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CHAPTER 11 | Russia | How To Move The Stars | A bicycle ride around the world · How To Move The Stars | A bicycle ride twice around the world

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  How to Move the Stars by Jacob Lemansky Chapter 11 Russia May
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  28th, 2013 into Russia Last night a few drops of rain blew
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  in my hammock, bobbed up and down as the trees flexed in the
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  wind. I laid in the darkness listening
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  to the whipping rain fly until I had the good idea to hang my
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  water bottles from the corners of the fabric.
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  The extra weight tensioned the rain fly and muted the worst of
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  the flapping. I was so proud of myself.
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  After 3 1/2 months of trying different things, I finally
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  figured out how to get a quiet night's rest.
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  This morning I biked into the 2600 year old port city of
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  Kirch, which sits on the Bank of the Kirch straight between the
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  Black Sea and Azov Sea. Like untold travelers before me,
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  I was there to catch the ferry. I pushed my bike onto the deck
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  of the boat along with a dozen vehicle and a small crowd of
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  people. I felt deep relief to be putting
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  the Ukrainian drivers behind me and as the boat left the dock, I
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  was filled with excited anticipation to arrive in
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  Russia. Attention.
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  Nervousness came over me as the boat passed a Bowie marking the
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  border. I feel the same way entering
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  every country, stepping into the unknown is always daunting.
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  I pushed my bike onto the far shore and stepped into the back
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  of the customs line. A man my age tried talking to me
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  but didn't speak English. A woman nearby sent her 10 year
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  old son over to help translate. He didn't speak much English
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  either, but I explained to him that I was from the United
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  States and on my way to China. Everyone standing in line was
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  watching our interaction. When the boy relayed my words,
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  they collectively nodded their approval.
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  The boy's mother gave me a handful of chocolates, an older
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  man gave me a pen, and another guy gave me a bottle of water.
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  The guy who gave me water then walked me outside to the border
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  control officer checking vehicles.
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  He talked him into letting me skip the line of people and go
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  through with the cars. The border guard was clean cut,
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  younger than me, and had a machine gun hanging from his
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  shoulder. He's both serious and friendly,
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  and I was surprised to be addressed and fluent English.
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  We went through the paperwork together, then he stamped my
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  passport and wished me safe travels.
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  I thanked him, then peddled into Russia, feeling at ease after
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  the warm welcome. Late this afternoon, I pushed my
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  bike to the back of a farm field to hang my hammock.
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  My view looks out at the Azov Sea in the setting sun.
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  Small waves are lapping against the shore below and birds are
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  singing in the trees. I'm out of water, so I've been
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  drinking the sweet red wine given to me in Moldova.
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  I'm a few cups in and feeling a wonderful sense of contentment.
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  I'm exactly where I want to be. The physical challenge of
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  crossing the land has faded away, along with every mountain
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  and hill. To overcome the flat terrain
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  requires little more than persistence.
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  This part of the journey is a tradition of exploration from a
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  time when tepid oceans were crossed at the pace of the wind.
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  Lessons are in those long, slow miles, each one chipping away at
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  the psyche a little more. Russia will be my trial of
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  meditation. Ahead of me is a 4600 kilometer
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  plane of farmland, one of the longest stretches of persistent
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  landscape in the world. I'm learning that a physical
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  prowess is needed to achieve a summit, but a mental fitness is
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  necessary to cross a valley. As I pedal into this flat
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  expanse, I will try to remember moments that move one's soul can
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  happen anywhere. I will cross these still waters
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  and I will learn those lessons. May 29th, 2013.
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  A good lunch. The small Russian towns today
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  felt friendly and inviting. People are riding bikes and
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  walking on the sidewalks. Shops are busy.
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  The vibrance was welcome change from the last few countries in
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  Eastern Europe. The vitality obviously came from
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  Russia's higher standard of living.
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  A sure indication of the richer economy was that the grass on
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  the side of the road was being mowed by maintenance crew
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  instead of gathered for animal feed.
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  Throughout the morning I followed the coast of the Azov
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  Sea past fields of grapes and patches of poppies growing wild
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  on the roadside. A man on a motorcycle took an
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  interest in me and pulled over to talk.
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  He didn't speak English, but that is slowly becoming less of
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  a barrier. Without actively trying, I've
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  been developing new habits of communication.
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  I'm now much more animated in my speech.
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  I never used to talk with my hands, but now I fail about
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  descriptively. My facial expressions are also
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  more exaggerated as I try to make the emotions behind them
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  easier to read without exactly understanding the man's
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  question. I pointed behind me and said
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  Portugal and I pointed ahead and said China.
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  I tried to tell him I've been going for 100 days by pointing
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  at the sun and holding up my right index finger and pumping
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  my left vest twice but I don't think he understood.
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  The man offered to buy me lunch so I followed him down the road
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  for 10 minutes while he slowly drove ahead.
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  We arrived at a cafeteria style restaurant with pre made plates
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  of food lined up for us to choose from.
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  I followed my friend's lead and filled my tray with a fish
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  fillet, vegetable soup, egg salad, cake, and grape juice.
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  We sat at a small table which became so full with our food
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  that when I bumped my plate, the glass of grape juice fell into
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  the man's tray and pulled beneath the dishes.
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  I was embarrassed, but the man seemed unfazed.
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  He tossed A napkin to the puddle and went back to eating.
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  I tried to have a conversation while we ate, but I really
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  struggled to communicate. Soon we were both sitting in
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  silence and I was racing to keep up with the pace he was eating.
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  My tendency is to stretch out my meals while I rest and watch the
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  clouds drift by. Lunch with this man was over in
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  5 minutes. Before leaving the restaurant, I
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  tried filling my water bottles in the sink, but my friend
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  didn't like that idea. Instead, he bought a couple
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  bottles of spring water for me. I still haven't broken my habit
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  of getting water from sinks. I've decided that the risk of
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  getting sick is acceptable. To avoid purchasing so many
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  plastic bottles, I'm just going to do my best to find clean
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  water sources and trust in my iron stomach.
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  Outside of the restaurant. I took a picture with the man
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  and told him I would post it on my blog.
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  He gave me a smartphone to type in my website,
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  hammockearring.com, a word I made-up to fit alongside
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  mountaineering and canyoneering, but with hammocks.
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  I looked at his phone, but the keyboard that popped up had no
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  NR or I, so I was unable to show him.
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  I shrugged my shoulders and handed back the phone by fitting
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  into our whole awkward interaction.
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  I thanked him for the meal, then went on my way.
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  Tonight I've hit him myself by sagging my hammock into a small
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  ditch. If I peek my head up, I can see
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  across the farm field stretching out to the horizon.
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  Long strands of grass fill in the space around me.
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  The light is fading from the day, but not yet.
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  The heat and stars are beginning to appear through the gaps in
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  the leaves above me. May 30th, 2013.
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  Moscow Pool Yesterday I was so slow that I couldn't tell if my
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  bike needed maintenance or if I was simply tired.
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  I got everything lubricated before getting started this
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  morning, but I wasn't any faster.
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  The problem was definitely me. At a gas station.
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  I told the attendant that I sleep in the forest and fields
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  in a caring way. He mind a gun with his fingers
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  to ask if I'm worried about being found.
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  A lot of people ask about this, and I share their concern.
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  A night is when I'm most vulnerable.
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  My gear is unpacked. No one else is around.
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  I have no means to get away quickly.
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  Only by luck am I avoiding dangerous chance encounters.
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  To answer the man, I put my hand over my heart and said I'm
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  learning to trust, but he didn't understand.
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  In the late afternoon, I sat in the shaded spot by the side of
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  the road. I'd gone 40 miles across bland
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  farm fields and wasn't motivated to go any farther.
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  I was actually feeling rather dispirited.
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  My legs were tired, I was frustrated by my dragon pace,
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  and the tedious farm fields are wearing me down mentally.
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  That's when a group of five cyclists about my age stopped to
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  say hello. I was offered a drink from a
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  bottle labeled Cavas, but they called it Russian Coca-Cola.
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  They said the nickname comes from the dark brown color and
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  the fizz. The taste was slightly sweet,
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  lightly carminated with more than a hint of fermentation.
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  I asked about the ingredients and surprisingly they said the
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  drink is made from bread. The group was light hearted and
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  friendly and I was cheered up to be around them by myself.
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  I was too tired to continue, but with them I was motivated to
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  ride another 20 miles to the city of Kresnidor.
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  Along the way we stopped at a small convenience store and
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  bonded over ice cream bars. The sun had nearly set when we
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  arrived in town. Everyone split to get home
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  before dark, and the woman in the group, Marina, invited me to
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  camp in her yard. She led me down a dirt path,
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  across the farm field and through a graveyard before
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  arriving at her home, where she lived with her parents, sister
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  and two young nieces. She went inside while I hung my
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  hammock in the backyard between trees full of sweet, ripe
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  cherries. I was eating them.
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  Marina came back outside to invite me in for dinner.
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  We have potatoes and pork, strawberries, two types of
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  pastries, cucumbers, bread, and cherry juice.
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  I was served a drink that they made by smashing strawberries
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  into the base of a wide mug, adding an extra strong shot of
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  cold black tea, a spoonful of sugar and topping the cup off
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  with hot water. We also had a glass of homemade
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  wine and when I told the father I was impressed with the flavor,
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  he proudly presented me with a plastic 1 1/2 liter bottle of
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  wine to take along with me. Collectively, the family spoke
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  just enough English for us to have a conversation.
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  The father worked as an engineer and built the house we were
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  sitting in. He smiled easily and had
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  gleaming gold teeth. Marina was a committed cyclist,
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  and rides and events that go for hundreds of miles.
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  She and her mother both exuded a quiet kindness.
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  As the evening was winding down, the father invited me into the
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  basement for a game of pool on a table he built himself.
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  The pool table was the largest I'd ever seen.
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  The pool balls were also bigger, but the pockets were narrower.
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  He called the game Russian Pool and taught me the rules.
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  There are 15 white balls and one red cue ball.
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  The first one to use the cue ball to pocket eight of the
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  others wins. The game was fun but short.
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  He beat me 8 to 1. May 31st, 2013 A Russian
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  treasure, Marina was gone in the morning.
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  She left early to get to her job at the library.
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  When I said goodbye to her parents, they passed on a gift
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  from her, an art piece she had made.
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  I was handed a masterfully painted wooden egg the size of
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  my fist. Wrapping around the curved
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  surface was the scene of a woman standing in a lush pasture
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  beneath the black sky. She's wearing a red dress with
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  fine, intricate gold lace painted with a single strand
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  brush. Her face showed quiet
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  contentment as her arms reached out.
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  To her right, a log home with a red roof.
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  To her left, mountains under a golden sun.
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  The piece is beautiful, the treasure to carry home with me.
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  The temperature is 90° today with a stiff headwind.
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  I felt like I was biking into a blow dryer, and practically, I
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  was. I drank 10 liters of water and
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  my shirt never even became wet. I only got a sense of how much I
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  was sweating when I stepped into a gas station in the still air.
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  My skin became saturated so quickly that I could feel the
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  beads of sweat running down my face, arms and legs, leaving a
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  trail of drips across the floor behind me.
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  I picked an ice cream out of the cooler, then walked to the sales
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  counter where I discovered that today was the store's grand
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  opening and I happened to be their very first customer.
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  Watching the sale were 15 employees and managers in 1/2
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  circle around the back of the cashier with all eyes on me.
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  I became self-conscious of how wet I was and felt embarrassed
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  when sweat began to drip from my nose onto the brand new counter.
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  I wiped the drops away with the hem of my shirt.
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  The cashier kept to her script in Russian.
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  She tried to upsell me a rotisserie hot dog.
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  I declined. When I was handing my change,
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  the two managers gave each other a congratulatory handshake.
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  I imagined them framing my sweaty ruble to hang on the wall
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  commemorating their first sale. I met a guy named Oleg out on
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  his first day of a local bicycle tour.
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  We stayed together for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
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  He didn't speak English, so he rode in silence, but I enjoyed
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  having someone to look around with at the gas station.
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  We sat in the cafe to eat ice cream and attempted a
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  conversation over Google Translate.
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  We tried, but his translated questions were near gibberish
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  and the answers I got from him didn't correspond to what I was
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  asking. He seemed to be as confused as I
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  was. On my way to finding a place to
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  sleep between the farm fields, I came upon a full right Mulberry
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  Bush. Finding the wild bounty gave me
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  great joy. The fruit was sweet and I gorged
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  myself until I could skip dinner.
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  I was reminded of my childhood computer game, The Oregon Trail.
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  In the game I was a settler in 1848 navigating an aux drawn
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  wagon across North America. I remember being thrilled when
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  my character found berries along the trail.
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  The game was essentially a story about traveling very far, very
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  slowly, and was perhaps pivotal and shaping my sense of
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  adventure. I've got my hammock hanging now.
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  The sky is dark and the birds have gone quiet.
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  My legs are propped up a little higher than my body.
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  I'm hoping to train the soreness out of them.
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  June 1st, 2013 Avoiding the rain in Russia.
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  This morning from my hammock I saw beautiful Reds and pinks
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  swirling low over the horizon. I watched until I fell asleep
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  again. When I woke a second time, the
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  sun was up and I was already sweating.
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  I followed the flat, quiet Rd. past expansive fields and
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  patches of forest. The many shades of green beamed
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  in the bright sunlight. Small towns came and went.
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  Every hour I tracked the weather drifting across the wide open
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  landscape and in the early afternoon I spotted a
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  thunderstorm coming my way just as the rain started the fall.
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  I tie my tarp to the low branch of a tree, then huddled beneath.
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  Lightning cracked overhead and I slowly became soaked as the rain
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  came down on my makeshift shelter.
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  Once a storm passed, I started down the road only to see the
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  rain change direction and come at me a second time.
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  I raced to keep ahead of the downpour before pulling into an
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  empty bus shelter. While the rain fell, I was
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  content to wait. The time was peaceful in a way.
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  I sat for hours with nothing to do and doing nothing.
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  When the last few drops of rain had rung from the sky, I left
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  the bus stop to ride late into the evening.
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  I peddled hard in the wake of the storm, riding the wave of
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  air being sucked along behind, splashing through puddles the
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  whole way. As I've been going north in the
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  summer solstice approaches, I have significantly more daylight
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  than when I started in February. The sun is up for 10 hours and
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  45 minutes. Today I had 17 hours of
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  daylight. I was able to pedal late into
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  the evening, almost at 10:00 PM, and with the last bit of light I
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  pulled into a farm field to hang my hammock and a dark patch of
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  trees. June 2nd, 2013, Pretty Russian
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  Day. I'm reading The Motorcycle
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  Diaries by Che Cabrera. In 1952 he travelled 5000 miles
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  across South America. He speaks about leaving
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  civilization behind and being free from society.
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  I don't have that same sense of removal.
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  Today there are 5 billion more people alive than when he did
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  his journey. Civilization spreads out
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  inexcapably around me. To get away completely would be
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  a different sort of adventure. In truth, my reliance on society
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  is the same as before I started. What's different is that I no
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  longer feel like a participant. I've become an observer.
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  I'm now on the outside looking in.
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  I made slow progress today. My legs were tired and I had a
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  light head wind. Needing a break, I took a long
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  relaxing lunch in a Grove of trees stretching far into the
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  distance. Around me were acres of flax
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  blooming with millions of soft blue flowers.
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  I walked out into the field humming with bees.
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  Above me were 1000 cotton ball clouds.
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  Beneath the deep blue sky, wherever the sun streaked
• 18:45
  through to the ground, colors burst forth, vivid and bright.
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  I took a photograph, but the scene deserved a painting.
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  The big toe on my left foot has been hurting.
• 18:57
  My shoe is pinching the skin into the nail, and this evening
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  I squeeze Milky green puffs out of the blister.
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  I know this means there's an infection, but I have no way to
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  treat the problem. I don't even have clean socks to
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  put on, just the one pair I've been wearing the past 3 1/2
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  months. I adjusted my shoelaces to
• 19:15
  reduce the pressure on my toe. Hopefully that will be enough to
• 19:18
  heal. Tonight I'm camping in an airy
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  Grove of trees on the edge of a field of wheat.
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  The breeze is picked up, soft rain is falling, and there's
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  lightning flashing in the distance.
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  This is a good spot, except I'm a little nervous about the dead
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  branch creaking in the wind above me.
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  June 3rd, 2013 Towel I left with a push from the wind to spend
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  the day surrounded by magnificent farmland and sky.
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  Fields of wheat stretched out to the horizon like an ocean, and
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  under the bright sun, currents of air sweeping across the grain
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  to reveal as beautiful golden waves.
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  In one exquisite moment, I match the speed of a gust blowing
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  straight at my back. The world around me danced and
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  swayed and I was in perfectly still air.
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  I had become one with the wind rolling across the land.
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  The sensation was surreal and I was overwhelmed by the beautiful
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  moment. My eyes filled with quiet tears
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  of joy. I stopped at a gas station for
• 20:36
  ice cream and to get out of the sun.
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  Several curious employees gathered around to look at my
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  bike and try to talk to me. I stayed for an hour, cooling
• 20:45
  off in the shade as they worked around me.
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  When I was ready to leave, the group came back together to see
• 20:51
  me off with a gift, a towel with the gas stations logo.
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  I didn't want a towel, but they're well known to be about
• 20:58
  the most massively useful thing one can carry.
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  I accepted graciously. Before beginning this journey, I
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  feared the loneliness of being by myself would be too much to
• 21:08
  bear. But I'm not fully alone.
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  Interactions like the one at the gas station are fun and
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  meaningful, and they happen every day.
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  What I have lost is someone I can know and who knows me.
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  But I don't feel lonely. I feel light.
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  I've shed the burden of time, energy, and care that goes into
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  relationships as though there are fires I'm no longer tending.
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  I now sit in the dark, but I'm free to just sit.
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  As I've persisted in my isolation, I've begun to
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  recognize subtle aspects of this experience.
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  One nuance is that I am living without social influence.
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  I don't exist in society enough to infer norms, and by not being
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  with people, I've removed myself from their judgement.
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  Good or bad, I view this as a positive.
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  My impression of the world has been freed from the consensus of
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  thought around me. Through my isolation, I'm
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  learning to be exactly myself, undirected, accepted by my own
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  morals and principles. I wonder who I will become
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  tonight. I'm a narrow strip of forest
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  looking out for my hammock at the purple Twilight.
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  A mixed herd of goats, sheep and cows are moving through.
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  Two shepherds are here as well, but they pass by without seeing
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  me. June 4th, 2013 Black flies.
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  A couple of days ago I met a man on a motorcycle tour heading the
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  opposite direction with a sort of 1000 yard stare.
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  He talked about black flies and madding numbers.
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  At the time I wasn't able to imagine why he was so bothered,
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  but after today I understand. The first flies appeared in the
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  afternoon. I noticed a disperse cloud of
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  them buzzing in my wake. I figured if I could stay ahead
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  of them, they would leave me alone.
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  How far could a little bug really fly before becoming
• 23:14
  exhausted? I sprinted away for 10 minutes
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  only to find more flies had joined the chase.
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  For the rest of the day I tried to outrun them, but that proved
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  to be a hopeless effort. Mile after mile there were
• 23:27
  always more. By this evening, the flies had
• 23:30
  persisted longer than I could, and the swarm thickened.
• 23:33
  When I stopped for the night, the flies homed in on my ears
• 23:38
  and nostrils, inhaled 2. As soon as I stopped, I put bug
• 23:42
  mesh over my head, but they continue to find ways in through
• 23:45
  the gaps around my neck. Once inside, they were killed by
• 23:48
  chemicals in the fabric and their bodies powered up under my
• 23:51
  chin. Before getting in my hammock, I
• 23:54
  moved some distance away, let the flies congregate around me,
• 23:59
  then sprinted back as quickly as I could.
• 24:01
  I unzipped the bug mesh, jumped inside and closed myself.
• 24:05
  In just that brief moment, two dozen flies followed me inside
• 24:10
  and to their deaths. I still hear the horde outside
• 24:14
  tapping against my hammock, trying to get in.
• 24:32
  June 5th, 2013. Lots of biking, lots of
• 24:36
  relaxing. A singing bird woke me as the
• 24:40
  sun was rising pink and beautiful.
• 24:43
  I left quickly, trying to avoid the flies, but they were already
• 24:47
  waiting, ready to engulf me whenever I stopped moving.
• 24:51
  Because of this, I ate breakfast and brush my teeth while I
• 24:54
  pedaled. After that, I put bug mesh over
• 24:57
  my head and didn't stop biking for the rest of the day.
• 25:01
  The bug mesh made me dreadfully hot, but without the protection.
• 25:04
  I kept inhaling the flies. At noon I passed a crew laying a
• 25:09
  new road in hellish working conditions.
• 25:12
  The temperature was 92° and there is no wind at all.
• 25:15
  Toxic fumes rising off in the molten McAdam filled the air.
• 25:20
  The laborers were afforded no safety equipment and paid so
• 25:23
  little that they didn't wear shoes.
• 25:25
  Many had on plastic flip flops. One man was barefoot.
• 25:29
  The fresh blacktop must have felt like walking on hot coals.
• 25:33
  Boiling drops of tar splashed at their feet.
• 25:36
  They didn't even wear hats or sunglasses to fend off the
• 25:39
  relentless, glaring sun. The worst part must have been
• 25:42
  the tormenting flies endlessly crawling into their ears and
• 25:46
  nostrils. I knew they were in a bad
• 25:49
  situation because I was out there with them.
• 25:52
  As I passed, the men all looked up from their work.
• 25:55
  I smiled and waved and they all waved back.
• 25:59
  The landscape has dried out since yesterday.
• 26:02
  Well maintained crops have given away to open pastures of weeds
• 26:06
  and short grasses. I passed Cowboys on horseback
• 26:09
  moving a herd of cattle. Cowboys have such a large
• 26:13
  cultural footprint in America that I was comforted seeing the
• 26:16
  full brimmed hats, jeans and leather boots.
