Days 16-19
Despite our best efforts, we didn't really set out on the drive until 1ish, maybe even later. I still remember packing and repacking the car to fit the bags of food and clothes we needed and then starting again when three more bags were produced.
First part of the drive was uneventful. We arrived in Lakewood about 3:30 or so. This was a scheduled stop - we had always planned on it as part of the trip. We had an early seudas Chol Hamoed at my aunt and uncle's house. My father's brother, he should be well, was physically impaired but K"H his brain was as sharp as ever (he moved there from my grandfather A"H's house in Far Rockaway a bunch of years back to live near his many children who are in the Lakewood area). A cousin who was originally living in Sanhedria Murchevet also came for the meal with his family and a nephew of mine who was visiting there. We also took the opportunity to daven minchah. I enjoyed how long this Lakewood "minyan factory," Kol Shimshon, took to daven.
We continued on our way around 6ish, arriving in Baltimore after one stop (the last rest stop on the NJ Turnpike, which somehow took twenty minutes) around 9:30 or so. I'm sure there must have been horrible traffic but I was sleeping so I don't know for sure. And of course, we davened Maariv at Merkaz Torah UTefilah (Rabbi Eichenstein's), a place that gave us Scheiners vibes (down to the tents). I ended up davening there every weekday, because they were in walking distance and the first minyan there got to Shemoneh Esrei very shortly after netz (I simply davened ahead). Ran into people from Sanhedria Murchevet and people from my chaburah in the Mir.
We were hosted by my sister, who has been living there for many years (ten? maybe not that long). My brother from Florida had come up with his family for the entire Yom Tov and was staying by my parents, who own a house in Baltimore and plan to move there from Monsey. We spent YT together as three families plus my parents. After I got back from Shacharis, and as the only one awake, I accompanied my sister (the host) to drop off her two boys for davening and then to stock up at Seven Mile Market (according to marketing, the largest frum store in the world, though not seven miles large - and I'm sceptical, but they are probably close). We did the same kind of stock up we always seemed to do - a huge amount of milchigs, special fruit and veggies, a mountain of bananas, some dips, lots of chicken and three cases of bottled water. Costs seemed somewhere between Bingo and Evergreen, and obviously, the selection was somewhat less, but they seemed well stocked with everything.
Managed a trip to two wine stores (Quarry and I forget the other), neither of which had too much Jewish stock, and Shabsi's seforim store, which could have passed for any seforim store in the tri-state area.
Later in the day, we went to Quarry lake and met my wife's cousins who live in Baltimore. (One of them told me a story about when he tried to buy stone for his garden when Quarry Lake was still a quarry. They told him that they weigh the trucks before and after and charge for the difference. Problem was that when he filled up his four-seater, the difference didn't register on the scale at all! After some discussion among themselves, he was charged a dollar.)
Indirect thanks to DDF - I purchased a copy of TTR for them as a YT present, and it was definitely a hit. (They already owned Europe. I also got Europe for my Floridian brother.)
YT, we mostly davened in Agudah of Greesnsprings. On first day of YT, my brother-in-law and I walked to Rav Heineman's shul for netz - about forty minutes or so. B"H the cousins got along famously. A splendid time was had by all.
YT Sheni, we made havdalah in the basement where we were sleeping without aish, and then we were yotzei aish during my brother-in-law's yaknehaz kiddush. (Once again, I cautioned my kids that they could not be yotzei with the host's hagafen.) As I was anyways davening netz, it didn't really matter that I was putting on tefillin in the basement, and I got in a good seder during davening at the Greensprings Agudah.
"Rumpeling" was done at lightning speed thanks to all the kids who preferred helping versus going to sleep. However, the meal that night was still Pesachdik (I'm sure there was chometz to be had, but we didn't bother to eat it when there was great Pesach leftovers.)
