Friday, 7/29, SWEET HOME NEW JERSEY!!!!

So this is it, the final blog entry (I think).  We're on our last leg home.  We
left Hagerstown, MD at 8:45AM.  The GPS put the ETA at 12:15PM.  Plenty of time
to get home and run some errands and get stuff for Shabbos.  But then.... they
decided to close Route 78 by Allentown for a few miles.  The GPS didn't have any
real-time traffic signal in the area so I didn't get the 'Severe Traffic Ahead'
warning and get rerouted.  There was a sign on the highway about it, but I
figured it just meant getting off the highway for the few miles and taking a
local road for a bit.

As we are getting closer to the closure exit, I notice there aren't too many
cars or trucks on the highway with me.  Uh, oh.  They must have known something
I didn't.  So we hit Exit 45 in PA and lots of exiting cars/trucks, but still
plenty ahead on the highway with brake lights on.  The exit ramp was pretty much
standstill so I decided to tough it out on the highway.  It was 4.1 miles to the
next exit, after which the highway was closed.  It took about 45 minutes to go
one mile, so I was starting to get pretty nervous about what lay ahead.  At
times I put the car in Park and would sit for up to a minute or so.  At one
point a woman starts walking past our car up to another car to get in.  She must
have gotten out to get something from the back (she was carrying some food) and
then her husband pulled the car up when a gap formed ahead of him, so she had to
catch up.

We had a feeling we wouldn't make it back in time to get Shabbos food from Glatt
27 (the local take-out place).  So we called our Goldblatt neighbors to see it
they could pick up an order we would place by phone.  "Of course", they
graciously said.  So we called it in.

After the first mile or so it wasn't as bad.  But still very slow.  We finally
made it to the exit and got out at a gas station for a pit stop.  Lo and behold,
who do we see on line for the bathroom??  No, not some Lubavitch emissary for
the area, but rather that woman who was running up the highway to catch up with
her car.

We get back on the detour road and follow the long line of cars/trucks.  There
are some traffic lights on this road so it took a while to get thru them all. 
Finally, we make it back to I-78 a few miles down from the closure.  We see all
the Dorney Park roller coasters up ahead.  We're right near Allentown.  The kids
knew that that park was in/near Allentown.  We get on the highway and our ETA is
now 2:30PM, so a 2.25 hour delay.

So our first stop is Costco to do one last fill-up to get our total mileage
numbers and pick up groceries.  It was just over 8000 miles.  I originally
thought we would do around 7000.  I guess we didn't realize that our van was
pretty packed already and how would we fit all the Costco stuff in.  But we
managed somehow.

Then we go to the Post Office to pick up our month's worth of mail, only to find
out that two months prior they changed the pick-up of held mail to the bigger
post office.  The same post office we had to pass to get to Costco!!!  Aaargh!! 
So we get all our mail and Karen starts quickly going thru it to find Arie's AP
exam scores (American History and English).  She later finds it and turns out
Arie got a 5 on both!!! (Perfect score!!!)

We head home to turn the water on and crank the A/C up and to unload the
perishables before going to Dunkin Donuts for a late lunch (5:00PM) - more like
lupper.  Finally.... we go back home and start to unpack and resume our
regularly scheduled life.


It's been a great five weeks.  We told the kids we'll do it again as passengers
with THEIR families.  We're all still talking to each other, but it was time to
come home.  Everything really worked out as planned.  We're thankful we were
able to do it, thankful to the Almighty for the strength and resources to make
the trip, for keeping us healthy throughout, to Honda for making great vehicles,
to Garmin for a great GPS, to Nikon for a great camera, to Al Gore for creating
a great Internet, to Marriott for having very (mostly) comfortable hotels and a
great Rewards program, to our relatives for graciously hosting us along the way,
to all our blog followers who kept giving us "chizuk" (encouragement), to the Sobels
for keeping an eye on our house and property and for restarting my computer when
there was a power failure, to Accenture for having such a generous vacation
policy, to our colleagues for covering for us in our absences, to all the kind
people we met in the various cities/town/attractions, and most of all to my
family for really making this a trip of a lifetime that we'll never forget.

Signing off for the last time (I think),
Yo, Yoel, Joel, Julian, or whatever name you each know me by.

