Day 3.0: What We’ve Been Up To

Hello again, readers! We finished our second road trip during the second week of April but neglected to put up many of the posts we had written until just now, so please forgive us! We’re already back on the road after six weeks of sort of staying in one place. We arrived in Katonah a week and a half before Passover, and spent some of the time before the holiday in New York City visiting friends.

We enjoyed two wonderful seders at the Fried-Tanzer home in Katonah with friends, much of Abe’s extended family, and Arielle’s parents and her sister, Cindy, who flew in from Los Angeles.

Midway through Passover, we went into Manhattan to stay in two different apartment of friends who were away, getting to visit with friends around the city and New Jersey throughout the week. Abe covered twenty-eight movies at the Tribeca Film Festival, and we enjoyed time both together and apart back in our old stomping grounds.

We returned to Katonah for just one night before driving to Massachusetts to celebrate the engagement of Abe’s sister, Hannah, at her fiancé, Brad’s, parents’ home, sticking around for a few days to see a number of friends.

We came back to New York in time to go visit the Ramah Sports Academy in Connecticut, where we will be working at the end of the summer, stopping to see our friend, Seth, at his synagogue in Westport on the way home. We split our next few days between time in Katonah and Manhattan before flying down to Florida on Thursday.

We spent a night with Shosh, whose wedding we attended in February, and enjoyed a lovely few hours out by her pool in Aventura after a tasty breakfast at the Original Pancake House. We drove on Friday to Hollywood to spend Shabbat with Andrew and Lauren, which was great, and culminated in a repeat visit to a kosher fried chicken establishment, Dixie BBQ, that luckily didn’t end this time with Arielle throwing up all night.

That Sunday, we moved up to Boynton Beach to see Abe’s grandfather, Grampye, and had dinner with Abe’s brother Ezra, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Nancy, with whom we stayed in Chapel Hill, and cousin, Aaron, who we’d soon visit outside Cleveland. Abe’s parents, his sister, Hannah, and her fiancé, Brad, arrived that night and we all went to the Courtyard Marriott in Boynton Beach. Abe, Ezra, and Nancy watched the series finale of Game of Thrones together and then we all went to bed. In the morning, we drove to nearby Delray Beach for the unveiling service for Abe’s grandmother, Bubbe. We enjoyed a meal together at Ben’s Kosher Deli in Boca Raton afterward and then spent a wonderful afternoon out by the pool. Arielle was even able to get Grampye in the water, which made the experience special for all of us! After a great dinner at Joseph’s in Delray Beach that night, we said goodbye to most of the group. The next day, we spent the late morning and early afternoon out by the pool with Nancy, Donald, and Grampye, and were very impressed that Grampye, who will be ninety-five this October, was able to throw the ball around with us (and often better than we could!).

We drove to West Palm Beach Airport and flew back on Delta via Atlanta to Westchester Airport, where we landed just minutes after Nancy and Donald’s nonstop flight on JetBlue (Abe obviously wanted to enjoy his Platinum Medallion status, and Arielle was grateful that Abe gave her his First Class upgrade). We spent all day Wednesday cleaning, packing, and planning our next trip, and got to bed earlier than we expected to before setting back out on the road the next day.

Day 2:17: Hollywood, FL to Cocoa Beach, FL

We got up early and packed up the car, closing out our stay in South Florida and grateful to Andrew and Lauren for their hospitality, both while they were in town and while they were away. We found a Kinko’s en route for Arielle to print some materials for the training she ran that morning for JFS at Home in Boca Raton for therapists, companions, case managers, social workers about how and why to engage in end-of-life conversations with clients and loved ones. Abe didn’t see it so he can’t attest to its quality, but we all know that it was certainly superb. After the session, we went down the street to Pei Wei so Abe could get a teriyaki tofu stir fry and Arielle could get sushi she wasn’t sure she really wanted. We completed the free survey to get a cookie, and waited around for a while because of some miscommunication with the very enthusiastic actor-turned-cashier about our order being takeout. We drove about fifteen minutes to Brendy’s, which was Bubbe’s favorite ice cream shop, and Arielle got peanut butter and coffee soft-serve yogurt.

We continued up towards Cocoa Beach, stopping in Merritt Island at a Pep Boys that was much more helpful than the one we had been to earlier, explaining to us that the new brakes we got before we left Los Angeles aren’t yet sitting in the rotors, and as a result they’re going to make a grinding sound because the metal has been tempered (when they’re very hot and then cooled very fast, metal becomes brittle). The mechanic spent a while telling us everything, and we were grateful for his extremely helpful analysis. We drove the remaining twenty minutes or so to Cocoa Beach, where we arrived at the rented home of Ron and Pam, who we met for lunch last week. Pam was back in New Hampshire, so Ron showed us around after we dropped our belongings and we walked about ten minutes to the beach, where we enjoyed a lovely stroll along the sand. We walked back to the house and drove to downtown, where we parked at Coconuts on the Beach. Abe and Ron both enjoyed the drunken salmon, while Arielle got the largest pretzel in the world. There was a band playing for the entire time we were there, doing a series of extremely long songs and making conversation relatively difficult. It was nice to sit outside for our last meal in Florida.

Of course we had to go for ice cream, and wandered down the street to the Fat Donkey. When we asked, they said you could split a scoop into two half-scoops, but then they gave us three scoops each instead! Arielle got Birthday Cake and Mint Chip, while Abe got Chocolate Cake and Cookies ‘N Cream. It was good but definitely too much, and Arielle had to throw out some of her ice cream for possibly the first time in her life.

We drove back home and played 3 games of Ticket to Ride: Rails to Sails with Ron, who had lapped us by two hundred points the first few times we had played in New Hampshire in August. Abe was delayed to have won one of the games thanks to his always-utilized and often-publicized strategy of being the one to finish first, ensuring that the game ends before the other players are fully prepared to have finished their moves. We enjoyed the game and resisted the urge to play again, heading instead to bed.

Approximate number of miles covered: 182