• 26:20
  For a moment, I felt like I was somewhere familiar.
• 26:25
  By the time I stopped in the early afternoon, the flies had
• 26:28
  pursued me for 90 straight miles.
• 26:30
  I was getting tired, so I decided to find a place to sleep
• 26:33
  before entering the more populated outskirts of
• 26:36
  Volgograd. I set up my hammock on the edge
• 26:39
  of a farm field, crawled inside, and haven't left since.
• 26:43
  In the future, I don't expect this day to be a memorable one.
• 26:47
  But right now I find great satisfaction in being patient
• 26:51
  and persistent. Today feels like a job well
• 26:54
  done. I reward for the 9 hour effort.
• 26:57
  It's a lovely endorphin high. My spirit feels light and my
• 27:01
  mind is at ease. June 6th, 2013 Into Volgograd.
• 27:23
  Today I entered the city of Volgograd, known during World
• 27:26
  War 2 as Stalingrad, the site of the deadliest battle in the
• 27:30
  history of humanity. As the namesake of Joseph
• 27:33
  Stalin, the city became a symbol not to be lost under any
• 27:36
  circumstances, and to Adolf Hitler, a prize to be taken.
• 27:41
  Extensive bombing reduced the buildings to rubble.
• 27:44
  Fighting became ferocious close quarters mayhem in the middle.
• 27:48
  Over 5 months, more than 1.5 million people died, 10,000 per
• 27:54
  day. The Russians who survived were
• 27:56
  named the victors and the Axis powers never recovered.
• 28:01
  The city is best described as industrial.
• 28:04
  Factories lined the waterfront, supplied by rumbling cargo
• 28:07
  trains. The only interesting sites were
• 28:10
  the striking war memorials, the most famous being The Motherland
• 28:14
  Calls. At a height of 285 feet, the
• 28:18
  statue is the tallest of a woman in the world.
• 28:21
  The monument presents her as powerful, striding forward
• 28:25
  barefoot, the wind pressing A sheer dress against her body.
• 28:29
  A sword in the right hand is thrust into the sky.
• 28:32
  With her left arm she reaches backwards, turning her head and
• 28:35
  shoulders to call to those behind, opposed, taken and
• 28:39
  leading a charge, inspiring all others to follow.
• 28:42
  The image is powerful and moving.
• 28:46
  The statue stands at the high point of the city, the location
• 28:49
  that changed hands many times during the deadly battle.
• 28:53
  The steep hillsides were shelled into gentle slopes and the land
• 28:56
  was so scorched that no plants would grow for many years
• 28:59
  afterwards. The survey the area found that
• 29:02
  in every square meter there is 1000 fragments of bombs and
• 29:06
  bullets. Given the importance of the
• 29:08
  battle, an argument could be made that the tide of the war
• 29:12
  and the future of the world was passed back and forth atop that
• 29:15
  hill. Admittedly, I did not see the
• 29:18
  statue in person. I learned in the monument this
• 29:21
  evening from a flyer at the hotel lobby.
• 29:24
  I was biking in traffic when I passed the park entrance.
• 29:27
  I even noticed a hill, but I didn't look up.
• 29:30
  I missed the largest statue in Europe by a glance.
• 29:33
  I could go back only 7 miles when I'm not going to.
• 29:38
  Biking across the city. Once was enough.
• 29:41
  I've long suspected that my lack of research caused me to miss
• 29:45
  fantastic sights along my route, but this is the first one that's
• 29:48
  been confirmed. Everything I don't see because I
• 29:51
  don't know to look is a necessary sacrifice for the
• 29:55
  feeling that comes from discovering the world for
• 29:57
  myself. To maintain my wide eye sense of
• 30:00
  awe. I can't know what's ahead of me
• 30:02
  and I can't be sure of what's around.
• 30:05
  I must live in the unknown and embrace my ignorance.
• 30:10
  The hotel I found this evening was converted from a Soviet
• 30:12
  style apartment building. Hundreds of these Gray monoliths
• 30:16
  spread across Volgograd. The construction is practical,
• 30:20
  durable and equal to all others. The design that follows the
• 30:24
  values of the time. The cityscape they created was
• 30:28
  devoid of artistry, unattractive and uninspiring.
• 30:33
  My room is slightly more cheerful than the outside of the
• 30:35
  building. I have a small balcony
• 30:38
  overlooking a park in the river. I would argue that the bathroom
• 30:42
  is unfinished, but obviously they wrapped up their work some
• 30:44
  time ago. Bare pipes come in through
• 30:47
  sledge hammered holes. Half of the tiles have fallen
• 30:50
  off the wall. The floor is bare brick.
• 30:53
  In the drain is a square hole with a pool of Milky water.
• 30:57
  I skipped taking a shower, but I did wash my clothes in the sink.
• 31:01
  When I laid down to relax, I found the cotton mattress to be
• 31:04
  so thin that I could feel the hard wooden platform on the
• 31:07
  points of my shoulder blades. This is why I prefer to sleep
• 31:11
  outside my hammock or even laying on the grass would be
• 31:15
  more comfortable. June 7th, 2013 Leaving
• 31:34
  Volgograd. I talked to Katie this morning
• 31:37
  and felt good to connect with her.
• 31:39
  I merge forward knowing she's waiting for me at the end.
• 31:42
  It also since how tenuous that truth is.
• 31:46
  She and I have never talked about our future together since
• 31:49
  we started dating. The most far reaching plan I've
• 31:51
  made for my life took me to the beginning of this journey.
• 31:55
  Now that I've started, I don't think about anything farther off
• 31:58
  than the next place to find food.
• 32:01
  I'm not sure what I want after this journey.
• 32:03
  I don't know what Katie wants either.
• 32:06
  Leaving the hotel this morning as again struck by the drab and
• 32:10
  depressing city architecture. The roads were deteriorating and
• 32:14
  the traffic was heavy. Dirt foot pass had formed where
• 32:17
  I expected sidewalks to be. To get out of the city I had to
• 32:21
  cross the Volga River along the lip of a hydraulic dam.
• 32:25
  There was a pedestrian walkway separate from the road that was
• 32:28
  too narrow to fit my bike, so I was forced to cross with the
• 32:31
  cars riding on the white line pinch between the traffic and
• 32:35
  the guardrail. Normally I can steer off the
• 32:38
  road if a truck forcing me to, but on the bridge I lost that
• 32:42
  option. I could only go forward.
• 32:45
  The river was 1 1/2 miles wide and my adrenaline got me across
• 32:48
  in record time on the far side. I turned off the highway and
• 32:53
  breathed a sigh of relief. For the rest of the day.
• 32:57
  I crossed the vast plain of farmland and dry grasses and 40
• 33:01
  miles. There were only three slight
• 33:02
  turns and not even a speed bump to climb over.
• 33:06
  I was bicycling N with the sun on my back, and as the hours
• 33:10
  passed I was entertained watching my shadow slowly sweep
• 33:13
  around me. I am a sundial and today I
• 33:17
  became patient enough to notice when the time showed. 7 PMI
• 33:22
  pulled into a thin stretch of forest between farm fields.
• 33:26
  I set up my hammock, made noodles with a can of black
• 33:28
  beans, and retreated to my hammock to eat, lying down,
• 33:32
  protected from the flies. As I lie here, I've been
• 33:36
  watching the stars appear in the darkening sky.
• 33:54
  June 8th 2013 Russian bus stops. My attempt to be self-sufficient
• 34:00
  on this journey. I decided that I never wanted to
• 34:03
  rely on power outlets to charge my tablet.
• 34:06
  My solution was a Dynamo hub, which creates a charge whenever
• 34:10
  my front wheel is spinning. The Dynamo does charge my
• 34:13
  tablet, but keeping the system working has been a source of
• 34:16
  frustration. The constant Rd. vibration
• 34:19
  breaks the thin wires running from the hub to the battery in
• 34:22
  my handlebar bag. Today again, I spent an hour
• 34:26
  tracking down a brake and splicing the wires back
• 34:28
  together. Keeping my tablet charged feels
• 34:32
  especially important because that's what I use for a map.
• 34:36
  I've considered getting paper maps as backups, but every week
• 34:39
  I travel 350 miles in One Direction.
• 34:43
  If I followed paper maps, I would constantly need to be
• 34:45
  buying more, and that assumes they are even available.
• 34:49
  Since starting in Portugal, I've not seen any maps for sale.
• 34:54
  Today again, I followed a road pointing straight to the end of
• 34:57
  the horizon. On my left and right.
• 34:59
  Rows of shrubs and trees blocked my view of anything more.
• 35:03
  Occasionally a gap in the forest would let me see out to a field
• 35:07
  of dry grass. The one interesting view was a
• 35:10
  glimpse of the mighty Volga River.
• 35:12
  The dark water stretched an impressive 3 miles across and on
• 35:16
  the far side the land had eroded to create a Bank of white
• 35:20
  cliffs. Oddly enough, the one thing I do
• 35:23
  get excited to see are the bus stop shelters.
• 35:26
  They are decades old, the pain is faded, and bits of gravel and
• 35:30
  broken glass pile in the corners.
• 35:33
  I find them at quiet crossroads that feel like the middle of
• 35:36
  nowhere. Each one is big enough for a
• 35:38
  half dozen people, although I've rarely seen anyone waiting or
• 35:42
  even a bus on the road. The concrete and steel
• 35:45
  structures are exceedingly sturdy.
• 35:47
  No natural wind could ever make one shutter.
• 35:50
  What I really like is that each bus stop is unique.
• 35:53
  Architects played with angles and shapes to make a wide range
• 35:57
  of individual designs. I think the reason for the
• 36:00
  creativity is that in this vast plane without natural landmarks,
• 36:04
  the bus stops themselves become the way people distinguish where
• 36:08
  to get off. Adding to their charm, many of
• 36:11
  the stops are decorated with wonderful mosaics of abstract
• 36:15
  landscapes. Compared to the Russian cities,
• 36:18
  the colorful facade seems out of character.
• 36:21
  My favorite one depicted birds in flight over a village on a
• 36:24
  blustery day with a skillful touch.
• 36:27
  The tiles were placed insinuous flowing lines and represented
• 36:30
  the wind. Sadly, the piece sat unfinished,
• 36:34
  abandoned years ago. Where the tiling ended, it
• 36:38
  remained a painted sketch of what was left to be done.
• 36:41
  I saw the uncovered wall as ambition beyond reach.
• 36:45
  After 10,000 tiles, the artist failed to place another.
• 36:50
  I've told a lot of people that I'm trying to circle the earth
• 36:52
  on a bicycle. I painted a grand vision across
• 36:55
  the map of the world, and now I must fill the line in not one
• 36:59
  tile at a time, but one mile at a time.
• 37:03
  The artist? That mosaic was creating
• 37:05
  something beautiful. I wonder what caused them to
• 37:08
  stop. I wonder what my reason will be.
• 37:12
  In the afternoon, I bicycled out of the cloud of flies that has
• 37:15
  persisted for the past 250 miles.
• 37:19
  I celebrated by taking a map in my hammock without bothering to
• 37:22
  close the bug mesh. To be left in peace was glorious
• 37:26
  and I slept for hours. I'm in my hammock again tonight
• 37:30
  in a strip of forest between farm fields. 2 Hawks have joined
• 37:35
  me for the evening, circling overhead as I look for dinner.
• 37:53
  June 9th, 2013. Friendly captains.
• 37:58
  I got up with the sun and bicycled 15 miles to where an
• 38:01
  arm of the Volga River branched out across the land.
• 38:05
  When I arrived, the ferry was chugging away just 100 yards
• 38:09
  from the dock. I'd missed the boat by three
• 38:11
  minutes. In a little shack next to the
• 38:14
  dock, there were a few people eating smoked fish and drinking
• 38:16
  vodka. They told me the ferry would be
• 38:19
  back in two hours. Not wanting to wait, I pointed
• 38:23
  to a decaying wooden rowboat with an outboard motor.
• 38:26
  This got everyone's attention and they gathered around while I
• 38:29
  haggled for a ride. The man I talked to was about 50
• 38:33
  years old. He wore track pants and a white
• 38:35
  shirt with horizontal blue stripes.
• 38:38
  He was barefoot and though I was there early in the morning, he
• 38:42
  obviously had several shots of vodka in him.
• 38:45
  I asked about the price, but he waited for me to make the first
• 38:48
  offer. I thought about the going rate
• 38:50
  for a ride in a little boat in Russia.
• 38:52
  I had no reference point. I didn't even know how much the
• 38:55
  ferry cost. I offered him $9 and he gladly
• 38:59
  accepted. My bike and trailer filled the
• 39:03
  whole boat. The man sat on the back rail
• 39:06
  with the motor while I sat on the nose.
• 39:08
  A big yellow dog also jumped in with us.
• 39:11
  The man tried to get her out but she bit at him so he let her
• 39:14
  ride along. We pushed away from the dock to
• 39:17
  cross a mile of gentle water and 20 minutes later we arrived at
• 39:21
  the far shore. I was pushing my bike up to the
• 39:24
  road when the father and son who operate the ferry invited me in
• 39:28
  for tea. The ferry is big enough for half
• 39:30
  a dozen cars and there was a cabin where the men lived.
• 39:34
  I joined them inside where we sat at a cramped table in a
• 39:37
  little kitchen. They brought out a plate of
• 39:39
  Pickles, fish they caught in the river and shots of vodka.
• 39:44
  Neither of them spoke English, but I stayed for an hour and we
• 39:47
  managed a decent conversation. They asked how much I paid to
• 39:51
  cross the river. Their boat would have cost me
• 39:54
  $3, but they thought I got a fair price.
• 39:58
  Like other times in Eastern Europe that I've been invited
• 40:01
  into people's homes, has offered a place to take a nap.
• 40:05
  I haven't figured out if it is a cultural nuance or if I simply
• 40:08
  look tired. I declined the nap, but only
• 40:11
  because the time was 9:00 AM. They gave me a gift when I left
• 40:16
  a photocopy of a periodic table with the elements replaced by
• 40:19
  different types of alcohol. I've seen similar posters in
• 40:23
  freshman dorm rooms, except this one was written in Russian.
• 40:27
  I thank them and added the paper to my treasure trove.
• 40:31
  After I said goodbye to the captains, I had the road all to
• 40:34
  myself. The ferry was holding up
• 40:37
  traffic, so I didn't see any vehicles for an hour.
• 40:40
  Then a group of cars all came at once.
• 40:43
  Two hours after that, I was passed by several more.
• 40:46
  The world was noticeably quieter without the traffic.
• 40:50
  I could hear the breeze through the leaves and the sound of my
• 40:53
  bike. I was able to let my guard down,
• 40:56
  but I also felt a tinge of loneliness.
• 40:59
  I was surprised to realize that the collective of passing
• 41:02
  drivers have become like a companion to me.
• 41:05
  The person is never the same, but someone is always with me.
• 41:09
  Without the cars on the road, I felt alone.
• 41:13
  This evening I set up a camp on a hill overlooking a small
• 41:16
  river. A horse found me soon after, and
• 41:19
  right now he's staring at me from a dozen paces away.
• 41:23
  Sometimes he takes a bite of grass and makes a loud
• 41:26
  swallowing sound. Mosquitoes and flies buzz in his
• 41:30
  eyes and bite at his tender back.
• 41:33
  The constant twitch of his tail does little to help.
• 41:36
  Earlier I saw him scratching himself by rubbing vigorously
• 41:39
  against the tree. The horses front feet are bound
• 41:43
  by a chain to prevent him from taking large steps.
• 41:46
  I've seen this a few times. Even solid cuffs that forced the
• 41:50
  horse to hop forward with its front legs.
• 41:53
  I assume the horses are bound so that they don't wander too far
• 41:56
  when left on unfenced land. Certainly this horse wasn't
• 42:00
  getting away while I cooked dinner.
• 42:03
  He meandered around my camp and knocked over my bike.
• 42:06
  I yelled at him through an empty can that bounced off his butt as
• 42:09
  he shuffled away. I wanted to scare him off, but
• 42:13
  he's simply more curious than afraid.
• 42:15
  I'm worried my bike wheel will be stepped on.
• 42:17
  I will try to walk through my hammock rope.
• 42:20
  A horse is a wild card and I'm in no position to be taking
• 42:23
  chances. I want him gone but I can't make
• 42:27
  him go. Hopefully by morning he has
• 42:30
  found somewhere else to be. June 10th, 2013 Horse.
• 42:51
  I woke up to the horse's head 10 inches from my face this
• 42:54
  morning. He was scratching his chin on
• 42:56
  the rope that suspends my bug mesh.
• 42:59
  I reached out and pushed him away.
• 43:01
  I was sympathetic that he was tortured by mosquito bites, but
• 43:04
  I didn't want him touching my things.
• 43:07
  He shuffled off and I packed up to leave.
• 43:10
  The time was only 4:00 AM, but morning had already arrived.
• 43:14
  The sky was filling with pastel light and thin, wispy clouds
• 43:17
  shimmer in the first rays of sunshine.
• 43:20
  The birds were awake too, and singing their favorite songs.
• 43:25
  I was out of food and excited to get to town to buy more, but I
• 43:28
  arrived too early. Everyone is asleep and the
• 43:31
  stores were still several hours from opening.
• 43:34
  A gas station was my only option.
• 43:37
  I bought a 1 kilogram bag of cookies and snacked on them for
• 43:40
  50 miles until I found an actual store.
• 43:44
  I also stopped to talk to a car mechanic when I fell in Ukraine.
• 43:48
  A bolt sheared off in my bike frame and I hoped the mechanic
• 43:51
  could help. The guy was about 40 years old
• 43:54
  and wore greasy work clothes with sandals.
• 43:57
  He was one of two men in the small one car garage.
• 44:00
  I showed him my problem and he had a look on his face like he
• 44:03
  had never seen a broken bolt before.
• 44:05
  I should have taken that as a sign.
• 44:08
  He started off with pliers but couldn't get a grip.
• 44:11
  Next he used a drill to cut away at the bolt material.
• 44:14
  The progress was slow and he pushed so hard with the drill
• 44:17
  bit broke after 20 minutes. I was losing confidence in him.
• 44:22
  I hoped he would give up on his own, but when he didn't I was
• 44:25
  compelled to let him keep trying.
• 44:27
  His next idea was to use a hammer and nail to push the bolt
• 44:30
  out. I didn't like watching him
• 44:32
  pounding on my bike, but by that point we were both committed.
• 44:37
  Eventually the bolt was out, but the threads were destroyed and
• 44:41
  now Oval hole was just as useless as if I left the broken
• 44:44
  bolt in place. In the afternoon, a bicycle to
• 44:48
  pass the landing site of the first man into space.
• 44:52
  Yuri Gagarin aboard Bolstock 1 in 1961.
• 44:56
  He orbited the Earth once, then parachuted into a field east of
• 44:59
  the Volga River. The flight took just 89 minutes.
• 45:03
  Out here under the perpetual sky, I have a keen awareness
• 45:07
  that I am in space all the time. I think of my bike as a
• 45:10
  spaceship, lifting me 6 inches into the cosmos as I slowly
• 45:15
  orbit the Earth. Tonight I'm sleeping in a Grove
• 45:19
  of trees close to the road. When I chose this spot, I didn't
• 45:23
  realize I was directly in line with an airport runway, and now
• 45:27
  airplanes keep coming in low and loud above me.
• 45:31
  I'm hoping they stop flying after dark.
• 45:49
  June 11th, 2013. A quiet day.
• 45:54
  I slept well last night, but apparently not enough again
• 45:57
  today. I needed to hang my hammock for
• 45:59
  a long afternoon nap. I feel as if I'm recovering from
• 46:03
  a soul level wariness brought on by the exhausting pace of the
• 46:06
  American lifestyle out here. I sleep as much as I need to
• 46:10
  feel recovered. Something to hustle culture
• 46:13
  would construe as laziness. I never suspected that bicycling
• 46:17
  around the world would be more restful than living in society.
• 46:22
  After sleeping for five hours, I got back on the road to bicycle
• 46:25
  into the evening. The air had cooled and traffic
• 46:28
  was light. I was enjoying the ride when a
• 46:30
  Shard of broken mirror pierced my trailer tire.
• 46:34
  I patched the tube in front of a bus stop where one young boy
• 46:37
  waited by himself. He watched in silence for 1/2
• 46:40
  hour as I took off my bags, removed the wheel, then the
• 46:43
  tire. I found the hole in the tube
• 46:46
  glued on a patch, then put everything back together.
• 46:49
  When I left, I waved goodbye to him, but he just kept staring.
• 46:54
  The sun was getting low when I pulled into a stretch of forest
• 46:56
  to spend the night. The black flies have gone, but
• 47:00
  there were so many mosquitoes I had to zip myself into my
• 47:02
  hammock to eat dinner. Lying down, the warm part of
• 47:06
  rice felt good on my chest. I ate slowly and watched as the
• 47:10
  stars poked through the fading twilight.
• 47:28
  June 12th, 2013 Playing guitar for sheep, I crossed another 50
• 47:35
  miles of farm fields today. The flat terrain persisted with
• 47:39
  only a single hill to the north that slowly passed then
• 47:42
  disappeared behind me throughout the day.
• 47:45
  I noticed that the wheat fields had grown taller compared to
• 47:47
  when I started this journey. This means that I'm now
• 47:51
  entertaining myself by watching the grass grow.
• 47:54
  As I pedaled, the sun beat down in the temperature edge towards
• 47:57
  100°. I stopped at a gas station for
• 48:00
  ice cream and to fill my water. I've started carrying extra
• 48:04
  plastic bottles for these hot days and I filled them all in
• 48:07
  the sink. A mile down the road I noticed
• 48:10
  that the water tasted like a pond.
• 48:13
  Upon further inspection, the water is the same hazy brown
• 48:16
  color as the water in the canal is next to the gas station is
• 48:20
  also next to the canal. I dumped all my bottles and sat
• 48:24
  by the water and used my filter to refill them again.
