Daily Update Report

Date: Thursday, July 15, 2004 -- 8 PM

Location: Mobile, AL: 3 states in 1 day!

The theme song of the day was “Leroy Brown,” inspired by a close encounter with 2 mean looking dogs. We had made a left turn and turned up a slight hill. Suddenly, from the corner property's driveway shot out 2 dogs, 1 medium size black & white mixed breed, and 1 big German Shepherd. We were caught by surprise and they had a straight shot at us. The smaller of the two got to within inches of Ester’s right food, she was screaming, and I relied on the true & tired method of yelling “STAY” at the German Shepherd, and, then to Ester – PEDAL! While the stay worked, thank God!

The route guide for Mississippi (Ester’s question of the day was how to kids in Mississippi count for hide-n-seek?) said that the roads would be hilly, rough and not marked very well in regard to signs. Well, the route guide was 100% correct. It was a tough day’s ride. The road surface was consistently rough and often broken. The hills were frequent, but with some decent flat stretches in between, and the road signs, forget about it! We had to stop numerous times to check the map and ask for directions. What is nice is how kind, gracious and helpful total strangers were to us. At one point, we were stopped and pouring over the maps, a pickup passed us, stopped, backed up and then asked if we needed help – and he was helpful.

We faced one other difficulty on the day, high humidity combined with intense sun. We had no cloud cover. All in all, it made for one of the toughest days on the road.

Tomorrow we head for Pensacola, FL, and I am very glad that Shabbat is coming. I will be speaking to B’nai Israel in Pensacola on both Friday night and Saturday morning.

Below are some PICS from today

1. Crossing the Pearl River from LA to MI

2. The first time Genya & Elana passed us, we are looking might fresh

3. Trying to figure out were to go next, it was getting a bit frustrating

4. The "after" look, after a long, brutal day in the sun

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Shalom v`l`hiitarot,

Rabbi M

Rabbi Mark Mallach

Temple Beth Ahm

60 Temple Drive

Springfield, NJ 07081

(973) 376 - 0539 ext.15

fax: (973) 376 - 5478

Visit My Website:

http://ridinrebbe.com/ -- Rabbi Mallach Home Page

"Tears may linger for a night, but joy comes with the dawn" (Psalm 30:6)