Sunday we weren’t going to Canada. Monday I cleared the App and tried again and it worked. Carol called the test provider who finally emailed the negative test result. Immediately Carol called and emailed the family in Canada to let them know we were coming. We packed, prepared lunch for the drive and rolled out at noon, which was our original plan. Dinner with her 98 year old aunt and cousins Robbie and Marilyn in Hamilton. Overnight with Marilyn and Tuesday we drove to Toronto where we had a visit with Michael and his daughters – and grand daughter. Then off to Leslie and Harvey where we had a splendid time talking and eating. We spent the night and after breakfast we were off to Rochester, back across the border. 

It all seemed very brief, but it was a wonderful reunion with those we were able to get together with. We missed Mitch who was deep in business and Shelley – Marilyn’s daughter – who also was working. Talk about a whirlwind couple of days. 

Border crossings at the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge were really non events. The Canadian official had to wrap his head around Texas Drivers License, California plates and covid tests from Rochester NY. Then he asked the routine questions and waved us on. Returning to the US was even easier. 

We are filling our calendar with social and cultural events between now and our departure on October 13. We attended a performance of the Rochester Philharmonic last night. Everyone showed proof of vaccination and wore masks. It was the first performance in Kodak  Hall at Eastman Theater in 18 months. The conductor, Andreas Delfs,  was giving his debut performance as Music Director and the young soloist, Benjamin Beilman played Jennifer Higdon’s Violin Concerto, the standing ovation brought him back to play an encore, familiar but I don’t have the name. It was fantastic to be back in the hall and attend a great performance. On October 7 we will be back in the hall for another concert before we leave town.

In the mean time we have tickets for “Vietgone” at Geva Theater and dinner beforehand with Victor and Joyce again. There too we must show proof of vaccination and wear masks to attend. We are prepared to go through the requirements so that we and everyone else can feel safe as we re enter the world after lockdown.

In the next weeks we will be seeking our booster shots to provide us with whatever additional protection is available. Oh and high potency Flu shots as soon as they are available.

I am sorting out some feeling that caught me by surprise during services. Carol and I have sat in the same pew area of the same synagogue for so many years we cannot remember ever sitting anywhere else. As we sat in an adjacent pew because of the set up for streaming the mixed media service, I contemplated the empty pew. I thought back to the days of sitting there with our boys, my parents and Carol’s and aunts and uncles and friends and acquaintances. some of whom we only ever socialized with during the holidays. Saving seats was an endless topic of conversation, at one time we claimed an entire pew. The entire section of pews was empty. The people who belonged there were not present. I know that many were staying home and attending the streamed service on Youtube.  Still I missed their presence.

Our children and their children are not in Rochester and their mode of worship is different from ours. There is no right or wrong, just different so that even if they were nearby they probably would not choose to sit in these pews.

So many others are no longer with us. I open my email with a kind of dread each day as I watch for postings from Brighton Memorial Chapel with yet another loss. As I contemplated this thought; Rabbi Stein talked about witnessing life from two sides. We pray “thank G-d for bringing us to this wonderful day” and we pray “thank G-d for our having survived an illness/accident/dangerous travel” My Jewish readers will recognize these as shehecheyanu and birkat hagomel. We seem to spend life suspended between these two points. 

All of this thought brought me to tears I have not experienced in some time. I really really miss those who are gone. I miss the presence of those still with us who for good reason chose not to be physically present. I miss the physicality of the community that has been our home for more than 70 years. 

I need to thank the Rabbis, Peter Stein and Rochelle Tulik for using their sermons to bring new understanding of where we are today and where I am as well. I know that they devote much thought to these words. They need to know that they reached at least one member of the congregation. 

In more ways than one, we are back. 

I won’t bore you all with the nonsense caused by hackers unknown who found goldberg-online to be a useful tool to go phishing. Our son Dan has put in too many hours cleaning up the mess they left behind. There is still much left to do since most of the links to really old fun stuff on goldberg-online and Carols art on cgstudio.net are still dead. Also we need to find a way to prevent this in the future.

I left this blog with plans to go to Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountain State Park (ADK). We went!

There are a multitude of routes we have taken to the ADKs over the years. I decided to travel out NY 104 to NY 3 which is essentially the entire route unless we decided to explore some side roads and explore we did. I saw a turn for Old Ridge Road (formerly 104) and took that, it shortened the route by a couple of miles and added 10 minutes. Further on we diverted to 104A up closer to Lake Ontario just to see it. I had to arm wrestle the car GPS to stay on 3 all the way to Watertown rather than jump on I81. The route ended up looking like this. 