• 48:27
  After I finished pumping, I stayed in the shade to wait out
• 48:30
  the midday heat. I got out my guitar and as I was
• 48:34
  strumming, a shepherd came by with his sheep and cows.
• 48:38
  He took a seat in the grass facing me, and I told him about
• 48:41
  my journey as best I could, pointing to where I was coming
• 48:44
  from and where I was going. He smiled when I played guitar
• 48:48
  for him. I liked his company, but the
• 48:50
  work of a shepherd never lets him be still for long.
• 48:54
  After a few minutes, the animals moved on and he was obliged to
• 48:57
  follow. Rising to his feet, he waved
• 49:00
  goodbye and walked away. I watched as he and his flock
• 49:05
  slowly moved into the distance. The day never did cool off and
• 49:10
  this evening I laid in my hammock for an hour before I
• 49:12
  stopped sweating. I passed the time looking out at
• 49:16
  the farm fields and listening to the birds in the trees.
• 49:19
  Now a small animal was wandering in the nearby brush.
• 49:23
  I'm guessing a porcupine more than any other animal.
• 49:26
  I've seen a lot of dead porcupines on the road, so there
• 49:29
  must be living ones around here too.
• 49:32
  I'm not worried. I've got my hammock high off the
• 49:34
  ground tonight. June 13th, 2013 Slow day in
• 49:54
  Russia. A terrible wind arrived this
• 49:57
  morning. Dust and bits of trash whirled
• 49:59
  into the sky. Specks of dirt stung my face and
• 50:02
  irritated my eyes. I tucked over my handlebars,
• 50:06
  pedaling hard, but only managed A measly four mph.
• 50:10
  Where the road turned. The wind shifted to blasting the
• 50:13
  left side of my body and to keep from being blown off into the
• 50:16
  shoulder, I had to balance my bike by leaning into the car
• 50:19
  lane. Semis towing trailers passing me
• 50:23
  from behind the momentarily block the wind, causing me to
• 50:26
  fall towards their large rolling tires.
• 50:29
  I had to watch for the trucks in my mirror and straighten up just
• 50:32
  as they caught me. Violent eddies of churning air
• 50:35
  tossed me around as the trailers roared past.
• 50:38
  Then the moment they got ahead of me, I would throw my body
• 50:41
  back towards the road as the cross wind hit me again.
• 50:45
  I watched behind me as much as a head to stay safe.
• 50:48
  Not a single vehicle passed that I didn't see coming.
• 50:52
  Eventually the situation became so obviously dangerous that I
• 50:56
  can no longer ignore the risk. I pulled over to sit in the
• 50:59
  shade of a tree and let the wind die down.
• 51:02
  I waited 3 hours before the storm subsided.
• 51:05
  By that point I was worried I was going to be stuck there for
• 51:08
  days. I got back on the road feeling
• 51:11
  excited to continue. I saw a hitchhiker standing near
• 51:15
  4 abandoned buildings. The wind was 100° and the sun
• 51:19
  was unrelenting. As I passed, he mined, drinking
• 51:22
  from a cup to indicate that he was thirsty.
• 51:25
  But I didn't stop. I was thirsty too, and already
• 51:28
  rationing the little water I had left.
• 51:31
  Any that I gave away would only make my own situation more
• 51:34
  precarious and I wasn't even sure when I'd be able to get
• 51:37
  water again. On the other hand, a thirsty man
• 51:41
  asked me for water. I considered my options for 100
• 51:44
  yards before turning back. The man was in a piteous state.
• 51:49
  He had nothing with him except the worn out clothes he was
• 51:51
  wearing. His lips were chapped, and from
• 51:54
  the way he was slouching, I could tell that he was weary
• 51:56
  from the heat. I wondered if he was looking at
• 51:59
  me, thinking all the same things.
• 52:02
  I handed him the bottle off my bike with the last of my water.
• 52:05
  He obviously wasn't familiar with the way a squirt bottle
• 52:08
  works, and I was grossed out when he sucked on the nozzle.
• 52:12
  He drank only half of what was left, which I thought was
• 52:15
  courteous of him. A half hour later, I saw the man
• 52:19
  again. He'd caught a ride ahead to the
• 52:21
  next intersection. As I passed, we smiled and waved
• 52:25
  to each other. I wouldn't have felt mortified
• 52:27
  if I had snubbed him. Then we met a second time.
• 52:30
  In that moment, I learned that karma follows too closely to
• 52:34
  ever deny water to someone who's thirsty.
• 52:37
  Given what I'm doing, there's a chance I'll be in his shoes
• 52:40
  sooner than I think. I was on the lookout for more
• 52:43
  water to filter when I unexpectedly came across a fancy
• 52:46
  new hotel. There is no towns around, and
• 52:50
  the place seemed too extravagant for the local farm community to
• 52:53
  support. With water bottles in hand, I
• 52:56
  stepped into the impressive front lobby.
• 52:58
  I was silently questioning the business sent to the owners when
• 53:02
  they walked out of the backroom to greet me.
• 53:05
  The man was in his mid 40s. His wife was a little younger.
• 53:08
  They wore fashionable clothing that seemed out of place in the
• 53:11
  countryside. When we struggled to
• 53:13
  communicate, the woman called her daughter, who speaks
• 53:16
  English, then handed me the smartphone to talk.
• 53:19
  The moment I stepped out of the hot wind, I'd begun to sweat
• 53:23
  profusely. I hesitated, but without another
• 53:26
  option, I placed a phone against my wet face.
• 53:29
  Daughter asked me if I wanted a room, but I told her I was just
• 53:32
  there for water. I was embarrassed to hand the
• 53:35
  phone back to the mother with sweat running down the screen,
• 53:38
  but she didn't seem to mind. I drank 2 liters of water and
• 53:42
  then packed 8 more into my bags. The couple came outside to see
• 53:46
  me off and gave me a cold green soda for the road.
• 53:49
  They were nice people. I hope that hotel works out for
• 53:52
  them. Late in the afternoon, I left
• 53:56
  the road following a tractor path in search of a place to
• 53:58
  sleep out in the farmland, I found a spot in the peaceful
• 54:02
  Grove of trees along the Bank of a dry river.
• 54:05
  I filled the evening lying in my hammock, watching the lingering
• 54:09
  sunset and appreciating the silence.
• 54:27
  June 14th, 2013 Everything is leaking.
• 54:32
  Sleeping in my hammock is colder than lying on the ground.
• 54:35
  The ground retains my body heat while the air around my hammock
• 54:38
  is constantly replaced. To keep myself warm, I put a
• 54:41
  three quarter inch air mattress in my hammock, which I inflate
• 54:44
  as much as I can to create a flat platform for my back.
• 54:48
  The mattress used to work great, but since Ukraine the air
• 54:51
  escapes over a six hour period while I sleep.
• 54:54
  I have a patch kit, but the leak is so slow that I haven't been
• 54:58
  able to find a hole. A more concerning leak is coming
• 55:01
  from the big toe on my right foot.
• 55:03
  The area is swollen and yellow pus has been crusting the inside
• 55:07
  of my sock for days. The problem is the same as I had
• 55:10
  two weeks ago on my left foot. Loosening my shoelace worked
• 55:14
  then, so I'm trying that for this foot too.
• 55:18
  My trailer tire is also leaking. I didn't realize until I got to
• 55:21
  camp yesterday that the tube had almost no pressure.
• 55:25
  All day long I had a dragging pace.
• 55:27
  Usually I blame my bike when I'm going slow, even though my tired
• 55:31
  legs are always the culprit. Having learned that lesson, I
• 55:35
  assume my legs were tired yesterday too.
• 55:37
  But this time the problem actually was my bike.
• 55:41
  I patched the tube last night, but the tire was flat again.
• 55:44
  This morning I found a second hole, patched the tube a second
• 55:47
  time, and proceeded to tear the stem while I was pumping.
• 55:51
  The stem couldn't be fixed, so I got out a spare tube and started
• 55:54
  all over. The whole exercise was a
• 55:56
  frustrating start to the day. I left my campsite pedaling into
• 56:01
  a stiff headwind. The land was flat, but the kid
• 56:04
  anywhere I had to pedal as hard as if I were climbing a steep
• 56:07
  mountain. I decided to alternate an hour
• 56:09
  of biking with an hour of resting with the hope that the
• 56:12
  wind would subside before I ran out of energy.
• 56:15
  I played guitar on the first break, napped on the 2nd, and
• 56:19
  read a book during the third. In some ways, I'm on a very
• 56:23
  leisurely adventure. A tick crawling on my neck woke
• 56:28
  me up this morning. I tossed the parasite out of my
• 56:30
  hammock, wondering if that was the only one.
• 56:33
  I hadn't been thinking about ticks, but this evening I
• 56:36
  couldn't help but notice I was walking through a lot of tall
• 56:39
  grass and brush to get to my camping spot.
• 56:42
  I would check for them on my body, but I never take my
• 56:44
  clothes off. Instead I've decided to simply
• 56:48
  do what's easiest and ignore the possibility all together.
• 56:51
  I'll just find them on me when I feel them.
• 56:55
  Today stands out as the first day of the journey that it did
• 56:58
  not speak to anyone. The road skirted around towns
• 57:02
  and I didn't stop at any stores or gas stations.
• 57:05
  Perhaps the more interesting perspective is that I've talked
• 57:07
  to someone new every day for the past 120 days.
• 57:11
  I'm both out here alone and more social than I have ever been.
• 57:30
  June 15th, 2013 Visiting Samara. In small ways I'm beginning to
• 57:37
  absorb the Russian language. International words like
• 57:40
  ketchup, cafe and vodka are spelled phonetically in the
• 57:43
  Russian alphabet, which allows me to see the translation.
• 57:47
  Brand names are also good for this.
• 57:50
  I saw an IKEA today and learned that a backwards N is the same
• 57:53
  as an I. I feel like I'm learning to read
• 57:56
  again, which is very exciting. The first word I came to
• 58:00
  understand is magazine. I see the word written on the
• 58:03
  signs in front of the little shops where I buy food.
• 58:06
  One word is a small start, but using a questioning tone I can
• 58:10
  now ask where to find a store. The road brought me into the
• 58:14
  city of Samara. I pulled into a park to eat
• 58:16
  lunch, but there are no benches to sit on.
• 58:19
  This has been typical in the Russian cities.
• 58:22
  The public spaces have a minimalist aesthetic, free of
• 58:25
  art, plants, or even places to sit.
• 58:28
  They're little more than large paved areas, uninviting, and
• 58:32
  typically empty. I can't tell if this style of
• 58:35
  park is born from Russian values or if what I'm seeing is merely
• 58:39
  reflection of the economic circumstances.
• 58:42
  Perhaps they're built specifically to be used for
• 58:44
  military parades. They would be good for that.
• 58:48
  The highlight of Samara was a 223 foot tall Russian R7 rocket
• 58:53
  pointing skyward over the entrance to the Aerospace
• 58:56
  Museum. The monument to Science and
• 58:58
  Engineering was a welcome change from the memorials to war,
• 59:02
  though that particular rocket was designed to carry nuclear
• 59:05
  warheads before being repurposed to launch satellites.
• 59:10
  Just outside of the city, I stopped at an enormous shopping
• 59:13
  mall to buy extra spare tubes. Three large multi level
• 59:17
  buildings were connected by skyways and I walked a long way
• 59:21
  to find a sporting goods store. After making my purchase, I
• 59:24
  realized I had no idea how to get back to where I left my
• 59:27
  bike. I tried retracing my steps.
• 59:30
  I'd have been wandering aimlessly to find the store and
• 59:33
  everywhere I went look kind of the same.
• 59:35
  I walked for over an hour before finding my bike.
• 59:39
  Across all of Europe. I've never felt more lost than I
• 59:41
  did in that mall. I got on the highway following
• 59:45
  signs for the city of Ufa. The first one said I was 430
• 59:49
  kilometers away. A mile later, a second sign
• 59:53
  pegged the distance at 440 kilometers, 1/3 sign said 460
• 59:58
  kilometers and a fourth sign guessed 420 kilometers.
• 1:00:03
  The distance is not actually important to me.
• 1:00:06
  I'll arrive when I get there. This evening I ran from the road
• 1:00:10
  and made my way into a strip of forest between farm fields.
• 1:00:14
  My hammock is hanging between rows of thick white trees.
• 1:00:18
  Underbrush with bright green leaves grows up around me.
• 1:00:21
  The spot is quite beautiful. I laid in my hammock to eat my
• 1:00:25
  dinner and looked up through the branches at the blue sky beyond.
• 1:00:44
  June 16th, 2013 Gary. I could see my breath in the
• 1:00:50
  cold morning air. I wanted to sleep until the day
• 1:00:53
  warmed up, but I had camped too close to the road.
• 1:00:56
  Loud trucks that woke me through the night also wouldn't let me
• 1:00:59
  sleep in. I got up and pedaled into a
• 1:01:02
  bucolic landscape of green rolling farm fields interspersed
• 1:01:06
  with patches of open forests. A few miles into my ride, I
• 1:01:11
  stopped the snack on a package of Americinsky cookies that I
• 1:01:14
  purchased at a gas station. It turned out to be chocolate
• 1:01:17
  chip. I never thought of chocolate
• 1:01:20
  chip cookies as distinctly American, but I don't mind
• 1:01:23
  claiming them. I was getting ready to leave
• 1:01:26
  when another cyclist pulled up on a loaded bike, a man named
• 1:01:30
  Gary. He had a long Gray beard and
• 1:01:32
  looked to be in his 50s. Most notably, he wore a black
• 1:01:36
  Boulders hat. Gary was friendly and his
• 1:01:40
  English was just good enough to have a conversation.
• 1:01:43
  He said that his trip began in Munich a month ago, and we'll
• 1:01:45
  take him across Russia then, maybe as far as Alaska.
• 1:01:50
  I offered him a cookie, Then we started down the road together.
• 1:01:54
  An hour later, Gary was lost somewhere behind me.
• 1:01:57
  His bike looked very heavy, and though I waited, I never did see
• 1:02:01
  him again. At this point I have mixed
• 1:02:03
  feelings about traveling with someone else.
• 1:02:06
  I like the simplicity of not having to consider anyone but
• 1:02:09
  me. Though a couple of days company
• 1:02:11
  might be good too. Maybe I'll see him again.
• 1:02:14
  There's only one road and we are both on it tonight and between
• 1:02:19
  fields in a strip of white Aspen trees.
• 1:02:22
  As I hung my hammock I noticed a white spider camouflage against
• 1:02:26
  a tree bark. How beautiful for a spider to
• 1:02:29
  evolve to match the color of the forest.
• 1:02:46
  June 17th, 2013 Pretty Hills The rolling hills grew larger
• 1:02:53
  through the day as they edged into the Euro Mountains.
• 1:02:57
  From the top of each climb I struck by the lovely view.
• 1:03:00
  Delicate clouds drifted across the deep blue sky.
• 1:03:04
  Tall, feathery wisps of golden grass shown in the sunlight.
• 1:03:08
  Butterflies danced on the wind. Getting into the hills has been
• 1:03:13
  particularly good for my butt. I'm blistered and bruised from
• 1:03:17
  so much sitting, but in the hills I naturally stand more
• 1:03:20
  often. After just a couple of days my
• 1:03:23
  butt is in a lot less pain but my legs are much more tired.
• 1:03:28
  Powering up the climbs has been hard for me.
• 1:03:31
  The past five weeks of flat roads have acclimated me to a
• 1:03:34
  much gentler resistance. I passed a few small towns today
• 1:03:38
  but they were always a couple miles from the highway.
• 1:03:42
  Yesterday was the same. I haven't detoured into the
• 1:03:45
  villages but I do visit the truck stops.
• 1:03:48
  I sit with my bike in the shade and usually someone will come
• 1:03:52
  over to say hello. Today a trucker approached me to
• 1:03:56
  say that he had seen me biking yesterday too.
• 1:03:59
  I tried to ask him if he saw Gary as well, but he only spoke
• 1:04:02
  Russian and I wasn't able to make myself clear.
• 1:04:06
  I was wet with sweat when I pulled into a truck stop this
• 1:04:09
  afternoon. The temperature I've been nearly
• 1:04:12
  100° for hours. Both my pants and shirts were
• 1:04:15
  striped with salt lines and covered in Rd.
• 1:04:18
  Gray. I felt like such a mess that I
• 1:04:20
  was embarrassed to go into the store.
• 1:04:23
  But my thinking changed when I saw a rotund trucker climb down
• 1:04:26
  from his cab wearing only soggy white underpants.
• 1:04:29
  I realized that we were all struggling out here in the heat
• 1:04:32
  together, and I could hardly be held accountable for my
• 1:04:34
  appearance. Feeling blameless, I walked into
• 1:04:38
  the store to buy ice cream. At least I was wearing pants
• 1:04:43
  this evening. I pushed my bike far from the
• 1:04:45
  road to find this beautiful quiet spot.
• 1:04:48
  I hung my hammock where I can look out at the dark farm field
• 1:04:51
  since star filled sky. I feel wonderful and tired.
• 1:05:10
  June 18th, 2013 Crows. I've crossed a religious border
• 1:05:16
  between Roman Catholic and Ethan Orthodoxy.
• 1:05:20
  The line is less distinct than a state border, but the churches
• 1:05:23
  are a giveaway. Inside, the art no longer
• 1:05:26
  focuses so specifically on the gruesome death of Jesus.
• 1:05:30
  Instead, the interiors are gaudy, decorated liberally with
• 1:05:34
  gold foil and flourishes of neon lights.
• 1:05:38
  The walls are covered in brightly painted scenes with
• 1:05:40
  characters and such multitudes that they evoke a clear feeling
• 1:05:44
  of clutter. The crosses have changed too,
• 1:05:47
  from the Roman Catholic tee to the three bar Cross of Ether and
• 1:05:51
  Orthodoxy. Even the church steeples are a
• 1:05:54
  different shape. The sharp Spires of Western
• 1:05:57
  Europe have been replaced by tear shaped domes covered in
• 1:06:00
  polished gold. The tear shaped and mirror
• 1:06:03
  finish has an effect of creating a beacon that directs the sun
• 1:06:07
  into the eyes of all who look. They're blinding and stand out
• 1:06:11
  for miles away. I carried on climbing over low
• 1:06:15
  hills on weary legs. I was going slow, but some of
• 1:06:19
  the trucks were barely faster. They crept past me with black
• 1:06:22
  smoke pouring from their tailpipe.
• 1:06:25
  I would try to hold my breath until the air cleared, but on
• 1:06:28
  the steep hills I would still end up gasping in a long full of
• 1:06:31
  exhaust. During the hottest part of the
• 1:06:34
  afternoon, I rejoiced to find a spring flowing steadily from a
• 1:06:38
  thin copper pipe stuck into a hillside.
• 1:06:41
  I drank with abandoned and delighted and rinsing my face, I
• 1:06:45
  lingered to enjoy the feeling of abundance created by the flowing
• 1:06:48
  water. For as long as I stood there, I
• 1:06:51
  could drink as much as I wanted. I've not seen much wildlife
• 1:06:55
  other than birds, mostly crows. Dead trees along the road will
• 1:07:00
  occasionally be the home to hundreds of them.
• 1:07:03
  Their black squawking mass fills every branch.
• 1:07:07
  There are so many that one will inevitably get killed by a
• 1:07:10
  passing truck. Some of the living birds fly to
• 1:07:13
  the road to eat the dead and they too are killed.
• 1:07:16
  Eventually a dozen birds are ground to a paste in the middle
• 1:07:19
  of the lane, while 100 more look down from the trees and scream a
• 1:07:24
  bicycle past this sad, gruesome scene.
• 1:07:27
  Again this afternoon I needed to find a place to sleep, but
• 1:07:31
  pedaled another hour to be sure I was far away from the mournful
• 1:07:34
  creatures. Eventually I pushed my bike into
• 1:07:37
  a narrow strip of forest between the farm fields.
• 1:07:55
  June 19th, 2013. Honey.
• 1:08:00
  I've started seeing honey stands.
• 1:08:02
  They congregate in groups at the gas station and crossroads.
• 1:08:06
  I saw as many as ten of them together, each stand within
• 1:08:09
  arm's reach of the next. I wanted honey, but I thought
• 1:08:13
  that buying from one would disappoint the other 9.
• 1:08:16
  I decided the fair thing to do was to keep going and disappoint
• 1:08:20
  them all equally. An hour later, I bought a jar of
• 1:08:24
  dark golden honey from a guy parked by himself.
• 1:08:28
  I surprised him when he pulled up silently on my bike.
• 1:08:31
  All the car doors were open and he was lying in the back seat
• 1:08:34
  with the radio on. Along with the honey, he gave me
• 1:08:38
  a small handful of pollen pellets that collect on the legs
• 1:08:41
  of the bees. They're half the size of a rice
• 1:08:43
  grain and the colors of flowers, soft yellow, orange and pink.
• 1:08:49
  The slightly sweet pellets broke into a powder as I chewed them.
• 1:08:54
  For much of the day. The road was only two narrow
• 1:08:56
  lanes which made passing difficult for the trucks.
• 1:09:00
  They would line up behind the slowest 1, drafting to save fuel
• 1:09:03
  and ready to pass when the busy Rd. allowed.
• 1:09:07
  This way driving obstructed the view of all the drivers except
• 1:09:10
  for the man in front. When the first truck moved over
• 1:09:13
  to give room, the rest would follow like a snake without ever
• 1:09:16
  seeing what they were avoiding as they roared past.
• 1:09:20
  I rode the white line and watched closely in my rearview
• 1:09:23
  mirror. Each passing truck required me
• 1:09:25
  to make a split second decision whether to dart off the road or
• 1:09:29
  trust that they would move. The situation was undeniably
• 1:09:32
  dangerous, but in the moment I felt calm and in control.