Final count: 20 bumper stickers, but probably would have had several more had I thought of
it before South Dakota.  Next time!  :-)

Now we can finally get some sleep!!!

Thursday, 7/28, Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, Travel to Hagerstown, MD

Forgot about something that happened at the hotel in Memphis the other night. 
Adina had been telling us that her tooth was loose.  So when the kids were
swimming and nudging each other, her tooth finally came out... but it sank to
the bottom of the pool!  While she and Naama went out to get Adina cleaned up,
Arie looked for it but could not find it.  Another girl asked what he was
doing, and then SHE starting looking as well.  A little while later, Arie
stepped on something in the pool and sure enough, it was the tooth.  Dang-it!  I
thought we'd be able save a couple of bucks since the Tooth Fairy can't pay
without an actual tooth.  So the Tooth Fairy arrived - interestingly, during the
same time as Karen was up late fighting with the lousy washer/dryer.  What a
coincidence!

"Skyline" in Louisville - at least from our vantage point in the car

Trolley thru downtown Louisville

The Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory is a ten minute drive from our hotel. 
It opens at 9:00AM, so we were able to sleep in a bit and get up at 7:00AM.  We
got there at around 9:15 and there was a 9:20 tour just heading out, but
fortunately they run every ten minutes, so we were able to get on the 9:30 tour.

They take you thru the actual factory where all the bats are made, anywhere
from 2000-5000 a day, depending on the demand.  First there was a demonstration
of the old way of doing it by hand, using an electric lathe.  It could take 30
minutes to finish one.  Then we saw the machines used today for the
retail bats and minor/college leagues.  They take 30 seconds to crank each one
out.  THEN, they show us the unique machine (only one in the world, produced in
Italy) that does the major league bats.  It's all computerized with each
player's specifications and the machine cuts it to those specs.  Also, in 30
seconds.  We saw where they brand the bats with the logos and player's
autographs.  Interesting - if the player's name is in all capital letters, that
means he does not yet have a contract with the company.  If a signature is on
it, he has a contract.  We got to hold a few bats - David Wright, A-Rod,
Jeter's Mother's Day bat (pink) to name a few.  Last was to see how they get
dipped into the player's preferred coating of stain and/or color.  (No pictures
allowed in the factory.)

They also show a short film with many players talking about their "relationship"
with their bats and the Louisville company.  The museum has displays of the
history of bat making and many famous bats - Hank Aaron's 700th homer, Joe
DiMaggio's bat during the last two week's of his hitting streak, and many
others.  And of course there is a gift shop.  Got the shot glass, but no bumper
stickers.

World's Biggest Bat

Actual game-used Mickey Mantle bat

Adina using "The Mick's" bat

Me and my Babe - er, The Babe

Josh using "The Mick's" bat

Cute sign for the plate glass shop next door to the bat factory

They give out mini-bats as tour gifts

So it was off to our final overnight stay.  We decided on Hagerstown, MD since a
Rewards Points room was available and it would leave us with *only* a four hour
drive on Friday.  Google showed Hagerstown as a nine hour drive.  But when we
headed out, the GPS showed it as 7.5 hours.  Point of information - experience
has shown that Google Maps seems to be about 30 minutes longer in drive time for
every 3-4 hours.  Four hours to Edison, but 3.5 on the GPS.  For a minute or so
we considered just going all the way back tonight, but then we figured why
bother?  It would mean driving at night for a few hours after a long day driving
already.

We stopped for gas in Grayson, KY, not far from the WV border.  The others went
in the store for some nosh, and I started filling up.  Then a guy who looked
Hispanic or Filipino walks up to me and asks if I'm Jewish.  (Seems to be a
trend now.)  I reply in the affirmative, and then he asks if I could read
Hebrew.  So I again say yes and he starts asking me about a certain word (Melech
- king) and if he wants to say "the king" (HaMelech - in Hebrew, adding the Hey
letter to the beginning transforms the general subject to a specific
subject) does the first letter get combined with the Mem (first
letter of Melech) when pronouncing it?  Wasn't quite sure why he was asking, but
I helped him out with the grammar and he thanked me and was on his way.  Then I
turn around, and see that I hadn't closed my car door, so I think maybe it was
all a distraction to swipe something from it.  But it wasn't - the guy was
legit.  Maybe it's my NY/NJ upbringing that got me worried.

