DAY 4

Night 3 ended in a fantastic manner! We were asleep by 11:15...that was a huge plus! We had plans originally to go out to midtown in Memphis unfortunately G-d had other plans. He made it rain for real! We sat in our lonely hotel room watching the Mavs-Thunder game as it down poured outside. The wind was wild and the thunder and lighting could be heard for miles...As we sat and watched the game, I grew exceedingly anxious as my boys were going back and forth all night. Kramer got hungry after our giant salad and set out after the storm for some much needed frozen yogurt. He was so excited to find that there was a TCBY in Memphis and set out on his way. I stayed behind and manned down the fort.

With the car, his ice cream, and himself in tact, he returned to find me engaged in an extremely exciting game! As the game wound down, I was so happy to join in the cheerings of my fellow Mavs fans! WERE GOING TO THE SHIP!!! Kramer was sad because he loves KD because hes from Maryland...but he played ball in TEXAS SO HA!

With an early morning awaiting us for our final drive to Dallas, I had one more appointment. We cleaned the room and threw out all of our leftover junk that we had gathered and headed out. By 9 am we were on the road and heading south. No more than half an hour later we passed downtown Memphis and were heading on a bridge into Arkansas. Did you know that Tennessee and Arkansas share a river?? Once we got into Arkansas it is hard to forget where you are...one of the ugliest places i have ever been. Pure plains and flat ground for milesssss! We saw lots of cows and farms but not much else. We arrived in Little Rock and continued along I-30 all the way West until it was time to drop a little more south picking up I-635 into Dallas. It was a quiet drive with both of us taking turns driving and napping. We saw a lot of G-d signs and my personal favorite: "Warning: be prepared to meet G-d." (which was outside the applebees)

We can honestly say we are SO lucky to have not been pulled over the entire trip! We were very good on our police radar using our amazing eyes. We cruised down the interstate and as we entered Texas, Kramer became aware of his lifelong dream-to own a ranch. When i asked him what he would have on his ranch he asked me well, what do people usually have on ranches? At this point I knew it was going to be a long time before he owned his own ranch. It would never work out well...

While I was driving at one point, Kramer was taking a nap. They were doing construction on the highway and this caused the lanes to change. The grooves on the side of the road had moved to the middle of the lane so i had to drive over them in order to stay in my lane...well once i did that kramer jumped up from his nap and grabbed the wheel and freaked out. I looked at him and started laughing and asked him what he thought he was doing. He then realized what had happened-embarassingggg hahaha.

As we moved along the highway towards Dallas, we passed this odd gas station. Every gas station we had passed had gas around $3.68, somewhere around there. Well this station thought that they would mess with America and price their gas at $2.68...something was off.

We got to Dallas and first things first-I was asked nicely by the best mommy ever to get hamburger buns from Tom Thumb (our grocery store). We got the buns and got back in the car...but then what!? You wouldnt believe it...another call from my mommy...can you go get some corn and elbow macaroni and chili sauce for guess what?? Shout out to Eliana Kandel- Nani's macaroni!!! WOoooo!! So we went back and got the rest of the ingredients. Then after some struggles about a meeting place, Jeremy met up with his cousin who is at Yeshiva here in Dallas (apparently he has another cousin who also is in Dallas.) And finally we arrived to my home! I was so happy!! And then we ate a delicious dinner and then we unpacked my car, put the 10 boxes i had shipped home in the garage. And now we are watching the bulls-heat game and praying the bulls win tonight.

Well the journeys have been fun! The driving was more fun! And visiting Memphis was great! We will continue blogging until Sunday when Kramer leaves to return to his home. BUt it has been real.

Ok and finally, if you are in a foreign land or are a foreigner please let us know who you are!! ASAP please!!

Signing out from D-town.

-J and J

DAY 3

Day 3 started off fairly quietly. I had to get up early for meetings with my future employers while Jeremy got to sleep in. I took off around 830, grabbed an apple and headed off for the highway and the shul and Schechter school. Kramer unfortunately was woken up early by the early risers who came down from other floors. We were placed on the first floor directly in front of the elevator. This was not a good idea. While I was off learning about Memphis' Jewish community Jeremy took off for his long trek to the Sprint store-across the street...He took the long way by walking to the stop light, crossing at the crosswalk and then continuing straight down towards the store.