• 1:09:37
  After months of practice, I've become quite good at playing in
• 1:09:40
  traffic. I was getting stomach pains in
• 1:09:44
  the afternoon. I may have been overheating or
• 1:09:47
  dehydrated. Perhaps something was in the
• 1:09:49
  unfiltered spring water I filled my bottles with yesterday, or
• 1:09:53
  maybe the unrefrigerated cheese I've been eating had affected
• 1:09:56
  me. The pain was sharp, but I
• 1:09:59
  managed to pedal for a couple of hours more until finally setting
• 1:10:02
  up camp in the strip of trees between farm fields.
• 1:10:06
  I only began to feel better after an hour of resting and
• 1:10:09
  drinking water, and a breath of air is blowing and just lying
• 1:10:13
  here in my hammock. I'm dripping with sweat.
• 1:10:31
  June 20th, 2013 Ufa I arrived in the city of Ufa this afternoon.
• 1:10:39
  The highway brought me to a busy intersection without a traffic
• 1:10:41
  light. I waited for 20 minutes before
• 1:10:44
  sprinting through a narrow gap in the cars.
• 1:10:47
  For Russian City, experience didn't even seem out of place.
• 1:10:51
  I found a hostel and walked in to see that the clock hanging in
• 1:10:54
  the lobby was 3 hours ahead of my bike computer.
• 1:10:58
  I crossed two time zones without noticing.
• 1:11:01
  Seemingly more than just losing track of time, I've lost any
• 1:11:05
  reason to keep track in the 1st place.
• 1:11:09
  Another touring bike was parked at the front door, one that I
• 1:11:12
  recognized. Gary from five days ago had beat
• 1:11:16
  me there. I underestimated him, deceived
• 1:11:19
  by his long Gray beard. The first day we met, he biked
• 1:11:23
  late into the day and passed me while I was camping.
• 1:11:26
  He called out into the trees looking for me, but I set up my
• 1:11:29
  hammock too far from the road to hear him.
• 1:11:32
  He's been ahead of me this whole time and was even fast enough to
• 1:11:35
  arrive at the hostel yesterday. In the evening we went on a walk
• 1:11:39
  together to find a bike shop. Gary needed tires and I wanted
• 1:11:43
  more tubes. The city was playing the vast
• 1:11:46
  majority of buildings being simple white rectangles,
• 1:11:50
  efficient and dull. I've become worldly enough to
• 1:11:53
  know that they looked very Russian.
• 1:11:56
  I talked to Katie tonight. We are approaching the opposite
• 1:11:59
  sides of the Earth. The sun over her is illuminating
• 1:12:03
  the moon over me. She started writing a research
• 1:12:06
  paper and was working when I called.
• 1:12:08
  Later. She's meeting a friend at the
• 1:12:10
  climbing gym. I miss climbing with Katie.
• 1:12:14
  I always liked watching the way she moved.
• 1:12:17
  The hills these past few days have exhausted me.
• 1:12:20
  I was planning on resting at the hostel tomorrow, but I like
• 1:12:23
  Gary's company so I told him we can go together in the morning.
• 1:12:27
  I'll try to sleep a lot tonight, but this old mattress I'm on is
• 1:12:30
  much less comfortable than my hammock.
• 1:12:48
  June 21st, 2013 Biking with Gary.
• 1:12:53
  Gary and I left Oofa together. The ride was easy, with a decent
• 1:12:57
  road and few hills. The fields that have grown
• 1:13:00
  accustomed to seeing we're gone, replaced by grand forest of
• 1:13:03
  spruce, fir, pine and Aspen. I've reached the southern edge
• 1:13:08
  of the taiga, the world's largest Biome, which circles the
• 1:13:12
  earth like a crown. The new landscape was a welcome
• 1:13:15
  change. Biking with Gary was a nice
• 1:13:19
  change too, but I'm reminded that there is compromise in
• 1:13:22
  relationship. He is slower and takes frequent
• 1:13:25
  short rests, while my habit is to stop every couple of hours
• 1:13:28
  for a long break. Today we kept to his pace to
• 1:13:32
  better deal with the heat. Temperature hovered around 100°
• 1:13:36
  and I drank so much water that my bike was noticeably lighter
• 1:13:39
  by this evening. In the afternoon I was with my
• 1:13:43
  bike at a truck stop when a woman approached me to ask where
• 1:13:46
  I was going. I told her Mongolia and she
• 1:13:49
  raised her hand to her forehead in astonishment.
• 1:13:52
  Feeling inspired to help, she pulled 2 boiled potatoes out of
• 1:13:56
  a plastic bag and placed one in each of my hands.
• 1:13:59
  I thanked her and when Gary came back outside, I shared the
• 1:14:03
  bounty. We sat next to each other on the
• 1:14:05
  curb in front of the truck stop, eating the warm potatoes.
• 1:14:09
  The moment was a happy one. Today's the summer solstice, the
• 1:14:15
  longest day of the year. The sun dropped over the horizon
• 1:14:18
  at 10:00 and the light lingered for another hour.
• 1:14:22
  This far into my journey, I'm struck by how much the sun has
• 1:14:25
  become a character in my life. I spend every waking moment
• 1:14:29
  under the fiery gaze. The first rays in the morning
• 1:14:32
  wake me up during the day, the star becomes my compass, and
• 1:14:36
  across months I've now watched the burning sphere climb to a
• 1:14:40
  high point in the sky. I pay attention because the
• 1:14:44
  sun's presence is impossible to ignore.
• 1:14:48
  I have little doubt that the first story of all mythos was
• 1:14:50
  told about the sun Created at the dawn of humanity.
• 1:14:54
  The tale would have been the first attempt at explaining the
• 1:14:57
  mystery of the universe. The collective knowledge of the
• 1:15:00
  human race would require another 300,000 years to set the record
• 1:15:05
  straight. This evening I got my hammock
• 1:15:09
  set up on the edge of the forest and Gary has his tent next to
• 1:15:12
  me. We followed a quiet dirt road to
• 1:15:15
  get here, but I'm instinctually uncomfortable that we are still
• 1:15:18
  in view of the passing cars. Gary has a big orange tent that
• 1:15:22
  is difficult to hide, and he seems less concerned about
• 1:15:25
  people finding him. Now that I'm not alone, I kind
• 1:15:29
  of feel the same way. June 22nd, 2013.
• 1:15:48
  So many hills. This morning I found wild
• 1:15:52
  strawberries the size of peanuts, ate a few, then showed
• 1:15:56
  them the Gary. He wouldn't try any, saying that
• 1:15:59
  he's afraid of getting worms. I hadn't considered that the
• 1:16:03
  berries were deliciously sweet. I guess I'll find out if they
• 1:16:06
  were worth eating. At least once a day I pass a
• 1:16:10
  little roadside market of open air booths.
• 1:16:13
  Up to a dozen people will be selling all the same cheap gifts
• 1:16:17
  and snacks, along with one item that isn't sold at any of the
• 1:16:20
  other markets. These special items include
• 1:16:23
  dried fish, teapots, bread, giant stuffed animals, and beach
• 1:16:28
  towels printed with women in bikinis.
• 1:16:31
  Specialty items are unique to the market, but they're still
• 1:16:34
  sold by every vendor there today.
• 1:16:38
  Rings are being sold, but the sales pitch is more elaborate
• 1:16:41
  between towns. I came upon a man pulled over
• 1:16:44
  with his hood up and waiting for me to stop.
• 1:16:48
  Two more men and a woman were sitting inside the car.
• 1:16:51
  The guy said he needed money to buy gas and tried to sell me the
• 1:16:54
  ring off his finger, which was thick gold and embedded with
• 1:16:58
  large shining gems. The jewelry was either fake or
• 1:17:01
  cost $50,000. Either way, I didn't want a
• 1:17:05
  ring. He wanted me to inspect the
• 1:17:08
  quality and kept trying to pass the ring to me, but I wouldn't
• 1:17:11
  put my hand out. His sales pitch became more
• 1:17:14
  desperate and pleading the longer I stood there.
• 1:17:18
  Eventually, I needed to go and biked away, wondering if that
• 1:17:22
  was really the best way for four adults to make a living.
• 1:17:25
  Why didn't they set up a ring booth at one of the markets?
• 1:17:29
  Less than half a mile down the road, another car was pulled
• 1:17:32
  over with its hood up. As I peddled past, two young men
• 1:17:36
  wait frantically for me to stop. Bright gold rings on their
• 1:17:39
  fingers gleamed in the sunshine. Not even the scammers get a
• 1:17:43
  monopoly around here. I stopped by father and son out
• 1:17:48
  sightseeing for the weekend. The son spoke English and asked
• 1:17:51
  if he could take my picture. He already got a picture of Gary
• 1:17:55
  from somewhere down the road behind me.
• 1:17:57
  While I pose with my bike, he asked a question that I get a
• 1:18:00
  lot. Why are you doing this?
• 1:18:03
  I know why, but even for me, I struggled to believe the answer.
• 1:18:08
  I said I'm here to ride my bike and sleep in my hammock.
• 1:18:11
  They looked at me skeptically, wanting more.
• 1:18:14
  I feel the same way. I left a really decent life, my
• 1:18:18
  career, my friends. Katie.
• 1:18:20
  Also that I could pedal and sleep.
• 1:18:23
  Stated so simply, I can't help but question my decision.
• 1:18:27
  I know that what I'm doing brings me great joy, but like
• 1:18:30
  these two men, I struggle to believe that is enough of a
• 1:18:33
  reason. Abandoning the life I had to do
• 1:18:36
  what makes me happy feels ultimately selfish.
• 1:18:40
  If I were forced to justify this journey, I could only point to
• 1:18:43
  the smiling people I leave in my wake.
• 1:18:46
  Certainly the father and son were happy to spend a minute
• 1:18:49
  pondering my bike ride around the world.
• 1:18:54
  I got out ahead of Gary today and felt better to be going at
• 1:18:57
  my own pace. Every dozen miles or so I'd wait
• 1:19:00
  for him at a gas station. The temperature was 100° under
• 1:19:04
  the searing heat and at each stop we bonded over a shared
• 1:19:08
  love of ice cream. Like connoisseurs, we
• 1:19:11
  recommended our favorite brands and spoke at length about the
• 1:19:14
  preferences for ice cream on a stick versus in the form of a
• 1:19:17
  sandwich, chocolate dipped or plain, with or without nuts.
• 1:19:23
  My favorite Russian ice cream is called likomka, a vanilla log
• 1:19:27
  with a soft chocolate outside the consistency of Styrofoam.
• 1:19:32
  Through the day, we climb the vertical, mile 1 short, steep
• 1:19:36
  hill at a time. I felt exhausted and would have
• 1:19:39
  stopped sooner, but Gary's in more of a hurry than I am.
• 1:19:43
  He's traveling to a commune in eastern Russia.
• 1:19:46
  They don't consume alcohol, drugs, or even eat meat.
• 1:19:50
  He says the land is so clean that the people drink from the
• 1:19:52
  rivers. His birthday is in a month and
• 1:19:55
  he's eager to arrive before then.
• 1:19:58
  At 10:30 PM, the sunset was still lingering in the sky when
• 1:20:01
  Gary and I pulled into a dirt lot alongside the road.
• 1:20:06
  A man stepped out of a faded to the trailer home to greet us.
• 1:20:09
  A piece of spray painted plywood indicated we found a cafe, but
• 1:20:14
  the guy obviously lived there too.
• 1:20:16
  He was exceedingly cheerful and a little drunk.
• 1:20:20
  I asked about a place to camp with the point of his finger.
• 1:20:23
  He sent us to a lovely patch of forest on a hill above his
• 1:20:26
  trailer. June 23rd, 2013.
• 1:20:45
  Pretty day in the Ural Mountains.
• 1:20:48
  There's a cultural tick that I've noticed at the Russian bus
• 1:20:51
  stops. Like bus stops everywhere.
• 1:20:53
  People look down the road while they wait, and in the planes
• 1:20:56
  they see me coming for 10 minutes before I get to them.
• 1:21:00
  When I finally arrive, I'm completely ignored.
• 1:21:03
  Nobody turns their head or even follows me with their eyes.
• 1:21:06
  But as soon as I pass and watch in my mirror to see a dozen
• 1:21:10
  heads pivot in unison as every person turns to look, I find
• 1:21:14
  this to be the perfect reaction. In Romania and Serbia, I didn't
• 1:21:18
  like how much attention I got and at the same time I silently
• 1:21:22
  judged anyone that didn't think I was interesting.
• 1:21:25
  In this way, I left myself no room to be comfortable.
• 1:21:29
  The Russian people have found the sweet spot.
• 1:21:31
  They both ignore me and give me the attention I desire.
• 1:21:36
  In the afternoon, a local man bicycled with Gary and I for a
• 1:21:39
  few miles. I've been on this highway for
• 1:21:42
  over 800 kilometers and Gary for 1000.
• 1:21:45
  Today was the first time that either of us had seen another
• 1:21:48
  cyclist besides each other. We are peddling for months,
• 1:21:52
  risking our lives and torturous heat to bicycle across the vast
• 1:21:56
  and unchanging Russian plane. Of all the people in the world,
• 1:22:00
  we're the only ones who want to be here.
• 1:22:04
  The road has not passed directly through any towns and at this
• 1:22:07
  point Gary and I have both run out of food.
• 1:22:11
  We are relying solely on the sporadic and questionable truck
• 1:22:14
  stop cafes. Twice today I filled up on
• 1:22:18
  delicious baked bread stuffed with meat and vegetables.
• 1:22:22
  Gary is vegetarian and is having a harder time finding food.
• 1:22:26
  Yesterday he didn't find anything to eat and today he got
• 1:22:29
  a plate of cabbage with sliced tomatoes.
• 1:22:32
  I could see his frustration as he chewed on the dry leaves.
• 1:22:36
  I'm sure he was hungry. Since I met Gary, he has
• 1:22:39
  occasionally mentioned his doctor in weird context.
• 1:22:43
  He said he learned English from his doctor.
• 1:22:45
  He helped build his doctor's house.
• 1:22:47
  He told me his doctor recently got married.
• 1:22:50
  Today I finally realized he was saying daughter.
• 1:22:54
  I tried to clearly enunciate each word for him, but he
• 1:22:57
  couldn't hear the difference. Gary actually has two daughters,
• 1:23:01
  both in their 20s. He started a relationship with
• 1:23:04
  their mother when the oldest was four and they split up a decade
• 1:23:07
  later. He's opposed to having children
• 1:23:10
  of his own, but was happy to step into the father role for
• 1:23:13
  the 2 girls. He left on this journey only
• 1:23:16
  because he felt both girls were stable and on their own.
• 1:23:20
  I asked Gary about telling people we are tourists.
• 1:23:23
  The word tourist is a universal word that is understood in every
• 1:23:26
  language I've come across and Gary has noticed this too.
• 1:23:30
  We both say Taurus because that is the easiest way to explain
• 1:23:34
  what we are doing, but the word doesn't feel exactly accurate.
• 1:23:38
  He thought for a moment before saying we're not even tourists
• 1:23:41
  because we don't visit towns. We are only drivers just going
• 1:23:46
  and not stopping. He's right.
• 1:23:49
  I'm here for the driving, not the visiting.
• 1:23:53
  Tonight, after a full day of pedaling over hills, we push
• 1:23:56
  your bikes off the road and found a beautiful place to sleep
• 1:23:59
  in the forest. I've got my hammock hanging.
• 1:24:02
  Gary's tent is right next to me. June 24th, 2013, Asia.
• 1:24:25
  Gary wants to live in Russia, and so he's more active in
• 1:24:28
  practicing the language than I am.
• 1:24:30
  At one of our ice cream stops, he chatted with the cashier who
• 1:24:33
  told him that in February a meteorite exploded over Russia
• 1:24:37
  and landed in the lake across the street.
• 1:24:40
  I remember seeing the dash Cam videos in the news.
• 1:24:44
  The space rock burned across the morning sky and the Sonic boom
• 1:24:47
  broke windows on the ground. I even saw pictures of the snow
• 1:24:51
  covered lake where the debris landed, which was suddenly right
• 1:24:54
  in front of me, now fully thawed.
• 1:24:57
  Stepping back outside, I looked upwards suspiciously, checking
• 1:25:01
  for signs that the sky was about to fall.
• 1:25:04
  I was relieved to see that all the clouds appeared to be in the
• 1:25:06
  right places. The road to the mountains has
• 1:25:10
  signs marking the grade and length of every hill, but the
• 1:25:13
  grade was always wrong and the lengths were consistently off by
• 1:25:17
  a kilometer or more. Someone went through the trouble
• 1:25:20
  of making installing hundreds of these signs, but ignored the
• 1:25:23
  part that made them useful. Even on short hills, where the
• 1:25:27
  top was clearly visible from the bottom, the signs were obviously
• 1:25:30
  wrong. Doing nothing would have been
• 1:25:33
  better. At least the drivers wouldn't be
• 1:25:35
  deceived. Gary and I are deep in the Ural
• 1:25:38
  Mountains, which marks the border between Europe and Asia.
• 1:25:42
  Neither of us have ever been to Asia before and we are both
• 1:25:45
  excited to arrive. Reply He said.
• 1:25:48
  Russia is not Asia, only Kazakhstan and Mongolia are
• 1:25:51
  Asia. The cultural demarcation seemed
• 1:25:55
  to not match the geographical. One had little hope that there
• 1:25:58
  would be a sign, but in the afternoon I crested the last
• 1:26:02
  hill of Europe to discover a marker made of concrete and
• 1:26:05
  stone and steel. One side read Asia and the other
• 1:26:09
  side Europa. Gary and I cheered and
• 1:26:13
  congratulated each other. I was glad he's with me to share
• 1:26:16
  the moment. I sat in the shade of the sign
• 1:26:19
  to reflect on the fact that I had just.
• 1:26:21
  Ridden a bicycle? Across the continent of Europe,
• 1:26:24
  the sense of accomplishment was amazing and I was awash and a
• 1:26:28
  joyous feeling of pride. But I also wasn't done.
• 1:26:32
  My excitement for Asia pulled me forward and I felt the momentum
• 1:26:35
  of 8600 kilometers behind me. With one more pedal stroke, I
• 1:26:40
  began to roll downhill, beginning the crossing of
• 1:26:43
  another continent, a bigger one. Tonight I'm in a Grove of Aspen
• 1:26:48
  trees with a magnificent. Wide view of the.
• 1:26:50
  Fields and forests, clouds drift by, the sun is slowly setting,
• 1:26:56
  honey bees dance between the wildflowers.
• 1:26:59
  The spot is beautiful, warm and serene.
• 1:27:03
  This is my first impression of Asia, and a good one.
• 1:27:24
  2013. Asian Hills.
• 1:27:28
  I had a tough day, rough Rd. surface and patches of.
• 1:27:31
  Hot bubbling tar. Dragged on my tires, the
• 1:27:34
  shoulder was so narrow that my painters hungover the white
• 1:27:37
  line. When trucks squeezed past me,
• 1:27:40
  they kicked up dirt, which was blown sharply into my face by
• 1:27:43
  stiff headwind. All day long, sweat stung my
• 1:27:46
  eyes. The mountains are behind me, but
• 1:27:49
  the aching fatigue they left in my thighs has yet to go away.
• 1:27:53
  I felt nauseous in the heat. My low back has begun to ache,
• 1:27:57
  the first signs that I'm fighting a cold.
• 1:28:00
  I labored forward, frustrated and uncomfortable.
• 1:28:04
  Gary seemed to be in his own process.
• 1:28:07
  We left this morning and tent on getting far enough past the city
• 1:28:10
  of. Chellabinsk to find.
• 1:28:11
  Camping. After 7 hours of peddling, we
• 1:28:15
  found ourselves downtown, still a dozen miles from where we
• 1:28:18
  might find a place to stop. My legs were exhausted and I
• 1:28:21
  convinced Gary to stop at a shopping mall so I could call
• 1:28:24
  Katie. I needed her moral support.
• 1:28:28
  I could tell he didn't like being there, and he offered to
• 1:28:30
  stay with the bikes. I understood how he felt.
• 1:28:33
  After months of living like we have, being near a mall is raw.
• 1:28:37
  Consumerism has become objectionable.
• 1:28:40
  I didn't stay for long though. When I called Katie the sun was
• 1:28:44
  not yet shining on her side of the earth.
• 1:28:47
  She answered with a weak hello and I softly said good morning
• 1:28:51
  Katie to a fog asleep. She asked.
• 1:28:54
  Where are you? I said I'm very far away.
• 1:28:57
  The connection was lost. Before she could reply I heard
• 1:29:01
  her voice and that was enough to lift my spirit.
• 1:29:04
  I let her sleep in the morning. She wonder if the call was a
• 1:29:08
  dream. Tonight I'm in my hammock
• 1:29:12
  snacking. On Americanski cookies.
• 1:29:15
  And watching leaves twitch in the wind.
• 1:29:17
  My stomach is better, the air is beginning to cool, and after
• 1:29:21
  such a hard day, I'm glad to be feeling so good.
• 1:29:40
  2013. Restful Day.
• 1:29:45
  Bike touring is a practice of going and resting.
• 1:29:48
  For two people. Traveling together, the ratio
• 1:29:51
  must match. Gary and I have not been a great
• 1:29:53
  fit in this way. He's in a hurry to get somewhere
• 1:29:57
  and motivated to ride until the sun goes down.
• 1:30:00
  Through these long days, we can fit in 10 hours of biking.
• 1:30:04
  I, on the other hand, am in no hurry.
• 1:30:07
  Six hours of peddling always seems like enough to me.
• 1:30:11
  This morning, our incongruent paces forced us to part.
• 1:30:15
  After sitting together and enjoying one last ice cream,
• 1:30:19
  Jerry told me he needed to go. He said we all have our journey
• 1:30:22
  planned in our hearts. We are not on the same one.
• 1:30:26
  We shook hands and gave each other a hug.
• 1:30:29
  I sad to watch him pedal away. Traveling with anyone includes a
• 1:30:33
  challenge of relationship. Going alone presents a challenge
• 1:30:37
  of no relationship. I think we are both more
• 1:30:40
  comfortable with the latter. I suspect I'll never see him
• 1:30:43
  again. I pushed my bike into the forest
• 1:30:47
  and set up my hammock. For an early lunch as.