We stayed at the Hotel Saranac which used to be a training hotel for Paul Smith’s College. Now it is a Hilton Curio collection. The building appears unchanged from the late 70’s when we stayed there while visiting the boys at Adirondack Swim and Trip Camp. The interior is updated to the extent possible and the accommodations were fine. We had dinner in the Campfire Restaurant the first night after drinks in the 2nd floor lounge – it is the entire 2nd floor, well the front half anyhow. 

On Thursday we went on a nostalgia drive. In no particular order; Camp Cherokee on Gilpin Bay where I spent many summers as a camper and a waiter; Adirondack Swim and Trip where the boys spent many of their summers; of course a stop at Donnellys Creamery, known to ASTC family as “Snake Pit” and a long drive down through Long Lake and Racket Lake Village and out the long dirt road to Great Camp Sagamore, the Vanderbilt Camp where I spent six weeks “improving” my reading. Dinner was back in Saranac Lake Village at Fiddlehead Grill where we had a delightful dinner and a bit of a story to get a table.

Friday Anna Lee and Jerry, friends from RVing although they have hung up their keys,  joined us and we met at Adirondack Experience (we knew it as The Adirondack Museum on Blue Mountain Lake). Their daughter is Director of Interpretation which is what drew all of us to the ADKX at the ADKs. They had to drag me kicking and screaming out of the boat collection. It seems that happened the last time we were there, probably 30 years ago. If you find yourself in that part of NY somewhere north of Albany take an extra hour or two drive and plan to spend most of a day at the museum. The cafe food was good too.

Saturday we took a very old time boat tour of Lake Placid. I remember that tour from 65 years ago when I was a camper, we spent the open time hanging around on Lake Placid Main St another activity I remember vaguely from 65 years ago. We were hot and tired by late afternoon and found the library where we sat in the comfortable chairs in the AC and continued talking, petting books and eventually drawing the librarian into a discussion of books about books. 

That night we had a quick dinner with their family at home and drove out to Six Nations Cultural Center in Onchiota, just past ASTC. There is a campground in that town that we camped in once. We were there for a couple of hours of Story Telling by Native Americans. Sunday morning after breakfast at the home of Anna Lee and Gerry’s daughter and son in law, we were back in the car for the 5 hour drive to Rochester which we did in  a straight shot on 3 and 104 with a stop at a wonderful farm market on the eastern edge of Oswego. All we needed was some milk. . . 

On the way we texted Josh about dinner so we bought 5 ears of nice fresh corn to go with a wonderful udon noodle dish Carol prepared. 

Since that day we have been doing pretty much the usual; thinking about travel to Canada and Rosh Hashanah  coming up next week.

The last leg of the journey was from Chautauqua KOA (East side of the lake) to Victor NY. The plan was to take US 20. I forgot that when we did this in 2011 I said I would never drive that stretch of US 20 through the Buffalo area again. The day started out with the usual nonsense, the road we planned to take was closed for construction. I just can’t wait for the Infrastructure Bill to pass. Since Wyoming we have been running through road construction daily. In WY and NE our Garmin insisted on rerouting us because the “Road is Closed” actually lanes were closed but the route was open, sort of, single lane often with oncoming traffic to our left. In OH the detours on US 6 had us covering half of northern Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to Napoleon PA for fuel. 

The stretch from Chautauqua was particularly frustrating since we encountered weight limits of 6 tons on several routes we intended to take – our rear axle is 20,000 pounds! I was not about to take any chances so we continued on the only route with no posted weight limit until we found our way to US 20. Eventually we back tracked about 6 miles to get on I 90 and make tracks to Victor to store the coach. I still much prefer back roads to Interstates, but when I just want to get someplace already the Interstates do work, unless they are under construction with lanes closed.

Our next road trip will be in the Jeep Grand Cherokee to the Adirondacks where we will stay at the Saranac Hotel for four nights. We will see our friends from Sacramento, meet their daughter and family and visit some sights we haven’t seen in several years. In the mean time we are very busy in Rochester with dinner with Rohma and Josh and plans with friends being shaped as I write. 

I will be stopping by to “visit” Geewhiz from time to time just to be sure everything is in order. For now travel will be more limited than usual.