Since the drive wasn't going to be as long as we originally thought, we decided
to look for something to do in West Virginia along our route.  There is REALLY
nothing to do there.  There is a glass blowing place, a glass museum, lots of
long train rides, some caves, but nothing unique to be worth our time.  So we
decided to just drive to the State Capitol in Charleston, which we were passing
thru anyway, and get a quick stretch and pictures.

West Virginia State Capitol, with statue of Abraham Lincoln in front, president at the time of their statehood

From there it was off to Hagerstown.  We stopped at a rest stop around 7:00PM
for a quick hot dog barbecue.  We finally finished them off!  Another half-hour
and we were at our destination and the kids went swimming.  We hope to head
out around 8:30AM to get back to Edison noon time.  We've already been invited
out for Shabbos/Sabbath lunch by our "odd" Adler neighbors.  "Odd", to
distinguish them from our "even" Adler neighbors on OUR side of the block (even
house numbers).  The "odd" Adlers live on the other side with an odd house
number.  (Credit goes to Arie for that gem.)

Wednesday, 7/27, Graceland, Mammoth Cave National Park, Travel to Louisville, KY

(The internet connection in Louisville is much better than Memphis so I was able
to update yesterday's entries with pictures.  Check them out!)

We got everyone up at 6:00AM today!  Karen and I were up late last night
figuring out the best way to do everything we wanted to do, and still wind up
being somewhat close to home Thursday night so the trip home Friday would be a
short one to give us time to prepare for Shabbos.  (It also didn't help that the
washer/dryer in the hotel was not very efficient and Karen kept running up and
down to check it out.  So we couldn't fully concentrate on the next day's plan.)

The plan was to do Graceland first thing in the morning and then go to Mammoth
Cave National Park (MCNP) near Bowling Green, KY (5 hour drive) to try to get
the last tour at 5:30PM.  We made reservations for the night in Louisville, KY. 
Then we could drive to Maryland somewhere (Hagerstown? 9 hours) on Thursday
which would leave us with a 4 hour drive home Friday morning.

We decided to try to get to Graceland for the first tour at 9:00AM.  The box
office opens at 8:30AM.  So we wanted to leave the hotel around 8:15AM. 
Everyone was really cooperative and we actually left the hotel at around 7:30AM. 
We figured that since we would be too early for the box office, we could hit the
Kroger supermarket which has a kosher section like in ShopRite and Bylerly's
(MN).  We finally got to Graceland a little before 9:00AM and got tickets for
the 9:15AM tour.  Our tour headed out on time.

Neither Karen nor I had any "upbringing" with Elvis, so we never really knew of
him, except we remember the big to-do when he supposedly died.  It was
interesting to see how he lived in the mansion and how he was very close with
family up to the end.  It's like a time warp seeing everything (really,
everything) still in the same condition today.  One thing that we learned was
how generous he was with both individuals and charitable organizations.  There
is a wall with many canceled checks, each for $1000 (a ton of money back then)
to charitable causes, one of them being the Memphis Jewish Community Center.  I
could imagine if it was today and he would get bagloads of envelopes from all
these charities like we get today.  Still don't have any interest in Elvis
(sorry cousin Michelle), but it was definitely a very educational Americana
experience.

Same green shade of carpet as in my house growing up, but ours wasn't a deep shag - AND we didn't have it covering the ceiling too!

Lisa Marie's playground

Plaque from city of Memphis acknowledging Elvis' generosity

Elvis is buried just beyond the fountain along with his twin brother (died at birth), parents, and grandmother.

We left at 11:00AM and needed to rush to Kentucky.  I punched in the address of
the hotel and saw the ETA of 5:30PM!! Yikes, I forgot to consider the change to
EDT and we would have to floor it to make up time for the last tour.  But then I
realized, I entered the HOTEL address, not Mammoth Cave (knucklehead!).  Mammoth
Cave is actually 1.5 hours closer than Louisville, AND (big AND) it is still in
CDT.  So we were back on track.  We stopped off for lunch at a rest stop
somewhere and then continued to MCNP.