• 1:30:50
  Soon as I plopped down I was happy to be on my own again.
• 1:30:53
  I felt exhausted and just needed to rest without carries
• 1:30:57
  impatience urging me onward. I passed the next 7 hours
• 1:31:01
  sleeping, eating and playing guitar.
• 1:31:04
  While I was there, a white car pulled up to stop on the
• 1:31:07
  shoulder and four people climbed out, two men and two women.
• 1:31:12
  They didn't see me in the forest and I watched as they began to
• 1:31:15
  frantically wave their arms to stop any passing vehicle.
• 1:31:18
  After a few minutes of getting no help, one of the men spotted
• 1:31:21
  me and jogged where I was in my hammock.
• 1:31:24
  He spoke a little English and with an air of desperation he
• 1:31:27
  told me that they were out of gas.
• 1:31:29
  They needed money and the man offered to sell me the ring off
• 1:31:32
  of his finger. I told him I didn't want to buy
• 1:31:35
  his ring, then pointed out that money would not solve the gas
• 1:31:38
  problem. Ioffer my diesel fuel that I use
• 1:31:41
  for cooking, but he wasn't interested and tried again to
• 1:31:44
  sell me the ring. I rebuffed him a few more times
• 1:31:47
  before he went back to the car. The group became uncomfortable
• 1:31:50
  knowing I was watching them, and they soon drove away.
• 1:31:55
  I bicycled a few hours this evening before pulling onto a
• 1:31:58
  dirt. Road and pushing my.
• 1:31:59
  Bike into the forest. This is a good spot for a
• 1:32:02
  hammock, but I'm a little nervous I was spotted by a
• 1:32:05
  passing car. Seemingly.
• 1:32:07
  I only feel safe when no one in the whole world knows where I
• 1:32:11
  am. 2013 More rest.
• 1:32:31
  My legs were weary today. I was happy to be alone so that
• 1:32:35
  I could. Plod along at.
• 1:32:36
  Exactly my own pace. I traveled through a patchwork
• 1:32:39
  of forests and farmland. The clear blue sky in the
• 1:32:42
  morning became speckled with soft clouds.
• 1:32:45
  By the afternoon, traffic was light.
• 1:32:48
  As I go farther E, the traffic keeps getting lighter.
• 1:32:51
  The difference is noticeable with each large city I put
• 1:32:54
  behind me. At a gas station this morning, I
• 1:32:58
  stopped to fill my. Water and was quickly
• 1:33:00
  surrounded. By a large extended family.
• 1:33:02
  On vacation, the many children poked at my gear.
• 1:33:06
  The grandfather tried to give me a gaudy chain with a plastic
• 1:33:09
  gold cross. I declined, but he persisted in
• 1:33:12
  his friendliness, offering me a drink of vodka instead.
• 1:33:17
  I said no again. The frantic children and the
• 1:33:20
  adults pressing in around me was overwhelming.
• 1:33:23
  I had to politely shoo them all away.
• 1:33:26
  I don't know where they are going, but they had been in the
• 1:33:28
  car for far too long. The gas station attendants
• 1:33:32
  noticed the interaction and were laughing.
• 1:33:35
  Across Russia, the gas station workers have been my main point
• 1:33:38
  of contact with the population. I like them and feel like I make
• 1:33:42
  a friend at every gas station I go to.
• 1:33:45
  Their long, dull shifts have instilled within them a subdued
• 1:33:48
  energy that is easy for me to be around.
• 1:33:52
  I'm slowly building the confidence to try to speak in
• 1:33:54
  Russian. The Russian word for.
• 1:33:56
  Bread is one that I've recently learned.
• 1:33:59
  Bread is my main source of calories, so I'm always running
• 1:34:02
  out and I've been asking the gas pump attendants where I can find
• 1:34:05
  more. With the inflection of a
• 1:34:07
  question, I say kleb. Then with an exaggerated look of
• 1:34:11
  confusion, I point in several directions to indicate that I
• 1:34:15
  don't know where to find any kleb.
• 1:34:17
  I say again. No one ever seems to understand
• 1:34:20
  what I'm asking for. Perhaps my pronunciation is poor
• 1:34:24
  or just wrong. Maybe they are confused as to
• 1:34:28
  why a guy on a bicycle we're pulling to a gas station, point
• 1:34:31
  randomly at the surrounding fields and repeat the word for
• 1:34:35
  bread. I set up my camp in the early
• 1:34:38
  afternoon and fell. Asleep in my hammock.
• 1:34:41
  I slept for five hours and woke up with the sun just above the
• 1:34:45
  horizon, feeling rested. I got up thinking I'd slept
• 1:34:49
  until morning. I was taking in the new day,
• 1:34:52
  beginning to pack up my gear, when I noticed the sun dropped
• 1:34:55
  behind the trees. Through the rest of the long
• 1:34:58
  twilight. I cooked rice and cheese.
• 1:35:01
  With a can of. Peas.
• 1:35:02
  I played guitar until a string broke.
• 1:35:05
  After that I simply laid in my hammock listening to the birds
• 1:35:10
  until dark. 2013.
• 1:35:29
  Mosquito Swarm At a truck stop, I met a couple of bored young
• 1:35:34
  men in their early. 20s. They lived in a nearby town and
• 1:35:37
  spoke English. One of them asked me what I
• 1:35:39
  thought of Russia. I said I like Russia, it's
• 1:35:43
  really nice here. He replied Russia is not nice,
• 1:35:47
  it is shit. What do you like about it?
• 1:35:50
  His response caught me off guard and I didn't have a quick answer
• 1:35:53
  for him. I've crossed 1500 miles of flat
• 1:35:56
  farm fields in brutal heat. Every city looked Gray and
• 1:36:00
  uninviting. The small towns were far from
• 1:36:03
  vibrant and I was there at the truck stop because there is no
• 1:36:06
  other place to buy food. I could understand their
• 1:36:09
  sentiment, but I wasn't about to agree with them.
• 1:36:13
  I said the people here are very friendly.
• 1:36:16
  As if to prove my point, a man came over just then to give me a
• 1:36:20
  small Russian flag to hang for my trailer flagpole.
• 1:36:23
  I added the flag below the yellow triangle that was already
• 1:36:26
  there. I'm flying a flag that is not my
• 1:36:29
  own nationality and does feel odd.
• 1:36:31
  But I don't want to reject a man's gift and perhaps the flag
• 1:36:35
  will bring me goodwill somewhere down the road.
• 1:36:40
  I was joined on my ride today by large black flies.
• 1:36:42
  Nearly the size of honey. Bees, between one and a dozen of
• 1:36:46
  them, would hover around my handlebars for miles without
• 1:36:49
  ever landing. With little headwind, I was able
• 1:36:52
  to race ahead of them, but more always found me.
• 1:36:55
  Sometimes the fly would be lost to a passing truck, splattered
• 1:36:59
  on the windshield, or bounced off onto the road in front of
• 1:37:02
  me. The flies annoyed me, but I
• 1:37:05
  never liked seeing them killed in that way.
• 1:37:07
  The idea of being taken out by truck was hitting a little too
• 1:37:10
  close to home for me and searching for a place to sleep.
• 1:37:15
  Tonight I followed a dirt. Track away from the road.
• 1:37:18
  Then ducked into a dark forest. I move quickly, in moments when
• 1:37:22
  no vehicle could see me. Once there, I came up against
• 1:37:26
  the densest swarm of mosquitoes I've ever experienced.
• 1:37:29
  They were a buzzing cloud. I was inhaling them.
• 1:37:32
  I could kill a dozen at a time just by clapping my hands.
• 1:37:35
  They covered my shoulders and bit through my shirt.
• 1:37:38
  I tried to defend myself, but I was overwhelmed in a craze.
• 1:37:42
  I turned and ran, pushing my bike at a Sprint to get back to
• 1:37:46
  the road. I was shaken and pedaled for
• 1:37:49
  another hour before I was ready to try again.
• 1:37:53
  I learned my lesson, and for the second attempt, I prepared.
• 1:37:56
  Myself I. Put on my raincoat and cinched
• 1:37:59
  the cuffs around my gloves. I wore my rain pants and tucked
• 1:38:02
  them into my socks. Finally, I put on my head mesh
• 1:38:06
  and cinched the fabric around my neck.
• 1:38:09
  The mosquito swarm descended as I entered the forest.
• 1:38:13
  They. Covered my clothes.
• 1:38:14
  And buzzed in my ears, but only a few actually managed to
• 1:38:17
  penetrate my defenses to bite my wrists and ankles.
• 1:38:22
  Once I zipped into my hammock, I massacred all the mosquitoes and
• 1:38:25
  flies that had followed me in. This has become a nightly ritual
• 1:38:29
  that I'm not proud of. Tonight's slaughter was
• 1:38:32
  particularly large. Siberia.
• 1:38:54
  When I woke up, my neck was so painfully tight that I winced.
• 1:38:57
  To look left. I'd injure myself in my sleep
• 1:39:00
  and was forced to ride all day with my head and turn slightly
• 1:39:03
  off center. Of all the ways I might have
• 1:39:05
  gotten hurt out here, sleeping injuries the one that I would
• 1:39:08
  choose. I packed my things quickly as
• 1:39:11
  the mosquitoes swarmed around me.
• 1:39:13
  Within a couple of. Miles, the force is behind me,
• 1:39:16
  and so were the bugs. I spent the rest of the day
• 1:39:19
  crossing flat farm fields with only diffuse patches of
• 1:39:22
  woodland. The road was narrow and the
• 1:39:25
  traffic was light, a cool wind. Blowing out of the.
• 1:39:28
  North clash with the hot sun shining through the bright white
• 1:39:31
  clouds. I'm now entering Siberia, which
• 1:39:35
  I know only to be famously cold and remote.
• 1:39:38
  The weather today was quite nice, but I did get a glimpse of
• 1:39:41
  how empty this area is. After passing the town this
• 1:39:45
  morning, I went for hours without seeing a building of any
• 1:39:47
  kind. In the United States I would
• 1:39:50
  always expect to see individual houses dotted across large
• 1:39:54
  swaths of land, but in Russia I've only seen people living
• 1:39:59
  within towns for cultural reasons or out of necessity.
• 1:40:03
  Nobody here lives in isolation. In the early afternoon, three
• 1:40:09
  people on touring motorcycle. Stopped to say hello.
• 1:40:12
  And they took off their helmets. I recognize them as a group I
• 1:40:15
  met seven weeks ago at the gas station in Ukraine.
• 1:40:18
  The kind woman who bought me orange juice was injured along
• 1:40:21
  the way. She'll be OK, but had to fly
• 1:40:24
  home. The other two carried on and
• 1:40:26
  later met a third man that had joined them.
• 1:40:29
  They had been trying to reach Mongolia but never did get
• 1:40:31
  there, which left me a little concerned about my own chances.
• 1:40:36
  Now they're heading home, back to Finland.
• 1:40:39
  I feel happy to see them again, like running into old friends.
• 1:40:44
  I found a great spot to sleep tonight near a.
• 1:40:46
  Lake quiet far. From the road in a cope to the
• 1:40:49
  Aspen trees, I tucked into my hammock, warm and comfortable,
• 1:40:54
  and listen to the birds sing the sun to sleep.
• 1:40:58
  Each evening I turn on my tablet to write this journal.
• 1:41:02
  And as the device. Boots up the black screen serves
• 1:41:05
  as a mirror for half a minute. This is the only time I see my
• 1:41:08
  reflection. I look shaggy, my beard is
• 1:41:11
  filling in and my unpent hair is.
• 1:41:13
  Getting. Long day by day, I'm watching
• 1:41:17
  myself become wild. pristine day.
• 1:41:38
  After bicycling for an hour, I pulled off the main road to find
• 1:41:41
  a quiet spot in the grass to sit and eat breakfast.
• 1:41:45
  I leaned back against my bike to bask in the warm sun.
• 1:41:49
  Fresh summer air swirled around me.
• 1:41:51
  Fields and forests spread out across the land.
• 1:41:54
  I tried to imagine anywhere else I would rather be or something
• 1:41:57
  different than I wanted to do, but I couldn't.
• 1:42:01
  I was comfortable and happy without trouble or worry.
• 1:42:04
  I felt no rush to depart, nor was I compelled to stay.
• 1:42:08
  My thoughts did not wander, they had nowhere to go.
• 1:42:11
  With nothing to do, I simply sat there, present and still,
• 1:42:16
  feeling a wonderful sense of contentment.
• 1:42:19
  I held onto the sensation for 5 minutes until I ate the last of
• 1:42:22
  my bread and would have liked a little more.
• 1:42:26
  Occasionally a cheer of joy is compelled out of me.
• 1:42:29
  Usually by whipping. Fun downhill or a scene of
• 1:42:32
  natural magnificence? Today all that was required was
• 1:42:37
  a left turn. I've been following the M5
• 1:42:39
  highway for the past 1300 kilometers and for the first
• 1:42:43
  time in 16 days I turned onto a different Rd.
• 1:42:47
  I'm taking a detour around a little section of Kazakhstan to
• 1:42:50
  avoid crossing the border. The new road looked the same as
• 1:42:54
  the old and felt the same, but just knowing that the name was
• 1:42:58
  different was enough. Out here on the endless plains,
• 1:43:02
  anything new gets me quite excited again.
• 1:43:05
  Tonight I am in an open forest of tall white.
• 1:43:08
  Trees and knee. High grass and made rice with a
• 1:43:12
  can of baked beans for dinner, then eight lying in my hammock
• 1:43:15
  with the food resting on my chest.
• 1:43:18
  I started eating this way to avoid the swarms of black flies,
• 1:43:21
  but now I prefer to recline while I'm eating in the cool
• 1:43:25
  evening air. The warm pot feels good against
• 1:43:27
  my body. Not nearly as good as snuggling
• 1:43:30
  up against Katie, but I'm working with what I've got.
• 1:43:50
  Wild Hares. At 3:00 AM, the first drops of a
• 1:43:54
  storm began splashing through my bug mesh. 1000 mosquitoes were
• 1:43:58
  waiting for me as I scrambled outside to put on the rain fly.
• 1:44:02
  I worked quickly, but my shoulders were drenched before I
• 1:44:05
  crawled back into my hammock. The black knight and patter of
• 1:44:09
  rain quickly loaded me back to sleep.
• 1:44:12
  By morning the clouds were breaking up and the world was
• 1:44:15
  dripping wet. Soon after I started biking, the
• 1:44:19
  road deteriorated. Into a broken sandy track.
• 1:44:22
  The trucks had to go so slow that they took a full minute
• 1:44:25
  just to drive past me. Their giant wheels ground the
• 1:44:28
  roadbed to find Gray dust that hung in the air and clung to the
• 1:44:32
  nearby trees and grasses. In some places, the dust was so
• 1:44:37
  deep that I had to get off and push.
• 1:44:39
  This is very going through soft snow.
• 1:44:42
  Staying on my bike was tricky because the silt on the road
• 1:44:45
  obscured this side stones, drawing potholes and ruts that
• 1:44:49
  grabbed up my wheels. The trucks had the same problem
• 1:44:53
  many times I thought the trailers were going to tip over
• 1:44:57
  as they sway dangerously side to side on the uneven Rd. surface.
• 1:45:01
  Several trucks were stuck in the soft soil and one appeared to be
• 1:45:05
  abandoned. The gap without pavement lasted
• 1:45:08
  only 12 miles but took me nearly 3 hours to cross.
• 1:45:12
  I'm on the main truck route across Russia, so I can only
• 1:45:15
  imagine the nefarious politics behind this one small section
• 1:45:18
  remaining unpaved. The heat was fierce today at a
• 1:45:22
  gas station. I saw a group of men keeping.
• 1:45:25
  Cool by rolling up their white tank tops from the bottom so
• 1:45:28
  that the round bellies were exposed to the breeze or their
• 1:45:31
  chests were left covered. Men have worn their shirts like
• 1:45:34
  this all across Russia another way.
• 1:45:37
  They cope with the heat. Is by wearing shorts that have a
• 1:45:39
  one inch inseam. On the hottest days, the
• 1:45:42
  masculine professions of farming, road construction and
• 1:45:46
  trucking are full of guys wearing the equivalent of sports
• 1:45:48
  bras and booty shorts. The clothing is practical, but
• 1:45:53
  my American sentiment leaves me too modest to wear such
• 1:45:56
  revealing outfits myself. Tonight I'm in a patch of Aspen
• 1:46:00
  trees between farm. Fields 2.
• 1:46:03
  Wild hares have been chasing each other along the edge of the
• 1:46:06
  forest. They're much larger than rabbits
• 1:46:09
  and incredibly fast. When I arrived, they took off
• 1:46:12
  across the field, leaving a swirl of dust in their wake.
• 1:46:15
  They're back now, don't seem to notice me in my hammock.
• 1:46:19
  I've been watching them through the evening.
• 1:46:21
  They're a cute couple. more biking.
• 1:46:42
  I have a nylon food bag that I fill out grocery stores then.
• 1:46:46
  Watch as the contents. Lesson With each passing meal,
• 1:46:49
  my perpetual task is to keep that bag from going completely
• 1:46:52
  empty. And through the cycle of filling
• 1:46:55
  and consuming, I've gained an acute awareness of how much I
• 1:46:58
  eat, which is a lot. Now, as I pass through cities, I
• 1:47:03
  can't help but think of the mountains of food being
• 1:47:04
  consumed. I see the food as well.
• 1:47:08
  Around every large population I pass hundreds of miles of crops,
• 1:47:12
  a pasture for the people that can be seen from space as I go E
• 1:47:17
  the landscape has begun to reflect that the.
• 1:47:19
  Cities are thinning out. Forests dispersed more thickly
• 1:47:23
  and crops are giving way to grassland.
• 1:47:26
  The change is subtle, but I'm clinging to any change at all.
• 1:47:30
  After weeks of endless farm fields, I'm craving new scenery.
• 1:47:34
  Maybe a place with towns or hill even turns on the road would be
• 1:47:38
  nice to get through the day. I focused on the motion of my
• 1:47:42
  peddling, the fresh air and the sunshine.
• 1:47:47
  Tonight I had my hammock hanging between 2 stout Aspen.
• 1:47:50
  Trees while. Resting through the evening, I
• 1:47:53
  wrote a poem and read out loud to the plaws of quaking leaves
• 1:47:56
  and the cheers of chirping birds, where the horizon can
• 1:48:01
  never be attained, nor the. Sky ever touched?
• 1:48:04
  Where the wind is unrestrained and the sun will not be rushed,
• 1:48:09
  This is the place where I will always be filling the space that
• 1:48:13
  is made of me. High North.
• 1:48:34
  I've been peddling into a headwind for the past 700 miles.
• 1:48:38
  I feel as if I'm in. A battle of wills with a weather
• 1:48:40
  pattern. The wind blows hard out of the
• 1:48:43
  east all day and mocks me by subsiding just as I'm setting up
• 1:48:46
  camp for the evening. I've been exasperated by this
• 1:48:50
  dynamic for two weeks and today I made the strategic decision to
• 1:48:54
  sleep through the afternoon and bicycle until dark.
• 1:48:58
  My plan worked perfectly. The sun was getting low when the
• 1:49:01
  wind finally died, but I managed to bicycle a couple more hours
• 1:49:05
  at twice the speed I was going in the morning.
• 1:49:08
  The weather has become ever present in my life in a way that
• 1:49:10
  I never experienced when I was living inside.
• 1:49:14
  Through immersion, I'm learning to read the signs and recognize
• 1:49:17
  the patterns of the natural world.
• 1:49:19
  I feel this understanding happening intuitively, like a
• 1:49:23
  child learning their first language.
• 1:49:25
  The experience is fun. I felt so pleased today when the
• 1:49:29
  wind stopped, just as I had predicted.
• 1:49:32
  Earlier this morning I visited Abbots Square.
• 1:49:35
  The most pleasant town I've. Seen in Russia, the streets were
• 1:49:39
  clean and had sidewalks. People are out walking and
• 1:49:42
  smiling. The wooden homes are painted in
• 1:49:44
  soft colors and the backyards filled in with gardens,
• 1:49:47
  greenhouses and weathered outbuildings.
• 1:49:50
  There are hardly any of the drab Gray apartment buildings that
• 1:49:53
  fill the cities and larger towns.
• 1:49:55
  This community seemed humble and happy.
• 1:49:59
  I stopped at a grocery store to buy food in a 2 liter box of
• 1:50:02
  orange juice, or more accurately, orange drink.
• 1:50:06
  Real orange juice is not available.
• 1:50:08
  Fruit in general has been hard to find, so I'm left to savor
• 1:50:11
  the sweet flavor of generic juice alternative.
• 1:50:14
  I strapped the orange shrink to my panyer and when I stopped for
• 1:50:17
  breakfast 10 miles later, the jug was gone, bounced off
• 1:50:21
  unnoticed. I sat down feeling dejected,
• 1:50:25
  perhaps more than the situation warranted, but the temperature
• 1:50:28
  was in the high 80s. I was looking forward to
• 1:50:30
  chugging sugary water. To cheer myself up.
• 1:50:34
  I got out a package of Americinsky cookies.
• 1:50:37
  I was trying a new brand, which wasn't very good, so I had to
• 1:50:40
  eat a lot of them. I was also counting on the juice
• 1:50:43
  for fluids. My water ran out in the morning,
• 1:50:46
  so I slowly grew thirstier through the hot day. 50 miles
• 1:50:50
  passed before I found a Cafe for a refill.
• 1:50:53
  My legs were tired when I got there and I was ready to be done
• 1:50:56
  for the day. I followed a dirt Rd. away from
• 1:50:59
  the highway to a quiet Grove of Aspen trees and set up my
• 1:51:02
  hammock with a wide open view of the sky.
• 1:51:05
  I watched as the light of the setting sun painted the cloud
• 1:51:08
  bellies orange, then pink and red shadows from somewhere over
• 1:51:12
  the horizon appeared as long dark streaks across the sky.
