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 2.16: South Florida Day 7

We got up early to make an 8am appointment at Pep Boys, which took a while and then resulted in them not finding anything, apparently unable to duplicate the sound that we heard while braking. We went back to get ready and then drove to Boynton, where Arielle presented at Discovery Village Independent Living with nine residents in attendance. Abe will also say that this one was great! We were shocked and thrilled to see that a Wawa was being built literally across the street from the main road to Discovery Village, and excitedly told Grampye this news.

We spent the afternoon going through photo albums with Grampye, and he pulled out a 1939 yearbook he had designed the cover for and his class schedule and notes from his pharmacist mate’s training at Columbia during World War II.

We left to drive to Deerfield Beach and pick up Arielle’s Aunt Chana, whose son David we saw last week in Orlando. She was down in Florida visiting from Long Island for the winter months, and we thought she might get along with Grampye because their families were both from the town of Chelm in Poland, and Chana recognized Grampye’s mother’s maiden name as that of a close friend of her father’s. They spoke briefly in Yiddish to each other and we all had a nice time at Sweet Tomatoes in Boca Raton. In addition to some great salad, soups, pasta, and sweet potatoes enjoyed by all, Arielle had three ice cream cones and convinced both Grampye and Chana to have multiple as well.

We drove Aunt Chana home and then brought Grampye back, saying goodbye for the last time on this visit.

We drove back to Hollywood and make a brief stop to catch up with the other Arielle Feit, wife of Joseph, Arielle’s father’s first cousin. They live just five minutes away from Andrew and Lauren, and so it was nice to say hello.

We returned to the apartment, packed up most of our things, and went to sleep.

Approximate number of miles covered: 94