The motel we stayed at last night was easily the worst yet. Two of the guys pitched a tent in the back on a pile of dirt to avoid having to sleep in some of the beds. I got an okay bed, but didn’t sleep much for fear of actually coming into contact with a wall or head board or something.
We were to cross the Ural mountains today so we set out as early as we could. After climbing them and starting on the downward side we were stopped with a large line of traffic. We sat for a while when some cops drove by shouting something out of their loud speaker. We, of course, were clueless as to what they were saying, but all of the other passenger vehicles whipped around and started heading the other direction. So, we did what all great leaders do, we followed the people that understood the language. The road ahead had been shut down for whatever reason, probably to sweep a few pebbles off the side or something, and we had to take a detour.
It worked out okay. We got to see some small towns and it only added an hour or so to our trip, but this type of thing makes me appreciate the efficiencies of home that much more. I can’t remember ever being completely rerouted on any road, except maybe for a snowstorm or something.
We pushed 570 miles to the Kazakhstan border but decided to wait until the morning to tackle the crossing. It was eerie at times going through the Siberian plains while fog randomly rolled across the road. We were pretty certain it was the ghosts of all the fugitives. So, with that in mind, we found a side road that led to a field with some trees and set up camp.