• 1:51:17
  The show was magnificent and I felt joyful to bear witness.
• 1:51:22
  Today I reached the farthest North Point.
• 1:51:24
  I will go on this journey at 56°.
• 1:51:27
  NI was at the same latitude as Copenhagen, Moscow and Juneau.
• 1:51:32
  Arriving there felt significant, like I'd reached the demarcation
• 1:51:36
  of progress. I got a picture of myself
• 1:51:38
  marking the spot the low sun is in my eyes.
• 1:51:42
  Behind me, a plane of thick grass and shrubbery stretches to
• 1:51:45
  the flat horizon. After trending N for 138 days, I
• 1:51:50
  feel good to be starting my journey South.
• 1:52:11
  bus stop shelter. I stopped at a cafe this
• 1:52:14
  morning, a family gathering in the.
• 1:52:16
  Parking lot was excited. To meet me, they took pictures
• 1:52:19
  and even asked for my autograph as a gift.
• 1:52:22
  That gave me a refrigerator magnet with an image of a
• 1:52:25
  Buddhist monastery called Iboginski Datsun.
• 1:52:28
  They said the place is 1000 miles east of here, but worth
• 1:52:31
  the trip. I thank them and added the
• 1:52:34
  magnet to my bag of treasures, A souvenir from a place I've never
• 1:52:38
  been. The Cafe had Wi-Fi and I was
• 1:52:42
  able to call Katie. We talked for an hour about the
• 1:52:45
  very different things we are doing with our lives.
• 1:52:48
  I still find our connection meaningful, even from the far
• 1:52:51
  side of the earth, but without discussing our situation
• 1:52:54
  directly, I can tell she's drifting from the relationship.
• 1:52:58
  I understand given our circumstance, but the emotion
• 1:53:01
  around knowing that is weighing on me.
• 1:53:04
  Katie's the tether to the life I left behind and the person that
• 1:53:07
  I want to return to. I hope she will still be waiting
• 1:53:10
  when I get there. The stiff Russian headwind met
• 1:53:14
  me outside the cafe. I carried on for a.
• 1:53:17
  Half hour before the situation became hopeless.
• 1:53:20
  I was barely able to go forward, and even staying upright was
• 1:53:23
  difficult. I took shelter in an empty bus
• 1:53:26
  stop constructed of corrugated steel and concrete, the same
• 1:53:30
  brutalist style prevalent across Russia.
• 1:53:33
  The wind hammered against the unmoving walls, and for the
• 1:53:35
  first time I appreciated the practicality of the construction
• 1:53:39
  in spite of the dreary appearance.
• 1:53:42
  I settled in as rain arrived in sideways streaks.
• 1:53:45
  To avoid the spray, I huddled in the back corner with the spider
• 1:53:48
  webs. During the second hour of my
• 1:53:51
  refuge, I had an unexpectedly beautiful experience.
• 1:53:55
  I felt a peaceful happiness, undistracted and without need
• 1:53:59
  for distraction and want of nothing, and pulled in no
• 1:54:02
  directions while the wind screamed.
• 1:54:05
  I was awash with the feeling of serenity.
• 1:54:08
  I entered a state of perfect patience without anything vying
• 1:54:12
  for my time or attention. I could be still forever 4 hours
• 1:54:18
  later. I'd eat most of my food.
• 1:54:20
  And the time had come to leave. The last of the rain was
• 1:54:23
  clearing out, the wind had dwindled to a breeze and I was
• 1:54:27
  no longer content to be still. I biked a few more hours before
• 1:54:31
  leaving the road to set up camp in the forest.
• 1:54:34
  As my light faded, I cooked noodles and retreated into my
• 1:54:37
  hammock to eat. Hundreds of mosquitoes are now
• 1:54:40
  on the outside of my bug mesh and so many are in the air that
• 1:54:44
  I hear constant low buzzing sound coming from all around me.
• 1:55:06
  Lots of relaxing. In times of difficulty or
• 1:55:10
  discomfort, I always ask myself, what can I learn from this
• 1:55:13
  experience? If I'm to suffer, then let me
• 1:55:16
  grow in the process. After weeks of fighting the
• 1:55:19
  Russian headwinds, I thought the lesson was to overcome through
• 1:55:22
  force of will, to be stronger than the wind, and to persist
• 1:55:26
  with determination and burning thighs.
• 1:55:30
  Only yesterday at the bus shelter did the true answer come
• 1:55:33
  to me. In my moment of serenity, I
• 1:55:36
  became more patient than the wind.
• 1:55:38
  I stopped fighting, and in a lovely synchronicity, so did the
• 1:55:42
  wind. Today the wind blew on my back,
• 1:55:45
  helping me along. I accepted the day as a Restful
• 1:55:50
  1 and in the early. Afternoon I hung my hammock.
• 1:55:53
  At the edge of this farm field and stayed.
• 1:55:56
  This plane I'm crossing has been more physically demanding than I
• 1:55:58
  expected. If I were to bike 6 hours
• 1:56:01
  through mountains, I might roll downhill for 90 minutes, but on
• 1:56:05
  the flat I have to pedal the whole time.
• 1:56:07
  I'm getting stronger, but I'm still worn out at the end of
• 1:56:10
  every day. There's no specific physical
• 1:56:14
  training that I did to get ready for this.
• 1:56:15
  Journey I. Reason that if I were to bicycle
• 1:56:18
  50 miles just once, I would prepare.
• 1:56:21
  But since I was about to bicycle 50 miles for hundreds of days in
• 1:56:24
  a row, I could simply begin and eventually I'd be strong enough.
• 1:56:30
  Katie never agreed with this line of reasoning, and so far.
• 1:56:33
  She is right. Maybe by the end I'll be fit
• 1:56:37
  enough to start. Porcupine.
• 1:56:58
  I decided to take the bypass around Omsk.
• 1:57:01
  I wasn't up for another. Harrowing trip through a Russian
• 1:57:03
  city. I consider cities to be cultural
• 1:57:06
  hubs and skipping them a short sighted knowing that I'll likely
• 1:57:09
  never be back. But at this point I don't mind
• 1:57:12
  passing the city for the sake of a less stressful day.
• 1:57:16
  I could see lumps to the north as I peddled by Gray apartment
• 1:57:19
  buildings and dirty factories lined the river.
• 1:57:22
  In truth, I was happy to continue through the same
• 1:57:25
  agrarian scene I've been looking at for a month.
• 1:57:28
  The routine of crossing endless fields has become comforting.
• 1:57:33
  I stopped to buy guitar strings at a large shopping mall on the.
• 1:57:35
  Outskirts of the city. There were two sprawling levels
• 1:57:38
  of shops to wander through. I went slowly, enjoying the air
• 1:57:42
  conditioning and admiring the mall of slick corporate Sheen.
• 1:57:47
  Being there reminded me of the malls I went to in high school,
• 1:57:50
  except here the signs are all written in Russian.
• 1:57:54
  While the landscape stays the same, I've started seeing the.
• 1:57:57
  People change. European and Asian lineages
• 1:58:00
  separated by 50,000 years are now 2 masses of humanity
• 1:58:04
  pressing against each other, and for the past few days I've been
• 1:58:08
  bicycling across the very soft line between them.
• 1:58:12
  The farther EI go, the more people I see with blended
• 1:58:15
  lineage and at some point soon everyone will look Asian.
• 1:58:20
  Watching the transition is fascinating.
• 1:58:22
  Across many hundreds of people I'm witnessing a slow morphing
• 1:58:26
  of faces. Tonight there is a porcupine
• 1:58:31
  wandering. Near my campsite I saw him.
• 1:58:33
  When I was cooking and whistled so he knew I was here, the
• 1:58:37
  little guy froze in place for 5 minutes before moving off.
• 1:58:41
  Porcupines have such great defenses that their natural
• 1:58:43
  reaction to danger is to be still.
• 1:58:46
  Perhaps this is the reason I've seen more dead ones on the road
• 1:58:49
  than any other animal. The porcupine is back now and
• 1:58:53
  seeing the quills I'm. Concerned that my hammock.
• 1:58:55
  Is hanging a little too low? Friends at the gas station.
• 1:59:18
  I bought a sleeve of cookies and a liter of milk at a gas
• 1:59:20
  station. And sat in the shade to enjoy.
• 1:59:23
  Them. I took a bite of cookie and a
• 1:59:25
  big swig from the carton. I winced at the flavor and spit
• 1:59:28
  out what I drank. The milk was thick and sour.
• 1:59:32
  I looked at the label to check the expiration and realized I'd
• 1:59:35
  actually bought buttermilk. This is the second time I've
• 1:59:38
  done that. I'm still struggling to read
• 1:59:41
  anything in Russian. In the afternoon, I stopped for
• 1:59:45
  ice cream at a gas station. The Friendly Store.
• 1:59:48
  Manager invited me into her office to talk.
• 1:59:50
  I sat across from her small desk and she offered me some of her
• 1:59:53
  lunch, a cold chicken leg, sliced bread, and green tea.
• 1:59:58
  She only spoke a little English, but we used an online translator
• 2:00:02
  to help. I learned that she has two kids
• 2:00:04
  and lived in a town nearby. I had fun talking to her and
• 2:00:08
  told her that I appreciated that she made the effort.
• 2:00:11
  We didn't have a deep conversation, but I'm starved to
• 2:00:14
  talk to anyone at all. I filled the void writing this
• 2:00:17
  journal, which is a good listener but doesn't have much
• 2:00:20
  to say. As I peddled down the road
• 2:00:24
  today, I thought about being. More directly focused on where
• 2:00:27
  I'm. Heading in my life, going
• 2:00:29
  through the motions of working a job and filling my evenings has
• 2:00:32
  never been hard for me. But I also never thought much
• 2:00:35
  about what I was trying to accomplish with that lifestyle.
• 2:00:39
  I was plotting forward, but to what end?
• 2:00:42
  I'm no longer going through the motions.
• 2:00:44
  I wouldn't be in this Russian farm field if I were.
• 2:00:47
  I've given myself a goal of bicycling around the world, and
• 2:00:50
  I've distorted my whole life to make that a reality.
• 2:00:53
  I'm beginning to understand what living with intention feels
• 2:00:56
  like. To plot a course, then attempt
• 2:00:59
  to get there with an effort and focus that I'm proud of.
• 2:01:02
  I like this way of being. I feel empowered in a way I
• 2:01:06
  never have before. With the sun getting low, I
• 2:01:10
  snuck away from the road to set. Up camp in a patch of.
• 2:01:12
  Forest among the farm fields. I enjoyed the evening resting in
• 2:01:17
  my hammock, taking pictures of flowers, playing guitar and
• 2:01:21
  listening to the birds. For a long time I did nothing at
• 2:01:25
  all, which I'm learning to really enjoy.
• 2:01:46
  dogs and hamburgers. I had a restless night.
• 2:01:50
  I dreamt that I was camping close to a house and thought I
• 2:01:53
  would be discovered. And another unsettling dream.
• 2:01:56
  My brakes are rubbing, driven by my perpetual exhaustion.
• 2:02:00
  I've become hyper focused on being.
• 2:02:02
  Efficient. The constant burning in my
• 2:02:04
  thighs has made me obsessed over any little detail that will make
• 2:02:07
  bicycling around the world easier.
• 2:02:10
  Now my subconscious has turned a dragging brake pad into a
• 2:02:13
  nightmare. Rain fell intermittently through
• 2:02:17
  the night before clearing into a.
• 2:02:18
  Particularly delightful. Day.
• 2:02:20
  This morning I watched sheer white pillars of light Pierce
• 2:02:24
  the overcast sky to illuminate billowing clouds below.
• 2:02:28
  The site was awesome. I thought to take a picture but
• 2:02:31
  knew I wouldn't capture the grandeur.
• 2:02:34
  I stopped to simply appreciate the experience and let the
• 2:02:37
  moment become a memory. Late in the afternoon, I pulled
• 2:02:42
  into a small market to. Buy a 5 liter jug of water.
• 2:02:45
  Enough to get me through another hot day.
• 2:02:48
  When I made the purchase, the woman at the register didn't
• 2:02:51
  have change for a $10.00 bill. Many of the small world shops
• 2:02:55
  seem to operate on the edge of solvency to get change.
• 2:02:59
  I went next door to a Cafe and bought fried bread with a sliced
• 2:03:03
  hot dog hidden inside. While I sat next to my bike
• 2:03:06
  eating, a man asked in Russian where I was going.
• 2:03:10
  I pointed east and said Mongolia.
• 2:03:12
  He nodded somewhat disinterestedly.
• 2:03:15
  The closer I get to Mongolia, the less impressed people are
• 2:03:18
  that I'm going there. I noticed the change happened
• 2:03:21
  almost day by day to this man. I adjusted my story and with a
• 2:03:26
  leaping hand gesture explained that after Mongolia I would go
• 2:03:30
  to China. His eyes widen.
• 2:03:33
  Any question if he had understood me.
• 2:03:36
  Tina, he repeated. Another man was there listening
• 2:03:39
  and chimed in. Kitai.
• 2:03:42
  Duh, I said Kitai, repeating the Russian pronunciation of China.
• 2:03:48
  The first man searched his limited English for a way to
• 2:03:50
  express himself. After a long pause, he said
• 2:03:54
  class, super class. He went into the store and when
• 2:03:59
  he returned and gave me two. More fried hot dogs.
• 2:04:02
  And two fried hamburgers as well.
• 2:04:05
  I thanked him and he hopped in his car and was gone.
• 2:04:10
  What I am attempting to do is so obviously difficult.
• 2:04:13
  That people are compelled to help.
• 2:04:15
  Whenever they do, I get the clear feeling that someone is
• 2:04:18
  taking care of me because I help.
• 2:04:20
  So often I feel as though humanity is taking care of me.
• 2:04:25
  I'm in the safe hands of everyone.
• 2:04:28
  This evening I snuck away from the road into a forest of white
• 2:04:32
  trees. I do appreciate anywhere I can
• 2:04:34
  easily find a place to camp, and I like this spot.
• 2:04:38
  I become quite comfortable in these Russian forests.
• 2:04:59
  Ten thousandth. Kilometer.
• 2:05:02
  This morning I bicycled my 10 thousandth kilometer since
• 2:05:05
  starting in Portugal. As my odometer rolled over, I
• 2:05:09
  stopped there to appreciate how far I've come.
• 2:05:12
  Around me was a perpetual flat expanse I've yet to cross.
• 2:05:16
  White lines of salt on my sun faded shirt mark sweatier days.
• 2:05:20
  My hair has become matted and clumped in thick strands.
• 2:05:24
  The tread on my tires has worn off.
• 2:05:27
  My progress is perhaps most obvious on my face, where my
• 2:05:30
  beard now fills in thickly on my neck and jawline.
• 2:05:34
  The inspiration to grow a beard is from a tradition I learned
• 2:05:37
  hiking the Appalachian Trail. The long distance hiker started
• 2:05:41
  with clean shaven faces. Then grew their beards.
• 2:05:44
  As they went, the fullness of the beard signaled to others how
• 2:05:47
  long they've been on the trail. Months of effort were displayed
• 2:05:51
  on their hairy faces. I hiked that trail for 92 days
• 2:05:55
  and now my beard is another 50 days longer than that.
• 2:06:00
  I wear the beard proudly, but I don't think I look very good.
• 2:06:04
  The other reason I keep my beard is that I'm trying to cultivate.
• 2:06:07
  A look approximating. Wild and homeless.
• 2:06:11
  I do this for safety. The people that might think to
• 2:06:14
  steal from me must first decide if I have anything worth taking
• 2:06:18
  and 2nd whether or not I'm going to fight back.
• 2:06:22
  Though far from being intimidating, most people.
• 2:06:25
  That see me are. Simply inclined to give me food.
• 2:06:29
  I saw black beetles crawling on the road today.
• 2:06:32
  I steer. Around them, but the.
• 2:06:34
  Cars aren't so kind. I like seeing the beetles.
• 2:06:37
  The experience of crossing the land feels intimate when going
• 2:06:40
  slow enough to interact with the insects.
• 2:06:43
  Tonight I snuck away from the road into a patch of Aspen.
• 2:06:47
  Trees. Lush green grasses cover the
• 2:06:50
  ground. Butterflies are flitting on the
• 2:06:52
  breeze. It's small brown lizards as long
• 2:06:55
  as my hand scurry about in the forest and fields.
• 2:07:00
  North America has field mice and apparently.
• 2:07:03
  Eurasia has. Field Lizards.
• 2:07:25
  More gifts. Over the past few days, the
• 2:07:29
  landscape has become wetter. I see water.
• 2:07:32
  Pulling near the road and puddles and small ponds, the
• 2:07:35
  fields have mostly been replaced by forests.
• 2:07:38
  There are more birds, quick small ones that flies
• 2:07:41
  individuals in pairs. They dart across the sky,
• 2:07:44
  getting fat on the black flies that have returned in droves to
• 2:07:48
  pester me. This morning I stopped at a gas
• 2:07:51
  station cafe to fill my. Water.
• 2:07:54
  Three separate groups came to take pictures with me.
• 2:07:57
  One guy handed me a Sochi 2014 key chain with a hockey skate
• 2:08:02
  and then Olympic rings. A friendly security guard gave
• 2:08:05
  me tea and chocolates and another Russian flag to hang
• 2:08:08
  from my bike. A sharply dressed businessman
• 2:08:11
  that spoke a little English was particularly interested in me.
• 2:08:15
  After a short conversation, he gave me his e-mail and offered
• 2:08:19
  to take me to lunch when I get to Novus Beersk tomorrow.
• 2:08:22
  He was really a kind and friendly man.
• 2:08:25
  Before leaving, he gave me a box of chocolate cookies.
• 2:08:29
  I watched him walk halfway to his car, then stop and come back
• 2:08:32
  to reiterate something he mentioned earlier with great
• 2:08:36
  sincerity, told me to be careful.
• 2:08:38
  He said the people of Siberia are very nice, but you must be
• 2:08:42
  careful. I become unsettled whenever
• 2:08:46
  people speak to me with great concern.
• 2:08:47
  For my safety. I feel as if I'm missing
• 2:08:50
  something, like I don't even realize that I'm in danger for a
• 2:08:54
  few days afterwards. I lose my trust in others.
• 2:08:57
  I don't like feeling suspicious, but I'm unable to ignore a kind
• 2:09:01
  hearted warning. And after talking with the
• 2:09:04
  businessman, I felt more on guard for the rest of the day.
• 2:09:09
  In the afternoon, I pulled off the road into one of the many.
• 2:09:12
  Patches of forest. That grow across the land.
• 2:09:15
  I pushed my bike far enough to feel well hidden and hung my
• 2:09:18
  hammock between 2 Birch trees and a clearing that gave me a
• 2:09:21
  great view of the sky. This is a healthy forest with
• 2:09:25
  tall sturdy trees and thick grass growing underneath.
• 2:09:29
  I feel relaxed here. For dinner I made a pot of rice
• 2:09:33
  with a can of kidney beans. Than I ate while enjoying a long
• 2:09:37
  orange sunset. arriving in Nova Shabirsk.
• 2:10:00
  This morning I was at a cafe to fill my water when the pre made
• 2:10:03
  salad in the display case caught my attention.
• 2:10:07
  I haven't seen many fresh vegetables at these highway rest
• 2:10:09
  stops and I was enticed to get one.
• 2:10:12
  My first bite tasted surprisingly pungent for a
• 2:10:15
  salad. Upon closer inspection I saw
• 2:10:18
  that there were small chunks of pale fish flesh mixed in with
• 2:10:21
  the greens. I wondered how long the dish was
• 2:10:24
  sitting in the warm display case.
• 2:10:26
  I took one more bite but not 1/3.
• 2:10:30
  As I was getting ready to leave, a man came up to me and said
• 2:10:34
  hello Jacob. I was completely surprised.
• 2:10:37
  He explained that I met his boss yesterday, the man that wanted
• 2:10:40
  to meet me for lunch after he left.
• 2:10:43
  He was so concerned for my well-being that today he sent
• 2:10:47
  one of his employees to find me and offer help.
• 2:10:50
  He said if I needed anything he could assist.
• 2:10:53
  A shower, water, new clothes, he even wanted to drive slowly so
• 2:10:57
  that I could follow him to his boss's house for a place to
• 2:11:00
  stay. I considered the offer.
• 2:11:03
  I'm planning on staying in the city for an extra day, but
• 2:11:06
  mostly I wanted my own room and no obligation to entertain when
• 2:11:11
  I take a day to rest. I'm also trying to take a break
• 2:11:14
  from the attention I get everywhere I go.
• 2:11:17
  People want to know where I've come from.
• 2:11:19
  Only in a private room or taking a walk without my bike do I get
• 2:11:23
  to be anonymous. I also would have felt bad
• 2:11:27
  making the man drive ahead of me.
• 2:11:29
  I was still 3 hours. From the city and at least for
• 2:11:32
  me, driving a car at the pace of a bicycle is irritatingly slow.
• 2:11:37
  I politely said no to everything he offered.
• 2:11:40
  Hopefully spouse will understand.
• 2:11:44
  When the man specifically tried to buy me clothes, I.
• 2:11:46
  Realized that the long sleeve shirt I've.
• 2:11:48
  Worn every day to keep myself warm or block, the sun has
• 2:11:52
  become noticeably tattered. Holes are beginning to form
• 2:11:55
  across my shoulders where the sun hits most directly.
• 2:11:58
  I haven't noticed them because I only take my shirt off to
• 2:12:01
  shower, and I haven't done that in a while.
• 2:12:04
  I inspected my shirt tonight, though.
• 2:12:06
  The fabric has become thin and faded, and there are a few small
• 2:12:09
  tears. In keeping with my ship at sea
• 2:12:12
  metaphor, I plan to wear my shirt until I get back home or
• 2:12:16
  until the wind takes the fabric from my body, whichever comes
• 2:12:20
  first. Biking to the city was typically
• 2:12:24
  hectic. A lot of.
