Posts by Jonah

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, and the Rabbi doesn’t read very quickly. The whole service is sung in Hebrew except for the sermon (which, this morning, appeared to be an amusing skit put on by the kids about the 10 plagues of Egypt). Keeping up with the transliterations of the Hebrew to sing along to is tricky, since the service jumps around the prayer book pretty sporadically. Afterward, we went into the “fellowship hall” and ate challah bread, pickled herring, and gefilte fish with horseradish (it’s one of those foods that really needs a lot of horseradish to be edible). Then we went to Harrold’s deli for the traditional after shul lunch.

This afternoon feels like a lazy Sunday afternoon except that mail comes today, and we’ve got another day of weekend tomorrow.

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 gigantic screened porch. Inside looks like a mountain lodge with rooms branching off in three directions. Every wall and some of the ceilings are covered in stained pine. They’ve done a lot of renovations, transforming the kitchen into a chef’s dream and adding onto the master bath by including a shower worthy of a locker-room. Berck and I tried it out this morning after Dave and Beth had left for the college where they teach Psychology and Music. There’s a huge shower “stall” with a shower-head at each end, each attached to its own hot water heater. The floor is heated, and a room heater keeps the bathroom at a balmy 80 degrees. I want one.

We’re off for Knoxville.

Berck forgot his modem card for his laptop, so we’ll only be able to post journal entries from people’s houses who have the necessary equipment and services (and when we have the spare time) … until we get it sent to us.

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 of the Atlantic, buy Berck some boots, try to find some long underwear for both of us, open a joint bank account, and … I think that’s all.

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!