Knoxville, TN After taking a detour north, we’re finally heading west. Memphis is tonight’s stop (and the last chance for Krystals). I-40 our home for today and tomorrow. We left the Schwarzbarts’ this morning (well, a bit after noon). Visiting them is always interesting, particularly because they keep a kosher kitchen. Food becomes a major production because we can’t help or clean up after ourselves. As Arnold put it the first time I visited them, cleaning up incorrectly makes life a lot more complicated for them, “So just let us do it.” Keeping kosher means not eating meat (beef, chicken,…
Knoxville, TN I’m celebrating my first Jewish Sabbath. I really shouldn’t be typing on the Sabbath because that’s work, but we went driving around all last night and today, so it’s probably okay. That and I’m not Jewish. Mary Linda and Arnold Swarzbart live in Knoxville, Tennessee and are pillars of the Jewish community, so since we arrived on a Friday afternoon, we attended Shabbos dinner with them at their friends’ house. Then we attended services at their synagogue this morning. Apparently, the service lasted a lot longer than usual because they didn’t have a reader for the Torah reading,…
Young Harris, GA We spent last night in Young Harris, Georgia with old friends of Berck’s family, Dave and Beth Brackin. They took us to the Yacht Club for Mexican Night (or, more importantly, the $3 margaritas). I put on my nicest flannel shirt for the affair, but as I discovered, in north Georgia, you don’t have to dress up to go to the local yacht clubs. The Brackins have a very cool house that overlooks the lake (which is 10 feet low, leaving all the floating docks lying on dry clay). The entire front of the house is a…
It’s a month into winter, and we’re finally on our way. Our itinerary looks like this: Atlanta Young Harris, GA Knoxville, TN Memphis, TN Norman, OK Irving, TX Austin, TX Big Bend, TX Carlsbad Caverns, NM That Big Meteor Crater, AZ Canyon de Chelly, AZ The Grand Canyon, AZ Some Petrified Forests Moab, UT Zion National Park, UT Hoover Dam, NV Lake Arrowhead, CA Big Sur, CA San Jose, CA Yosemite National Park, CA US Route 101 Portland, OR Seattle, WA Vancouver, BC …or in some similar order. In Atlanta we’re going to visit our favorite pub on this side…
Dad’s mechanic took a listen to the Miata and said, “Your timing belt is on too tight. That’s why it’s squeaking. But not tight enough that you have to fix it. It’ll loosen up.” So we’re off today for Atlanta. Maybe we’ll swing by your neighborhood soon!