• 2:12:25
  Sprinting while navigating. And avoiding of people in cars,
• 2:12:29
  I was glad to arrive at the hostel, which is actually a
• 2:12:32
  collection of random apartments within a few blocks from the
• 2:12:35
  office. The man gave me the key, then we
• 2:12:38
  walked down the road for 10 minutes to get to where I am
• 2:12:40
  staying. I've got a caught to sleep on
• 2:12:43
  and there's space for my bike. The room isn't as nice as
• 2:12:47
  anywhere that I've slept outside, but will be just fine
• 2:12:50
  for tonight. 2013 visiting Nova Sabirsk.
• 2:13:11
  I talked to Katie this morning. We made tentative.
• 2:13:14
  Plans for her to meet me in North.
• 2:13:16
  Vietnam or we'll spend a few weeks, then fly home together.
• 2:13:20
  That is still three months and many thousands of miles away.
• 2:13:23
  But I'm glad she wants to join me.
• 2:13:25
  After talking to her and making these plans, I feel more
• 2:13:29
  confident that our relationship will outlast this bike ride.
• 2:13:33
  I spent the day resting in my room, appreciating being in a.
• 2:13:37
  Confined space. Where I could let my guard down.
• 2:13:40
  Staying here reminds me of the convenience of having a home.
• 2:13:43
  I woke up this morning knowing where I was going to be sleeping
• 2:13:46
  tonight. I went to the store without
• 2:13:49
  bringing everything I own with me and the room has a chair.
• 2:13:53
  I so rarely get to sit in a chair.
• 2:13:56
  Nova Sabirsk is the last city I'll visit in Russia and.
• 2:13:59
  I'm nervous about what's ahead. I've come to appreciate the
• 2:14:02
  relaxing pace of crossing farmland and the convenience of
• 2:14:06
  eating at cafes. As I hedge towards Mongolia and
• 2:14:10
  stepping out of my comfort zone, I don't expect to find access to
• 2:14:14
  the Internet. Mongolia.
• 2:14:16
  Meaning. I'm about to be cut off from
• 2:14:18
  Katie and everyone else. The towns appear to be far apart
• 2:14:22
  and I may struggle to carry enough food and water to get
• 2:14:25
  between them. The environment will be
• 2:14:27
  extremely remote, culturally formed, and more physically
• 2:14:31
  demanding than anywhere I've been in my life.
• 2:14:34
  The path ahead is daunting. I'm fearful of what is about.
• 2:14:37
  To be required of. Me.
• 2:14:55
  2013 leaving Nova Shabirsk. I wasn't particularly excited to
• 2:15:01
  start biking again this morning. The room, bed, running water,
• 2:15:06
  and nearby grocery store, we're all calling me to stay.
• 2:15:09
  They reminded me of the life I left behind in order to do the
• 2:15:12
  most difficult thing I could think of.
• 2:15:15
  One day with a little bit of comfort and suddenly my whole.
• 2:15:18
  Endeavor no longer. Seemed fun.
• 2:15:21
  I numb myself to the emotions I was feeling, trusted that I love
• 2:15:25
  what I'm doing, and stepped out the door.
• 2:15:28
  Within a mile my mood flipped. I was glad to be back.
• 2:15:31
  On my bike. Feeling the breeze and admiring
• 2:15:35
  the landscape, I did reach out to the businessman from the
• 2:15:39
  other side. Of Nova Subirsk, he.
• 2:15:42
  Couldn't meet me because of a work emergency so he sent his 23
• 2:15:45
  year old son in his place. We met at a restaurant on my way
• 2:15:49
  out of the city and sat for a nice meal.
• 2:15:52
  On his recommendation, I ordered a plate of pork chops, hamburger
• 2:15:56
  steak and chicken that came with a shred of coleslaw on the side.
• 2:16:01
  The son spoke English well, and I was happy to have a
• 2:16:03
  conversation. He told me his father was in
• 2:16:06
  charge of the city's water system and was disappointed to
• 2:16:09
  not be with us. He had sent along a gift of
• 2:16:12
  bread, cured sausage and two Nova Sabirsk refrigerator
• 2:16:15
  magnets. The Sun also gave me a thick
• 2:16:18
  wool sweater because he's worried that I would get cold in
• 2:16:21
  Mongolia like his father. He's very kind.
• 2:16:25
  I thanked him for everything, then got back on the road.
• 2:16:29
  I left town with a long line of traffic.
• 2:16:32
  For 25 miles, I biked on the shoulder past cars that were
• 2:16:35
  sitting still. Not until I was out of the city
• 2:16:39
  and enjoying the quiet landscape did my nervousness about
• 2:16:42
  Mongolia fade. At the hostel, I'd be optioned
• 2:16:46
  to stay or go, but my apprehension became pointless
• 2:16:49
  once I stepped out the door. I'm not turning back, so I have
• 2:16:53
  no need to fear. And going forward, I'm now
• 2:16:56
  excited for the challenge ahead. This evening followed a tractor
• 2:17:01
  path away from the. Road to a patch of trees.
• 2:17:04
  And tall grass growing near a lake.
• 2:17:06
  The water is shimmering in the evening twilight and small birds
• 2:17:10
  are flying across the orange sky.
• 2:17:12
  I feel good to be back in my hammock.
• 2:17:14
  I'm far more comfortable than I was.
• 2:17:16
  Last. Night on the thin Russian bed.
• 2:17:37
  Biking in the Sun. This morning I found a few dozen
• 2:17:41
  feathers and a big smear. Of blood on top of.
• 2:17:44
  My plastic guitar case. I didn't find the rest of the
• 2:17:47
  bird. Either the fight happened right
• 2:17:49
  there or something used that spot as a dinner table.
• 2:17:53
  Whatever the case, the creatures are only two paces for my head
• 2:17:57
  and I never woke up. I wrenched away the blood,
• 2:18:01
  wondering if the birds last day had been.
• 2:18:02
  A pleasant one. Did she fill up on flies and
• 2:18:06
  sing joyfully while the sunset? Nature never cares about the
• 2:18:10
  individual, Not the dead bird, any of the flies in her belly,
• 2:18:14
  or the silent creature that killed her.
• 2:18:16
  Life sustains life and nature persists because everything
• 2:18:20
  dies. What happened on top of my
• 2:18:23
  guitar case was a sacrifice. To that end, I'm deciding not to
• 2:18:26
  view the death as an omen, good or bad, but only as a reminder
• 2:18:31
  to enjoy today. I felt great when I started
• 2:18:35
  biking this morning. The day was bright the.
• 2:18:38
  Road was smooth and the terrain was finally changing.
• 2:18:41
  I started seeing streams instead of ponds.
• 2:18:44
  Occasionally I climbed over the most modest of hills.
• 2:18:48
  The man was covered by a beautiful patchwork of forests,
• 2:18:51
  grasses and crops. The traffic on the highway was
• 2:18:55
  consistent and without a shoulder to bike.
• 2:18:57
  On I had to. Pay close attention.
• 2:19:00
  Swarms of black flies distracted me by darting into my eyes and
• 2:19:04
  nostrils. There are too many of them to
• 2:19:06
  rest comfortably, so I never stopped biking.
• 2:19:09
  By early afternoon, I'd cover 60 miles and found a secluded
• 2:19:13
  camping spot along the Bank of the slow moving river.
• 2:19:17
  I took a walk to photograph flowers and enjoy the day.
• 2:19:21
  I thought to rinse off in the water but decided not to when I
• 2:19:24
  saw a snake swim from one bank to the other.
• 2:19:28
  For three months out of the year this place has an average
• 2:19:30
  temperature of -20 Celsius. I'm surprised a snake can
• 2:19:34
  survive or any animal for that matter.
• 2:19:39
  I was thinking about the harsh winters this morning when I re
• 2:19:41
  gifted the sweater. I got yesterday.
• 2:19:44
  I was at a gas station and gave the shirt to the workers.
• 2:19:47
  By the time the season changes, I'll be far South of here, but
• 2:19:51
  they'll still be pumping gas in the cold.
• 2:20:12
  biking. Today was another uneventful but
• 2:20:16
  pleasant day of biking. I crossed 61 miles of gentle
• 2:20:20
  farmland and forests. Traffic wasn't too bad, but I
• 2:20:24
  did have to dodge a couple of trucks along the way.
• 2:20:27
  At my first stop of the day, I filled my water from a gas
• 2:20:30
  station. Sink.
• 2:20:32
  Then a short distance down the road I noticed the water is hazy
• 2:20:35
  and smelled like dirt. How many times am I going to
• 2:20:39
  ignore the lesson that sinks do not have clean water?
• 2:20:42
  I dumped the bottle and was thirsty until finding a drink in
• 2:20:45
  the afternoon. During the daytime, I'm
• 2:20:49
  completely exposed. And vulnerable to the people of
• 2:20:52
  the. World at night I isolate myself
• 2:20:55
  in total solitude, and between those two extremes is a
• 2:20:59
  distinctly important moment of transition that I treat with a
• 2:21:02
  sort of reverence. To sleep well at night, I need
• 2:21:06
  to not only be hidden, but know that nobody would even think to
• 2:21:10
  look. In order to feel safe, I must
• 2:21:13
  literally disappear without a trace.
• 2:21:17
  The transition begins by scanning the landscape for a
• 2:21:19
  spot. That is hidden from the road.
• 2:21:21
  The sort of Zen Cohen that needs to be solved before every
• 2:21:24
  sunset. From the road, find a place that
• 2:21:28
  cannot be seen from the road. Finding that spot is a practice
• 2:21:32
  of intuition made more or less. Difficult based on the.
• 2:21:35
  Surroundings Once I choose a patch of trees for further
• 2:21:39
  investigation, I must then leave the road to get to them.
• 2:21:43
  I first take off and pack away my bright green safety vest.
• 2:21:47
  I stand casually as the cars pass.
• 2:21:49
  Then in a moment, without any traffic, I charge into the
• 2:21:53
  forest, stopping only after I am a dozen paces into the shadows
• 2:21:57
  of the canopy. I lay my bike over and Crouch
• 2:22:00
  down, scanning to make sure I wasn't seen.
• 2:22:04
  This can be quite thrilling, but doesn't have to be if the
• 2:22:07
  traffic is light. Once I'm confident no one saw
• 2:22:10
  me, I go in search of exactly. Where to make my home?
• 2:22:13
  For the night, every day, I take to the task with the clear
• 2:22:17
  intention of finding somewhere beautiful.
• 2:22:20
  Truly, to sleep in beautiful places is the reason I am out
• 2:22:24
  here tonight. I'm in my hammock surrounded by
• 2:22:27
  lush green grass. Leaves.
• 2:22:29
  Above and blue Sky Beyond, I felt happy and was inspired to
• 2:22:34
  write a poem to Katie. You'll always know me from a
• 2:22:39
  place I will. Never be in a way I.
• 2:22:42
  Can never know. My heart pounds, but to my ears
• 2:22:46
  it does. Not your ear.
• 2:22:47
  On my chest. Reveals quite a lot.
• 2:22:50
  Keep your ear there as your head gently rests.
• 2:22:53
  Follow my breath to feel me expand and contract.
• 2:22:57
  Not only when you rest. You know the rhythm of my chest.
• 2:23:00
  When you give me a. Heavenly Hug.
• 2:23:03
  Speaking of embrace, I'll wrap you in your place A.
• 2:23:07
  Hug I can. Never receive.
• 2:23:10
  Your gentle caress tickles me. If I touch myself as delicately,
• 2:23:14
  the sensation is not nearly the same when I sleep.
• 2:23:19
  If you are there, you see me while I'm elsewhere in a world
• 2:23:23
  of my own creation. In these small ways, you see you
• 2:23:28
  always know me in a way I can never know.
• 2:23:50
  Rainy day in Russia? I woke to overcast skies and
• 2:23:55
  soon after. The rain began to fall.
• 2:23:58
  I watched as a cloud ahead of me opened up into a downpour.
• 2:24:01
  A gas station was positioned between myself and the wall of
• 2:24:04
  oncoming water. I raced ahead to beat the storm
• 2:24:07
  but lost by half a minute. As the rain settled in, I pulled
• 2:24:12
  under the gas station awning to wait.
• 2:24:16
  The gas station at a repair shop and the mechanic.
• 2:24:18
  Invited me inside for tea. As electric kettle began to
• 2:24:22
  boil, a small wet Finch flew in through the window to nest in
• 2:24:25
  the corner of the garage. Sounds of chirping birds mingled
• 2:24:29
  with the patter of rain on the tin roof.
• 2:24:32
  The mechanic smiled and indicated there were three
• 2:24:34
  babies in the nest. He was by himself and didn't
• 2:24:39
  have any work to do, so he. Set about trying to have a.
• 2:24:41
  Conversation. I showed him my photos from my
• 2:24:44
  trip and he showed me pictures of his daughter.
• 2:24:47
  I pulled up my map so he could see my route.
• 2:24:50
  He explained that the farthest he has ever traveled is 50 miles
• 2:24:53
  down the road in either direction.
• 2:24:55
  He's never even been to Nova Shabirsk.
• 2:24:58
  I was surprised when he told me this.
• 2:25:00
  And two days on a bicycle, I would travel as far as he has
• 2:25:03
  gone in a lifetime. I suddenly felt very grateful to
• 2:25:07
  have the privilege to wander the earth.
• 2:25:11
  After an hour with the mechanic, we shook hands.
• 2:25:13
  And I left into an intermittent. Rain which slowly soaked me
• 2:25:17
  throughout the rest of the day. Tonight I'm in a patch of trees
• 2:25:21
  near the road, lying in my wet shirt and damp pants in order to
• 2:25:25
  dry them with my body heat, and also because I have nothing else
• 2:25:29
  to wear. Super Day.
• 2:25:49
  This morning I packed up and left just as a herd of cows
• 2:25:53
  started wandering through. I hadn't gone far when the
• 2:25:56
  clouds broke open to reveal a single tree covered hill poking
• 2:25:59
  over the horizon. The road joined the river, then
• 2:26:03
  began to climb only gradually, but that was enough to feel a
• 2:26:07
  sense of relief come over me. I crossed the Great Russian
• 2:26:11
  Plain to reach the mountains once again.
• 2:26:14
  With a cheer, I pulled over to the side of the road to take in
• 2:26:17
  the moment. The horizon first became flat
• 2:26:21
  when I bicycled out in Moldova. 67.
• 2:26:23
  Days ago, I pedaled straight ahead through an unchanging
• 2:26:27
  landscape for weeks, then months, without being anywhere
• 2:26:30
  discernibly different. And all that time, the endless
• 2:26:34
  plane was marred by only the Ural Mountains.
• 2:26:37
  I rolled down from the last of those hills, and I've been
• 2:26:40
  waiting to climb another for the past 20-3 days, seeing the next
• 2:26:44
  hill up ahead overwhelming with joy and relief.
• 2:26:48
  My eyes grew moist as my emotions swelled.
• 2:26:52
  I've come to understand that. The road forward and the road.
• 2:26:55
  Inward are parallel. Finally, balanced paths.
• 2:26:59
  As external trials become secondary, inner obstacles
• 2:27:02
  appear more pronounced. I felt this as I passed the days
• 2:27:06
  with my attention turned inward, deeply examining myself to the
• 2:27:09
  core of my being. The challenge would have been
• 2:27:12
  insurmountable if I didn't like what I saw, and as a tear ran
• 2:27:16
  down my face at the site of a hill, I wondered if all those
• 2:27:19
  long hours hadn't also broken me in some small way.
• 2:27:24
  A tourist gift shop and cafe marked my arrival to the.
• 2:27:27
  Altai Mountains. After posing for a couple of
• 2:27:30
  photos in the parking lot, I went inside to discover that the
• 2:27:33
  power was out and no one was working.
• 2:27:36
  Back outside, I found the employees gathered around my
• 2:27:39
  bike. I told them about my trip and
• 2:27:42
  answered questions. With their urging, I got out my
• 2:27:45
  guitar and performed for eight people, my largest crowd yet.
• 2:27:50
  I received applause, but they were only being polite.
• 2:27:54
  The friendly chef went into the dark cafe and returned with a
• 2:27:57
  sushi roll for me. I looked at the pink fish,
• 2:28:00
  wondering how long the power had been out and how long the trip
• 2:28:03
  had taken from the ocean to this rural Russian cafe 2000 miles
• 2:28:08
  away. Ultimately, I was more hungry
• 2:28:11
  than worried, and the roll tasted delicious.
• 2:28:15
  The woman running the gift shop gave me a new T-shirt because
• 2:28:17
  she was concerned. About the holes in the.
• 2:28:19
  One I was wearing, I thanked her and put the new shirt on over
• 2:28:23
  top of the old ones. Later I packed the shirt away in
• 2:28:26
  case I ever need something clean to wear.
• 2:28:29
  She also gave me an elastic bracelet of polished black
• 2:28:32
  stones. I thanked her for the gift and
• 2:28:35
  packed the piece of jewelry away with my other treasures from the
• 2:28:37
  journey. One of the women running the
• 2:28:40
  outdoor food stand filled my water bottles with hot tea and
• 2:28:43
  gave me two small loaves of bread stuffed with meat and two
• 2:28:46
  more filled with nuts and fruit. As she handed me the food, she
• 2:28:51
  told me I have a kind face. That's the second time I've been
• 2:28:54
  given that compliment in Russia, which I find to be very sweet.
• 2:28:59
  I thanked her and thanked her for the food as well.
• 2:29:03
  Soon after arriving in Russia, I made the decision to.
• 2:29:06
  Approach everyone I meet with the.
• 2:29:07
  Sincere kindness and innate trust.
• 2:29:11
  I found that this way being transcends culture and language.
• 2:29:15
  People see me acting this way and mirror the sentiment back to
• 2:29:18
  me. The experience is beautiful.
• 2:29:21
  I'm creating a world for myself in which everyone is trustworthy
• 2:29:24
  and kind. Before leaving, I got a picture
• 2:29:28
  posing with the three generations of women that have
• 2:29:30
  been so eager to help me. I'm smiling broadly and wearing
• 2:29:34
  my new shirt. My arms are spread around a
• 2:29:37
  young woman on my left and her mother and grandmother on my
• 2:29:40
  right, each of them with lovely faces, a mixed European and
• 2:29:44
  Asian ancestry. They stood close enough that I
• 2:29:47
  could reach my arms around all of them, and when I touched
• 2:29:50
  their shoulders, I felt the length of time that has passed
• 2:29:54
  since I last had physical contact with anyone.
• 2:29:57
  The feeling caught me off guard. I didn't realize how much I
• 2:30:00
  missed the touch of another late this afternoon, I followed a
• 2:30:05
  path away from the. Road to a place near the river.
• 2:30:07
  Where I set up camp, soon after I hung my hammock, a car came
• 2:30:12
  down the same way. I was hidden in the trees, but
• 2:30:15
  the people look like they were planning to stay.
• 2:30:18
  I went over to say hello and met a young married couple and the
• 2:30:22
  guy with a torn up shirt like me.
• 2:30:24
  They poured me a cup of beer from a milk jug and invited me
• 2:30:28
  to stay for the first campfire of my journey.
• 2:30:31
  Communications started off slow, but after an hour.
• 2:30:35
  We are managing pretty. Well, we found an easy
• 2:30:37
  conversation in the language of consumer goods.
• 2:30:41
  We both knew a lot of the same international brands.
• 2:30:44
  We compared the cost of things in Russia versus the United
• 2:30:47
  States by writing numbers in the dirt.
• 2:30:50
  One of the guys worked as a gas station attendant, I.
• 2:30:53
  Talked to gas station. Attendants almost every day.
• 2:30:56
  They're always nice and he was too.
• 2:30:59
  He told me that every 4th day he works a 24 hour shift and gets
• 2:31:03
  paid $40.00 for it. I told him the same job in
• 2:31:06
  America would pay him five times more but still wouldn't be
• 2:31:09
  enough to live on. He asked if politicians are
• 2:31:13
  corrupt in the United States. I said they are.
• 2:31:16
  But have created legal ways to do so.
• 2:31:19
  He looked disappointed and said that the Russian politics don't
• 2:31:22
  even bother with that. Even methods of corruption seem
• 2:31:26
  to have a cultural identity. The group left sometime after
• 2:31:30
  dark. I retreated.
• 2:31:32
  To my hammock to bask. In the glow of their brief
• 2:31:34
  friendship and feel the continued elation of having
• 2:31:37
  crossed the Russian plane, the day has been so wonderful that
• 2:31:41
  I'm reminded to cherish this experience.
• 2:31:44
  And. The time that I have left on
• 2:31:45
  this journey, now I'm in my hammock listening to the
• 2:31:50
  distant. Sound of thumping house music.
• 2:31:53
  On the far shore, 200 meters away, there is a luxury hotel
• 2:31:57
  and dance club. The roof of the building has a
• 2:32:00
  brightly lit 15 foot tall crown. With a.
• 2:32:03
  Blue neon sign that reads Crown of Altai.
• 2:32:08
  The whole enterprise seems to be out of place in this otherwise
• 2:32:11
  quiet. Valley.
• 2:32:13
  The lights of the hotel reflect off of the river alongside the
• 2:32:16
  moonlight, and the music mixes with the gentle sound of
• 2:32:20
  rippling water. 2013.
• 2:32:39
  Such pretty mountains. I continued traveling uphill
• 2:32:43
  along the large fast flowing river.
• 2:32:45
  I saw kayaks navigating the Rapids before arriving in a
• 2:32:49
  packed tourist area. Traffic moved slowly past stands
• 2:32:53
  selling rafting trips, jet boat rides, food, towels and anything
• 2:32:57
  else that seemed to fit the scene.
• 2:32:59
  Hundreds of cars were parked among the trees along the river.
• 2:33:03
  People were drinking and music was playing.
