giving her motion sickness. I think the effect would have been more dramatic had we sat closer to the screen. I envied those who sat below us in the closer seats.

We toured most of the galleries and revisited a lot of history we ourselves had lived through. The space program began when we were impressionable children. The Wright brothers and Neil Armstrong and John Glenn were natives of Ohio, so the educational system where I grew up took pride in extolling the deeds of these "favorite sons." I also grew up near Cape Kennedy/Canaveral, and my father worked in the space industry so I followed all that very closely as a kid. Razelle, by the same token, worked for the Israel Air Force as a teacher, so all the aeronautics on display were systems she had taught about. Sikorsky helicopters were made in Connecticut near where she had lived so she took pride in that, too.

A sliced and polished piece of moon rock brought back from the surface of the moon was on prominent display in the museum. I wheeled Razelle up to this rock so she could touch it. I remarked that our round-the-world trip now included a trip to the moon as well. We posed "No-Evil" our stuffed toy monkey with this moon rock. The Japanese tourists enjoying the museum along with us found this to be endearingly amusing.

The museum closed at 5:30 PM and we were herded out at that time. Guy had finished work at 5:00 PM, but didn't mind letting us stay right up to closing time. I turned in the wheelchair and got my driver's license back. We met Guy on the street in front of the museum and walked with him to the nearest Metrorail station at L'Enfant Plaza. We waited with peak-hour crowds for a train that took us three stations to the Metro Center station so we could transfer to the red line. We caught that train and Razelle and I were able to sit, while Guy stood.

Along the way we had the chance to talk with Guy about all kinds of things, from his job to our genealogy. Guy spoke with Hannah on his cell phone about when we could be expected, but Hannah told him she'd be delayed because she was having the car serviced. The ride out to our station was sufficiently long that we had time to think of alternative plans because of the unavailability of their car. Guy and Hannah had a restaurant in mind near their home that served genuine Israeli cuisine. I got the address and programmed my GPS. Since we were going past the White Flint station on this line, we decided we'd get off there, pick up our van and drive ourselves to the restaurant to meet Guy there. It was a perfect plan, and that is what we did.

We met Guy at the Pita Hut. What a catchy name for an Israeli restaurant in the middle of Rockville, MD! It was the real deal, too, with an array of salads and a basket of pita and hummus and olive oil on the table to nibble on while we waited for Hannah so we could order. She called several times to let Guy know that the tire change was taking a lot longer than it was supposed to. She finally called to tell Guy to go ahead and order. Razelle ordered skewered meat and I had kebobs. For the hour we waited for Hannah in that restaurant we might as well have been in Israel. We soaked up the atmosphere while we listened to Israeli music in the background and heard Hebrew spoken among the staff. The only person in the room who couldn't speak Hebrew was our waitress.

Guy showed me material he had brought along that his great aunts in Arizona had sent him. These are the same nonagenarian sisters Razelle and I had met in Phoenix, and the same stories they had told us, word for word. I gave Guy some of my ideas about a restructured family circle, and reported to him how our visit to his great-aunt Belle and cousin Fred had gone in Columbia, SC. I also told him what I knew of the towns in Ukraine where our family may have come from. This is not definitive information, but a direction for further research.

Hannah was finally able to join us. She apologized profusely, but we told her it was not her fault. Guy handed her her food and she ate with us. We related some of our round-the-worldly experiences to her, and told her of our exploits with the van we'd been driving with all its foibles. I've always admired her gift of expression when she writes and I told her so. Razelle and Hannah talked about Hannah's job, which made for fascinating listening. I'm only sorry that we didn't have more time to spend with Hannah. We took Guy and Hannah out to see our illustrious "bordello-on-wheels" as Razelle calls our van. In the dark our mood lights looked really impressive, setting off the ceiling mirror the way they did.

We then got into our van and waved goodbye to Guy and Hannah. We still had the road back to Baltimore to traverse. All in all, what started out as a day that didn't meet our original expectations of doing Washington, DC justice turned into a day we really did enjoy. We had a good time touring the one museum we saw thoroughly, we got to ride the rails of Washington's train system and we got to spend time with Guy and some with Hannah, too. There's no point in dwelling on what could have been. It really couldn't have been or it would have been. Besides, we will be in Baltimore a few more days. We might have another chance to come back here. If we do, we will know how to do it better next time.

The road back to Baltimore was not illuminated by overhead lighting, so the headlights in my rearview mirror were especially annoying and fatiguing. I couldn't wait to finally reach my exit in Baltimore so I wouldn't have to endure those lights. But the exit I wanted was closed for construction at that time of night and we had to go several miles farther before we could get off onto a major city street and double back. We had a long way to drive on this thoroughfare, past a lot of commercial centers and gas stations. I made a mental note of the prices for gas and the names of the shopping outlets we passed. By the time we turned off the van at Ralph's my stamina had been spent. It wasn't long before I was in bed, asleep.

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RAZELLE'S PHOTO FROM THIS DAY

Sculpture at Entrance to Air and Space Museum,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

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.