Meeting with my future boss at the conservative shul-Beth Shalom, and the Schechter school was very exciting. I can say I am happy to be back down in the south! People are friendly, happy, and eager to give advice. Combine this with being Jewish and you have every opinion in the book. After my appointments in the morning, Kramer and I went on a tour of apartments around Memphis/Germantown (Jewish) area. Every apartment complex we went in we were greeted by the person asking if we needed an apartment...we were always dating/married at the places...such a heartbreaking story to tell them we weren't anything and it would only be me hahaha. One lady was so rude and didnt even sit us down to talk with us about an apartment. I think she didnt believe me that I could afford any type of apartment...little does she know I am going to be a future world class PE teacher! We tried two other complexes but neither had anyone at the desk so we left. I found one complex that was not only nice but the apartments were very pretty and had a balcony! I was very excited! At this apartment complex we had a very cute girl helping us out. She showed us around the complex and gave us some good information. After we said our thank you's, we left. Walked outside, I turned to Kramer and told him he should have invited her out with us, we now had her card. The first thing Kramer said was he wanted to ask her the entire time we were with her...typical.

Oh, we tried to find a kosher restaurant for lunch...we both thought/assumed there were kosher restaurants here. well we wound up eating at the JCC holy cow and had sushi and hot dogs for lunch. Wishing we were back in Nashville (shout out to Josh's family). After lunch, we came back to the hotel and hung out until I had to go back to the JCC for a meeting. We stopped in Kroger (the grocery store here in the south) which has a great kosher foods section! We made an incredible salad and have been using our resources very well this trip.

We were supposed to go to Midtown tonight, unfortunately we are in a severe thunderstorm/tornado alert and watched rain pouring down from our window. So here we are sitting in the hotel again watching the Mavs-Thunder game. Fingers crossed its the Mavs last and we are headed to the FINALS baby!!(hopefully wont be the thunders last game) well here goes to hoping!

Tomorrow morning we are heading for my home (dallas). It has been a fun journey and we will report back to you tomorrow evening with the latest report of our non-friendship travels!

signing out from Memphis, T.

-J and J

DAY 2

Completing our day one journey, we ventured over to Food City to make our makeshift dinner. Knowing the Mavs-Thunder game was on TV we headed straight for the beer section of the grocery store. Upon our journey, we were very excited to find a new beer! THE TERRAPIN BEER! sadly it is not from Maryland but it will do nonetheless...We got our beer and then headed over to the food aisles were we gathered lettuce in a bag, an avocado and salad dressing. You would know all too well that we were college (ex-college) students by the way we gathered as much free products from everywhere we ventured as possible. Waiting to take our salad home and add some yummy turkey, Jeremy had some trouble with the checkout. Confused as he has rarely been out of the state of Maryland, let alone in another state's grocery store, he did not know that he had to leave our basket on the same side as the cashier. Confusing, I know!!

And with that, we checked out, brought our delectable meal home, made it, ate it, watched the MAVS rock the boat to success, and saw Kramer passed out before the end to an amazing game! I will not let him forget that he passed out fully clothed only to wake up at 615 to go to the gym.

And so ends our first day and begins day 2 of our journey.

Day 2 started in the Red Roof Inn in the middle of nowhere Knoxville, TN at 8am. Jeremy was ready to go by the time i woke up as he started his morning a long time before i did. Packing up the car and cleaning the room took little time and we set out for something along the lines of a breakfast. Watery orange juice and unidentifiable muffins didnt last long for us. Thank goodness all that would be taken care of in a few hours, little did we know...Jeremy upped his driving hours and took control of the driving from Knoxville to Nashville. He had a lot of stepping up to do after he slacked on Day 1. The most exciting part of this first drive was the switching of the time zones from eastern to central at the 338 mile marker! I happened to have been taking a nap at this time and was jolted awake by the shriek of Jeremy so excited that he saw the time change!

On our drive down I-40 West towards Nashville (our daytime stop) we took a minor detour off the main highway. We drove through the backroads and wound up saving over 20 minutes! This place was gorgeous, mountains and trees...also weird animals that made us feel like we were in a haunted scary movie. We backed up at one point to figure out what kind of animal we were driving by...turns out it was only goats. And we almost ran over a giant black bird resembling a crow and heron. If you know what this is pleaseeee let us know!!

And kramer saw a 50 foot Confederate flag while driving along the highway...Welcome to the South! As we approached Nashville, the sign bearing the Country Music Hall of Fame caused Kramer to shriek once again. With this we arrived at Josh Rahmani's grandparents house. Here we met his adorable family; his grandparents, his great grandma, and cousins. We were fed an amazing lunch and then headed off towards the country music hall of fame. Here Jeremy had a heart attack at how awesome this place was. We had to keep pulling him through the museum as he was lagging behind. With stentons and boots behind us, we set off back to Josh's for an afternoon nap and dinner. We were only supposed to be in Nashville for a couple of hours, but having Persian Jews offer to make dinner and trying to say no to that is an impossible feat.