• 2:33:05
  Everyone seemed to be having a good time, but to me, the place
• 2:33:09
  looked hectic. I couldn't ignore how much trash
• 2:33:12
  was on the ground. I saw a man in front of me roll
• 2:33:15
  down the passenger window, then toss a plastic bottle onto the
• 2:33:18
  side of the road. I wondered how he justified
• 2:33:20
  himself. The towns kept getting smaller
• 2:33:25
  as I went farther. Into the mountains, the last.
• 2:33:27
  One I passed was little more than a couple dozen wooden
• 2:33:30
  structures nestled between tall green hills.
• 2:33:34
  The houses were weathered Gray with window frames painted blue
• 2:33:37
  and white. Front yards are filled by
• 2:33:40
  gardens and outhouses stood in the back.
• 2:33:43
  Three young boys playing with a bike waved excitedly as I
• 2:33:47
  passed. In the afternoon, I leaned
• 2:33:50
  against a tree and slept. While the clouds above grew.
• 2:33:53
  Dark. When the first stray raindrops
• 2:33:56
  woke me, I could already see the columns of rain falling in the
• 2:33:59
  distance. I raced down the road until I
• 2:34:02
  found a small side path that took me to a perfect spot to
• 2:34:05
  camp. There was even a picnic table.
• 2:34:08
  I hung my hammock and rainfly as quickly as I could and squatted
• 2:34:12
  beneath them as a downpour arrived.
• 2:34:15
  Soon there were white flashes of lightning popping off around me,
• 2:34:18
  close enough I could hear them sizzle and feel the booming
• 2:34:21
  Thunder. After intense 20 minutes, the
• 2:34:24
  storm broke up and I had pleasant blue skies for the rest
• 2:34:28
  of the evening. 2013 A party.
• 2:34:48
  I watched the sunrise over the hill and burns in the morning
• 2:34:52
  mist. The road followed a river
• 2:34:54
  farther into the mountains, and in the late morning I arrived at
• 2:34:58
  the village of Chabelino. I saw a stage with balloons and
• 2:35:03
  a crowd was gathered in a. Large field at the.
• 2:35:05
  Edge of town As I pushed my bike across the grass to investigate,
• 2:35:10
  an older man holding his grandchild came to greet me.
• 2:35:14
  I told him I had come from Portugal and he immediately took
• 2:35:17
  me to where the. Food was being prepared.
• 2:35:19
  And handed me a bowl filled with chunks of meat from 2 buckets,
• 2:35:23
  one of them lamb and the other I couldn't identify.
• 2:35:27
  I asked the man and he made a riding motion like he was on a
• 2:35:31
  horse and a braying sound like a donkey.
• 2:35:34
  I'm still not sure what I was eating.
• 2:35:37
  A short time later, the daughter of the grandfather came to talk
• 2:35:40
  to me. She had taken English in college
• 2:35:42
  and we were able to have an easy conversation.
• 2:35:45
  She told me I arrived for the town's 180 year anniversary.
• 2:35:50
  We walked towards the stage where people were taking turns
• 2:35:52
  singing and giving speeches. She introduced me to a few of
• 2:35:56
  her neighbors and one of them handed me a toddler.
• 2:35:59
  The group laughed as I awkwardly held him.
• 2:36:02
  He faced away from me, sitting on my forearm while I cradled
• 2:36:05
  his body against my chest. How easily they trusted me was
• 2:36:08
  very sweet. I enjoyed being around all the
• 2:36:11
  happy people and stayed for a couple of hours.
• 2:36:14
  The grandfather invited me to sleep in his home for the night,
• 2:36:17
  but I declined. I'd arrived early in the day and
• 2:36:20
  more than anything else I wanted to keep biking through the
• 2:36:23
  beautiful mountains. In the late afternoon, I slept
• 2:36:27
  sitting up at a bus shelter. While I waited for a storm.
• 2:36:30
  To pass, I got started again into a drizzle, then chased a
• 2:36:34
  blue hole in the clouds for an hour before I was under the sun.
• 2:36:38
  The day ended with a steep Six Mile ascent that left me
• 2:36:41
  dripping with sweat and breathing hard to get to the
• 2:36:44
  top. My legs are exhausted tonight.
• 2:36:48
  I stopped to hang my hammock for the night in the pine forest.
• 2:36:51
  Just above the pass at. 5500 feet.
• 2:36:54
  I'm at the source of the river that I've been falling for the
• 2:36:56
  past 130 miles, from wide fast moving waters all the way up to
• 2:37:02
  the nearby spring trickling from the mountainside.
• 2:37:06
  I do love falling rivers downhill more than uphill.
• 2:37:10
  That will have to wait for tomorrow.
• 2:37:31
  breaking. I started biking this morning
• 2:37:34
  straight into a long winding downhill.
• 2:37:37
  Mountains grew taller around me as I descended into a broad
• 2:37:40
  valley. I warmed up slowly in the cool
• 2:37:42
  air. Traffic continues to thin out
• 2:37:45
  and today I was passed by about 30 cars an hour.
• 2:37:49
  After months contending with the endless cars and speeding semi
• 2:37:52
  trucks, I felt like I had the road all to myself.
• 2:37:55
  I could let my guard down a little bit and lose myself in
• 2:37:58
  the scenery without all the noise.
• 2:38:01
  I was able to hear the quiet. In the late afternoon.
• 2:38:06
  The road left the river to climb.
• 2:38:07
  Steeply up and over a Ridge. The view became more spectacular
• 2:38:11
  as I went higher, and I wasn't the only one to notice.
• 2:38:14
  At the pass, there's a parking area with a few dozen cars.
• 2:38:18
  People found boulders to climb on for pictures and walked along
• 2:38:21
  the Ridge, very noticeably covering all the trees and
• 2:38:25
  bushes. Or thousands of strips of white
• 2:38:27
  fabric tied onto all the branches as high as a person
• 2:38:30
  could reach. I don't know the cultural
• 2:38:33
  significance of tying these ribbons to the plants.
• 2:38:36
  Perhaps the fabric strips were deeply meaningful, but from my
• 2:38:40
  perspective, the place looked to be covered in litter.
• 2:38:43
  I was reminded of the child's prank of throwing toilet paper
• 2:38:46
  rolls in the trees. Moving past the crowd, I found a
• 2:38:51
  quiet Vista. Where I could sit unbothered.
• 2:38:53
  I played guitar that the songs were taken away by the wind.
• 2:38:59
  I left the crowd behind and descended into a rugged valley.
• 2:39:01
  To look for a place to camp. I've got my hammock hanging with
• 2:39:05
  a stream winding around me on three sides and a steep slope
• 2:39:08
  boxing me in on the 4th. I like this spot because I won't
• 2:39:11
  be bothered by the stray horses I've seen grazing across the
• 2:39:14
  green on fenced valleys. This morning I watched three of
• 2:39:19
  them walk through a gas station. My gear is beginning to break
• 2:39:23
  down. I can feel the.
• 2:39:25
  Bearings going bad in my right. Pedal causing a little wobble
• 2:39:28
  with every rotation. My bike computer stopped working
• 2:39:31
  this morning. I decided to like the idea of
• 2:39:34
  not measuring myself and for the rest of the day I felt liberated
• 2:39:38
  from counting my speed and distance, so I got the computer
• 2:39:41
  working again this evening. My hammock is also broke just
• 2:39:46
  after I laid down the. Soft webbing that wraps.
• 2:39:48
  Around the tree ripped. I fell to the ground, landing on
• 2:39:52
  the grass with a thud, expecting this was coming.
• 2:39:55
  I've made a habit of checking for sharp stones or branches
• 2:39:58
  under my hammock. I tied the webbing back together
• 2:40:02
  and now have a shorter tree strap.
• 2:40:04
  When I started, I did not expect my gear to be breaking down like
• 2:40:07
  this either. I've overestimated my equipment.
• 2:40:11
  Or underestimated the wear and tear of bicycling around the
• 2:40:14
  world. 2013.
• 2:40:33
  Cheers. I continued this morning through
• 2:40:36
  a magnificent half mile wide. Valley with 1000 meter.
• 2:40:39
  Tall ridges running on both sides, the snaking river on the
• 2:40:43
  valley floor was itself 400 feet across.
• 2:40:47
  Even larger mountains with jutting cliffs filled the
• 2:40:50
  horizon. Ahead of me.
• 2:40:51
  I passed forests and grassland, with cows and horses grazing
• 2:40:56
  alongside the road. Distant villages of a few dozen
• 2:40:59
  houses look comically small in the grand landscape.
• 2:41:03
  As I passed 1 field of boulders, I was called to investigate the
• 2:41:06
  largest 1A behemoth chunk of granite brought there by a
• 2:41:10
  glacier then abandoned after the last Ice Age.
• 2:41:14
  The rectangular shape looked like a toppled monolith.
• 2:41:17
  At the broken end was a flat surface where I discovered
• 2:41:20
  petroglyphs of antlered animals scratched into the stone.
• 2:41:24
  The boulder was most obvious tall feature across the wide
• 2:41:27
  flat valley. I climbed up to sit on top and
• 2:41:30
  admire the magnificent view. From millennia ago until modern
• 2:41:34
  times, hunters would have. Sat in that same spot.
• 2:41:38
  Scanning for Antelope, I don't often get to share a seat with
• 2:41:41
  100 generations that came before, but in that spot I
• 2:41:45
  surely was. I looked out at the mountains
• 2:41:49
  and the clouds beyond, the same view they would have seen.
• 2:41:54
  I stopped to eat breakfast at a high point overlooking the.
• 2:41:56
  River and while I was there. 2 local men came down the road on
• 2:42:00
  their horses with a white dog falling close behind.
• 2:42:04
  Both were middle-aged and when I could see their round faces and
• 2:42:06
  narrow eyes, I recognized that I had arrived at the part of the
• 2:42:10
  world dominated by Asian lineage.
• 2:42:13
  I've bicycled so far that I have become a minority.
• 2:42:18
  When the men saw me, they trotted their horses over to say
• 2:42:21
  hello. One of them tapped the side of
• 2:42:23
  his neck with two fingers. I've seen this gesture use since
• 2:42:26
  Ukraine to ask if I wanted to drink.
• 2:42:29
  The story I was told is that all vodka legally sold in the Soviet
• 2:42:32
  Union used to be government control.
• 2:42:35
  To keep bootleg vodka off the market, government officials
• 2:42:38
  traveled the country taste testing what they were being
• 2:42:40
  served at bars. To ensure that not just anyone
• 2:42:43
  was showing up asking for samples, the official taste
• 2:42:46
  testers were given a small tattoo low on their neck of a
• 2:42:50
  rose. To get free samples, they pulled
• 2:42:53
  their shirt collar to the side, revealing the tattoo.
• 2:42:57
  In time, the culture adopted tapping or flicking their neck
• 2:43:00
  to say let's have a drink. I accepted the offer and the two
• 2:43:05
  men climbed down from their horses.
• 2:43:07
  They wore old shirts and sweatpants tucked into mid shin
• 2:43:10
  rubber boots. One of them stretched out his
• 2:43:13
  waistband and reached his whole arm down his pant leg until he's
• 2:43:16
  up to his shoulder. He came back up with a plastic
• 2:43:20
  one liter bottle half filled with something brown and
• 2:43:23
  homemade, literally bootleg alcohol.
• 2:43:26
  The flavor was good and not too strong.
• 2:43:29
  They each had a drink too and mounted their horses to head
• 2:43:32
  down the road with their white dog falling behind.
• 2:43:37
  I pulled into an overlook high above the confluence.
• 2:43:40
  Of two large rivers, A. Couple of British men were there
• 2:43:43
  with a guided tour that was getting ready to leave.
• 2:43:46
  They gave me a beer before climbing into their bus.
• 2:43:49
  The cold bottle was in my hand when they left so I decided to
• 2:43:52
  drink the beer right there, admiring the view.
• 2:43:56
  A couple miles later, a van pulled off the road in front of
• 2:43:58
  me and. Two men climbed.
• 2:44:00
  Out completely happy to meet me. Neither of them had ever met
• 2:44:03
  someone from the USA and they wanted to see what my passport
• 2:44:06
  looked like. I showed them a photocopy that I
• 2:44:09
  carry around for this very reason.
• 2:44:12
  One of the men was a captain in the army and on the back of the
• 2:44:14
  photocopy he wrote a note in Russian saying to let me through
• 2:44:18
  at the border, which was kind of him to do but hopefully won't be
• 2:44:22
  needed. The day was still young, but
• 2:44:25
  both of the men had already been drinking a.
• 2:44:27
  Bottle of vodka. Appeared and the captain tapped
• 2:44:30
  his neck. We all drank 3 full shots
• 2:44:32
  together. Before each one, the two men
• 2:44:35
  raised their glasses to make a long, impassioned toast to me
• 2:44:38
  and my enduring adventure. I didn't understand what they
• 2:44:42
  were saying, but I could hear the sincerity in their delivery.
• 2:44:45
  A short time later, a van full kayaker stopped asking what I
• 2:44:49
  was doing. One of them spoke English and
• 2:44:51
  invited me to their campground 50 kilometers down the road.
• 2:44:55
  I had almost gone that far already, but I woke up feeling
• 2:44:58
  strong, so I told them I would be there tonight.
• 2:45:02
  The camp was actually 60 kilometers away and I climbed
• 2:45:05
  the whole. Way spurred on.
• 2:45:06
  By desire for company pulling into the campground five hours
• 2:45:10
  later, I surprised the people invited me They thought the ride
• 2:45:14
  might have been too far there are a couple of dozen kayakers
• 2:45:18
  at the campsite. They.
• 2:45:19
  Shared their dinner and. Handed me a fifth drink of the
• 2:45:22
  day, a Russian beer. I sat at a long plastic table
• 2:45:26
  with the group and spoke with a man from Saint Petersburg who
• 2:45:29
  was fluent in English. I asked him to compare the 2
• 2:45:32
  languages for me, and he quickly replied that Russian is a very
• 2:45:35
  emotional language, much more than English.
• 2:45:39
  I told him to surprise me because the movie industry has
• 2:45:42
  conditioned me to think of Russians as cold, unfeeling bad
• 2:45:46
  guys. He laughed in agreement.
• 2:45:49
  Yes, he joked, always named Boris.
• 2:45:53
  We discussed how the differences in languages influenced our
• 2:45:56
  perception of the world. I like the idea that there are
• 2:45:59
  Russian words for emotions that have no English equivalent.
• 2:46:02
  If I were to learn those Russian words, would they unlock new
• 2:46:05
  emotions or simply give me the vocabulary to express what I was
• 2:46:09
  already feeling? His example is the Russian word
• 2:46:12
  tosca, saying that the meaning was a sort of deep sadness that
• 2:46:16
  only a Russian could know. Just after dark, I was invited
• 2:46:21
  to join the campground. Banya.
• 2:46:23
  A Russian style sauna consisting of a small wooden building with
• 2:46:27
  a porch and two inner rooms. The first inner room was a place
• 2:46:31
  to strip naked and had a bucket of cold water on the floor.
• 2:46:35
  The second room was smaller, much hotter and more cramped.
• 2:46:39
  Stones cooked on a bed of clothes.
• 2:46:41
  In the corner there are two benches stacked like bleachers,
• 2:46:44
  each fit 5 people pressed tightly against one another.
• 2:46:48
  Those on the lower bench sat between the spread knees of
• 2:46:50
  people on the upper bench and two more stood in front of
• 2:46:53
  everyone, their crotches at eye level.
• 2:46:55
  For all who were seated, not one more person could have fit.
• 2:47:00
  The atmosphere inside was jovial.
• 2:47:02
  Two women were in the corner and the rest were men making each
• 2:47:05
  other laugh. I took a seat on the lower bench
• 2:47:08
  and watched as the two men in front of me whipped each other
• 2:47:11
  with a fresh cut tree branch, slapping the green leaves
• 2:47:14
  against their back, chest and legs.
• 2:47:17
  A traditional practice, but I don't know why.
• 2:47:21
  The temperature hovered at 195°F.
• 2:47:24
  Each searing breath cooked me a little more and I was struggling
• 2:47:27
  just to be in there. The kayakers had been in cold
• 2:47:30
  water all day while I bicycled 7 1/2 hours under a hot sun.
• 2:47:35
  I needed to hydrate and cool off, not sit in an oven.
• 2:47:39
  A little water was splashed on the stones, filling the air with
• 2:47:42
  hot steam. I inhaled one breath of the
• 2:47:45
  humidified air and that was all I could take.
• 2:47:48
  I lasted only 8 minutes. Stepping into the outer room.
• 2:47:52
  I went to the bucket to dump cold.
• 2:47:54
  Water in my head. And move to the porch to sit
• 2:47:56
  naked under the stars in the warm evening air.
• 2:48:00
  Occasionally one of the men would burst out of the door,
• 2:48:03
  streaking into the darkness. I would hear a splash and a Yelp
• 2:48:06
  from the nearby river. Then they would come running
• 2:48:09
  back past me and into the banya again.
• 2:48:13
  At the end of the night, a guy offered me marijuana grown in
• 2:48:16
  the local Altai mountains. In my life, I've rarely smoked
• 2:48:20
  cannabis, but I accepted. On this journey, I've learned to
• 2:48:24
  accept the gift. He and a few others were smoking
• 2:48:27
  out of what he called a gravity bomb, a contraption I've never
• 2:48:31
  seen before. In practice, the rig utilized
• 2:48:34
  the bucket of water and a plastic soda bottle to ram 2
• 2:48:37
  liters of smoke into my lungs. I lifted my head and blew a
• 2:48:41
  cloud into the air above me. Immediately my vision became
• 2:48:45
  pale, my balance began to falter.
• 2:48:48
  I lunged for a chair only three steps away, managed to sit
• 2:48:51
  before I fell. I put my elbows on my knees,
• 2:48:55
  rest of my head in my hands and stayed like that.
• 2:48:58
  I was very high, a little drunk, dehydrated, and after peddling 6
• 2:49:03
  to 8 miles uphill. My thighs were twitching from
• 2:49:06
  exhaustion. I needed a moment.
• 2:49:10
  By the time I collected myself, everyone had retreated.
• 2:49:13
  To their tents. I'm now lying on the ground next
• 2:49:16
  to my bike, looking up at the starry sky gripping the earth as
• 2:49:20
  I raced through the cosmos. 2013, Resting today.
• 2:49:42
  I didn't bicycle anywhere today. I was appreciating having.
• 2:49:45
  Company in this. Place is stunningly beautiful.
• 2:49:48
  Green valleys meander away in many directions with grasses and
• 2:49:52
  forests covering the slopes of the angular mountains.
• 2:49:55
  Light and shadows played across the scene and throughout the day
• 2:49:59
  as continuously struck by the magnificence.
• 2:50:02
  I spent time with the two women from Moscow on summer break from
• 2:50:05
  university there in the Bonnie with me last night.
• 2:50:09
  I commented on the intense heat and they said everyone could
• 2:50:12
  tell I wasn't Russian when I left so quickly.
• 2:50:15
  They were both artists and we shared sketches from our
• 2:50:18
  journals. One of the women.
• 2:50:20
  Had a wonderful pencil drawing of smooth rocks on a stream bed.
• 2:50:23
  I showed them my ink landscapes from across Russia.
• 2:50:27
  The pages were filled with clouds and sky, but in this
• 2:50:30
  mountainous terrain, my eyes once again drawn to the land.
• 2:50:35
  Tonight was not as raucous as yesterday people were.
• 2:50:38
  Tired, went to bed. Early I've got my hammock
• 2:50:41
  hanging by the river. The sky is now dark in the
• 2:50:44
  flowing water is all I hear. A friend to bike with.
• 2:51:06
  I left early this morning before most people were out of their
• 2:51:09
  tents. This way I could skip an
• 2:51:11
  extended goodbye. I wanted to get back to my
• 2:51:14
  solitude in the beautiful scenery.
• 2:51:17
  Through the morning and into the afternoon I climbed my way out
• 2:51:20
  of the valley. The ridges that have run high
• 2:51:22
  above me for five days slowly shrank into low hills and then
• 2:51:26
  they were gone. In front of me it was a wide
• 2:51:29
  flat expanse rimmed by a distant mountain range of glacier
• 2:51:32
  crusted peaks. The scene was magnificent.
• 2:51:37
  Toward the end of the day, I caught up with an American.
• 2:51:39
  Named Mark riding a loaded. Bicycle Mark was in his early
• 2:51:43
  40s and worked as a teacher in New York City.
• 2:51:46
  His trip started in eastern Russia in early May, about the
• 2:51:49
  same time I started in western Russia, and we finally just met
• 2:51:53
  in the middle. Mark has gone even farther than
• 2:51:56
  me, saying that he averages 90 miles per day.
• 2:51:59
  Apparently the force had so many ticks that he couldn't set up
• 2:52:02
  his tent without becoming covered in them.
• 2:52:05
  He's been riding his bike all day and sleeping in the bus
• 2:52:07
  shelters along the highway. The story described the tenacity
• 2:52:11
  I could appreciate. Mark is also going to Mongolia,
• 2:52:15
  but where I will turn east. He's heading.
• 2:52:17
  South into Tibet, then on to Burma.
• 2:52:21
  For now though we are on the same Rd. until we biked into the
• 2:52:24
  evening together. Mark and I set up camp on a
• 2:52:28
  wide, treeless flat. There's only thin grass growing,
• 2:52:32
  no place to hide, so he simply picked a spot to lay on the
• 2:52:35
  ground. A local man noticed us and rode
• 2:52:38
  his motorcycle over as we cook dinner.
• 2:52:41
  He invited us to sleep in his yurt this evening, pointing to a
• 2:52:44
  white Dome a couple miles away. Mark and I looked at each other
• 2:52:48
  and told the man we would stay here, we'd gone far enough for
• 2:52:52
  the day. Through the evening I watched a
• 2:52:55
  sheet of rain drift. Across the land carrying a.
• 2:52:58
  Magnificent bright rainbow. The sun dropped over the far off
• 2:53:02
  peaks and I zipped my sleeping bag.
• 2:53:04
  Against A rush of cool. Air I feel delighted to be in
• 2:53:07
  such a remarkable place.