We got there around 4:15, so Karen quickly rushed in to see if there was an
earlier tour, but it was already sold out.  So we got tickets for a 5:00 tour
that hadn't been listed on the website.  We needed to get our jackets from the
car.  We went to get them and once we locked the car up, a religious family
(with many young kids) is heading to the car next to us (with AR plates).  So we
greet one another.  They say they are heading back from Toronto, so I ask if the
car is a rental (AR plates, remember??).  He says no, they live in Little Rock
as the Lubavitch emissaries.  He tells me there is really nothing Orthodox in
Little Rock.  I start to ask him (and get my camera to show the picture) about
the Lulav restaurant (see yesterday's picture), and he quickly knows what I'm
talking about.  He gave me a little of the history of it - turns out the intent
was for it to be "kosher" but then it didn't work out, so it's not.  Amazing how
we always are able to make some kind of connection with others of the Jewish
persuasion in these remote places.

We took the most basic tour of the cave, which lasted about an hour.  We would
have rather done the longer ones, but who knew what it was all about when we
bought the tickets.  It's a pretty fascinating natural structure carved out over
millions (?) of years with oceans covering over and receding from the area
above.  It was used as a mine during the War of 1812 for the basic ingredient
(Calcium Nitrate) in making gunpowder during the War of 1812.  Even Mr. DuPont
had owned some of the cave at one point for mining.  Plus there are artifacts in
the cave from prehistoric times (4000 years ago thru carbon dating).  Chilly
down there - 54F all year round.  Felt great when first going down, then needed
the sweatshirts.

We then headed to Louisville, KY.  Checked into the hotel, Karen put up a pot of
pasta while the kids went swimming.  Tomorrow we may do the Louisville Slugger
museum in downtown before heading..... somewhere.... for the night.

Tuesday, 7/26, Oklahoma City, OK; Travel to Little Rock, AR, Memphis, TN

We left Moore, OK at around 9:15AM and headed to downtown Oklahoma City.  We
first went to the Oklahoma National Memorial.  Where the old Alfred P. Murrah
federal building stood is now a memorial to the 168 people killed, as well as to
remember those who survived, and those changed forever by the events of April
19, 1995.  There is still a piece of the old building still in place.

Oklahoma City skyline

East entrance to Oklahoma National Memorial

Part of destroyed building remaining in place

I had seen in pictures and videos the Field of Empty Chairs, one for each
victim.  But it hits home even more seeing it in person.  Children who were
killed at the daycare center on the premises are represented by smaller chairs. 
There is also the Survivor Tree, which is a tree that was right next to the
building and miraculously survived the bombing.  There is a museum there as
well, but in the interest of time we decided not to go in.

"Survivor Tree"

Field of Empty Chairs

We then walked over to the Myriad Botanical Gardens and Crystal Bridge.  It's a
big long cylindrical glass building that simulates a tropical climate inside and
has loads of tropical plants, trees, and waterfalls.  We then walked around
outside in the garden area where they have a bridge over a big pond.  Lots of
construction going on here, as well as the whole city in general.  For a second
I thought it might have been a holiday today since the streets were so empty.  I
expected more people to be milling around, but I think it was just the normal
morning in Oklahoma City.

That tall skyscraper in skyline is still being constructed

We then walked back to the car and started our journey to Memphis at 11:15AM. 
It would be a 6.5 hour drive.  Along the way we decided to pass thru Little
Rock, AR.  It's right off the highway anyway.  We went over to the Clinton
Presidential Library, but it was closing in 20 minutes so I just took some
pictures.

Clinton Presidential Library

Elvis will be in the building

Then we went to the Old State Capitol building where Clinton held both of his
presidential victory celebrations.  We were quickly chased off the grounds after
taking a few pictures since it was closing time and they were locking up the
gate.

Old AR Statehouse

We then drove to the current capitol building and then to the Little Rock
Central High School National Historic Site.  Not totally sure of its
significance, but apparently some major civil rights activities occured there.

Saw this restaurant while driving.  "Lulav" is the palm branch we use on the holiday of Succot/Tabernacles.  Underneath there is a Hebrew letter "Lamud".  We couldn't really stop to look closer, but it didn't look kosher.  (See post on 7/27 for more info on this.)

