Mark and Debbie celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary in an unusual manner.
Out of the house by 6:00 am.
The official leaving home pose at the front door:
We started by taking Avigail to Ontario airport (for an 8:00 am flight) from where she flew to Washington, DC to work as an intern in Machon Kaplan at the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center.
Together at Ontario Airport:
There she lived in the Francis Scott Key dorms at George Washington University and studied three hours every day (two different classes — three weeks on conflicts facing the Jewish community in the 20th century and an additional three weeks on Jewish issues in contemporary Jewish literature) and worked every afternoon at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She was lucky to be there just as the “Faith Based Initiative” rolled into high gear. Our own Randy “Duke” Cunningham got a call from me, but voted for it anyway. Avigail had a chance to see (meet?) John McCain, but not her Poway High School government teacher’s favorite Strom Thurmond. She made a lot of calls, sent a lot of thank you letters and even wrote some releases that I got in my regular email.
Debbie, Noam and Mark then continued on to Monterey for the CCAR convention.
The drive up was thankfully uneventful. Though this was partly (we imagine) because the choice of vehicles to rent was rather complex. We needed a vehicle that could carry the four of us with enough luggage space to take an iMac, Avigail’s luggage for six weeks, Noam’s luggage for four weeks and our luggage for two weeks. It soon became obvious that a medium sized car would not suffice. I was able to rent a Ford Explorer which would have the space, but, when Debbie learned what model we were all going to pile into, she nixed the idea. The rental people promised me something different, though comparable instead and we slept more restfully knowing we were not in line for a roll-over, even though the tires had been changed. I even arranged to pick up the vehicle a day early to guarantee that I would not get an Explorer. So, I was a bit surprised to get a call from the rental company, at about noon the day of the pickup, that they had been vandalized the night before an the vehicle I had been promised was damaged — and that all they had left was a top of the line Explorer. Not much to do, but I did not want to drive that all the way to Monterey. so I called the Ontario office and arranged for a trade. I’d drop off the Explorer and turn it in for a smaller (medium size) car which would be all we’d need from there north. We were startled to learn that the “best” they could offer at the agreed-upon price was a white Lincoln Continental
And so, we drove up the coast in style
We arrived at Monterey and Mark quickly traded in the Continental for a simple car that would hold us for the next two weeks. First at the Convention and then at camp.