At approximately 7 pm we set off for Memphis which would be our final destination for the next 2 days. All day long we kept hearing on the radio about the President's limo and how it could withstand anything...except apparently a speed bump. The radio announcers thought this was the funniest thing ever and we must have heard it 15 times throughout the day. I drove this last leg of the trip from Nasvhille to Memphis. So i can say today we split the driving equally and Kramer pulled his own weight! This was our first time driving at night and it had a very different feel-especially when it makes it virtually impossible to see the police! oh well...so far were good and we thank god have not been pulled over yet.

Yesterday we saw 5 different sets of 3 crosses along the highway while driving. This was so interesting so when we got home we googled the meaning of it...truthfully we thought it was some scary cult because these were huge but we were happy to learn that it was not the KKK or anything scary. Just a man trying to bring happiness to others and remind everyone to be kind. We were sad because we hadn't seen any while driving today, but we were saved! haha We saw one set of crosses just outside of Memphis! We were so happy!

We are here in Memphis and unwinding for the night. It is hard to believe that this is the place I will be living in a few short months. Tomorrow is a busy day for me as i have meetings all day, however, i hope we can find Jeremy things to do while i am gone. It is a good thing we are across the street from a sprint store as his blackberry is not all its cracked up to be...so we're signing off for now.

Good night from Memphis! And hello Beall Street!

J and J biding farewell....

DAY 1

our morning started off on the wrong foot. Jordana was up at 7 am ready to go and started the process of packing up the car. At approximately 745, Jordana was locked out of her apartment. She sat on her stoop for the next 45 minutes awaiting the arrival of her landlady. Finally she came and let Jordana back into her apartment. Following the chaotic morning, Jordana and Jeremy finished packing up the car and headed off for Hillel. There they dropped off the National Hillel Basketball association first place trophy Jordana and her team had won in order for them to make a nice home for it.

After Hillel, we finally began our journey and found the nearest gas station. With a full tank of gas, we headed off towards Knoxville, Tn. Unfortunately, this got sidetracked when Jordana missed the first highway turn-off and took Jeremy on his first tour of Washington D.C. After another 30 minutes of driving, we finally got our kicks on route 66 (cheesy song quote, quoted by Jeremy Kramer). As we left D.C. we saw our first exciting on the road traveler, the Dragon Tails dragons!! As we continued on our journey we both were shocked to see on the other side of the highway a naked (what we think to be) 4 year-old boy. With his pants down around his ankles he began to pee on the side of the road with his father standing guard in the open. We died laughing and continued on our way.

Dont drive this drive during the week day, all we hit was construction after construction. We learned a new type of construction work-blasting at mile mark 121-still have no idea what it is. ..with our country music still blasting loud and clear we continued south west towards Knoxville. We stopped to get gas again at some random hick place. We drove around a few bends and saw a few giant bellys to go with the gas station. On our way to the station we encountered what we found to be a real-life frogger game. Trying to get across 2 highways was not an easy feat. We made ourselves lunch consisting of a piece of bread and a half a piece of swiss cheese. Cleaning off the family of insects that had sadly died on our windshield along the way, we continued on our journey.

While back on our way along route 66, we saw a lot of headlights in the rear view mirror and could only think of one thing they could be: a group of HOGS. not pigs but harley davidsons hahaa... they quickly approached and soon began taking videos of themselves while riding. We were really scared!

Jeremy was tired a lot of the way and made me drive most of the 8 hour journey. He says it was 70-30, with him doing 30 percent of the work. Tomorrow though, he said he would make up for his lack of effort today. Virginia is the worst state to drive through and so long! Warning: DONT EVER DO IT! As we were coming closer to Knoxville, we saw a long yellow bus in front of us. Curiosity got the best of us and we slowly inched up closer to the bus. What was it?1 THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE!! we think it was heading to Nashville and unfortunately our trip ended at Knoxville for the day. We pulled up to the hotel hoping that we would be able to walk around and venture into downtown, unfortunately, we are in the middle of nowhere. I blame my mom but ill forgive for this one. We dropped off our stuff and decided to see what was around. Our first stop was to the grocery store-Food Mart. here we got food and drinks and are making ourselves at home to watch the Mavs-Thunder game 4. When we checked into the hotel we saw these ladies trying to find their reservations along with the correct room setup. We didnt think twice about it. However, upon our return from our adventure to Food City, we found the ladies taking the two rooms across from ours. We opened our door and they screamed, you have 2 doubles! We said yes we do, they jokingly/seriously asked if we needed them and wanted to switch rooms and take their single king. We didnt answer. but Jeremy uncomfortably walked away, and I quickly closed the door. So now we are back in the hotel getting our dinner of salad and turkey sandwiches ready and watching Jeremy trying to open a beer with a dollar bill.

Thats our day one of our uncomfortable journey to Dallas...we will report back tomorrow after our day in Nashville and arrival in Memphis.

-J and J