After returning Alex to his parents and spending another week at Dan and Malena’s it was time to move on if we were going to keep up the rest of our schedule. Besides Saturday, Dec 3 had been exhausting. We started with Cory at a soccer game followed by a team lunch at a pizza place. We wandered the Charlottesville Main Street Mall and shopped at Alacazam for Chanukah presents. Finally we met Alex at his choral concert at 3. Following that we went back to the soccer pitch to pick up Cory and take both boys home so to the parents could meet cousin Steven Berbeco who was driving in rather unexpectedly to spend the night. We had a great time with the boys and around 10 or so Malena, Dan and Steven appeared. This was not the time to go to sleep, yet, as we needed to catch up. In the morning we had a round of goodbyes and followed Steven down out of the Hollow headed n similar directions.

We went on to Baltimore to see our friends Alan and Bunny Bernstein who had moved into Alan’s late mother’s house four years ago. We had seen them only sporadically in Rochester since their departure. It was great fun to see them on their home turf and to enjoy their guided tour of Jewish Baltimore. We certainly will need to give Baltimore more attention in the future. During the second night there it started to rain and I woke up with nightmares of mud because we were parked on the lawn at their direction. Having slogged through more mud than I care to think about at conventions and on the roads in Alaska, the sound of rain on the roof while parked on lawn was alarming. After a wonderful breakfast and a warm send off, I started the coach and started to back it down to the driveway. As the rear wheels reached pavement I turned the front wheel slightly and applied the brakes gently resulting in a slide sideways of about a foot. No damage to any trees or shrubs nor to the coach, but the lawn will require some attention to repair the ruts.

As we rolled out we knew we had three and a half days to cover 1,000 miles or so. As I write we are 800 miles along after two days, in Brunswick Georgia. We have not decided where we will pause tomorrow night, but we should have made the decision before we start the engine in the morning.

We have added some complications to our travels. We are looking to make a stop in Alabama where cousins Ellie and Eddie Holtzman will be visiting their daughter Joy and family. Eddie is not well and we don’t want to pass up the opportunity to see him. We will then have to make serious tracks across the south to get to LA by 1/10/2012. Still not sure where we will spend New years Eve. Liberty TX is not out of the question (see last years post if you don;t know why that would be fun).