AR State Capitol

Then we left Little Rock towards Memphis, which is about two hours away.  At one
of the rest stops somewhere in AK, we were walking around the store eating our
ice cream (it would melt immediately if we ate outside) when a large fellow with
a huge goatee walked over to me and said he wanted to let me know that he was a
Jewish brother - a "redneck Jew from Lancaster, Ohio" as he referred to himself. 
So we chatted for a minute or so.  His parents are from New York originally and
he plans on moving to Israel within 5 years.  He has never been there before,
but he feels God's calling for him to move there.  He seemed all sane to me.  I
later regretted not taking his information so I could get him in touch with my
cousin's yeshiva in Jerusalem to maybe help him discover himself.  I presume he
was a trucker making a pit stop.  So if anyone knows trucker Willie from
Lancaster, OH, let me know.  He's a very nice gentleman.

We stopped at a rest stop/picnic area just past Palestine, AR for a burger
barbecue.  No truckers approached me here.  A very nice area with air
conditioned bathrooms!  Google weather said it was 90F with 66% humidity, but it
felt more like 95% humidity.  Once done with dinner, we headed to Memphis,
crossing just over the Mississippi River into Memphis.  Our hotel is right
across the river in downtown Memphis.

Josh loves grafitti-ing up his burgers

Tomorrow we will probably do Graceland in the morning.  Not sure yet where we
will end up.  We might also do Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and then stay in
Lexington.  Still up in the air if we will try to make it back home late
Thursday night or stay over somewhere fairly close (within a few hours) and then
home Friday late AM or early PM.

Monday, 7/25, Travel from Albuquerque, NM to Oklahoma City, OK

We overslept a bit this morning.  I had set my cell phone alarm for 6:30AM, but
at 7:20AM Karen woke me and asked me when I had planned to get up.  Not sure if
I just slept thru the alarm or it got muffled on the moist carpet where it laid
(they were doing carpet cleaning in the hotel).  So we didn't get out of the
hotel until around 10:00AM MDT.

We went to the Old Town Historic area of Albuquerque.  (As Josh requested, from
the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, we made a left at 'Albikoiykee' to get there.) 
They have shops and historic buildings still from the good old days - like 300
years ago.  As we were walking a guy who does these two-person bike tours of the
area came over to us and asked, "Are you Jewish??"  So we replied in the
affirmative and he told us something very interesting.  There is a church there
that needed funding to rebuild back in the 1700's.  At around that time, Jews
had been settling in the area.  The Jews helped fund the construction of the
church, and as a thank you, the church embedded two Stars of David right above the
alter in the masonry work.  He said there are only a handful of churches in the
world where you could find something like that.  Later on, we peeked in thru the
open doors and checked it out.  I had asked him about synagogues in the area but
he said there hadn't been any edifices, and that they must have just held
services in the private residences.

Raising the flag in the morning

 

Hot Chili Peppers (maybe the Red Hot Chili Peppers?)

We left the town at around 11:00 to head to Oklahoma City - more accurately,
Moore, OK, just south of OKC.  Moore seems like a suburb of OKC, but on the map
it appears to be kind of part of the city.

Our route took us thru the Texas panhandle and along the way we stopped at
Cadillac Ranch on the suggestion of Bob L.  It's right off the side of the
highway (US 40) in Amarillo, TX.  I did not see any signs for it, but the place
was kind of crowded.  As we pulled up to the entrance of the ranch, there were
some pretty big gusts of wind blowing the dust all over.  No one wanted to get
out.  I waited a minute and it died down and so I went out.  (The others still didn't
want to get out.)  The rancher there decided to bury old Cadillacs with half of
them sticking up out of the ground, as if to grow new ones.  The tradition seems
to be to come with spray paint and grafitti them all up.  There was a big pile
of empty cans there and other visitors were leaving their marks.  I did not join
in.

Cadillac Ranch

We reached Moore, OK at around 8:00PM CDT.  On and off downpours along the way
as it looked again like we were traveling along a storm edge.  Had dinner of
leftovers from Saturday and then the kids went swimming.  Tomorrow we head for
Memphis, TN, which is a bit shorter trip than today's, plus we'll be in the same
time zone all day.  We'll probably do something in downtown Oklahoma City in the
morning, including visiting the memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Crossing the border from Texas on US-40E

Looked like a fire in the distance.  We smelled the smoke as it came across the highway.  Maybe a fresh lightning hit.