When I got up it was raining. I went back to bed for an hour and the rain stopped. I quickly tore everything down and packed it away wet. I got my bike loaded and left. I was camping near a rest stop and you should have seen the faces of the people in the rest area when I drove out the drive way. Pure shock, never knowing I was there. I started driving on gravel and within 6 miles/10 kilometers it was blacktop again. From there it was mostly blacktop with an occasional area where it was one lane blacktop. It was the best day as far as good roads go in days. Finding gas was great. Every 100 miles I found gas without having to drive back into the villages. Toward the end of the day it started raining and kept getting progressively worse. I had to drive a bypass because Highway M55 hasn’t been constructed through this area yet. Thank God Matilda knew where she was going because I would have never found my way even if it wasn’t raining. At first the road was ok but it went progressively downhill from there. It was a miserable road with potholes every foot, and full of water. This probably went on for 20/30 miles/32/48 kms. Toward the end of the bypass there was wet loose gravel and sand before it rejoined Highway M55. Even the Russian travelers were having problems finding their way. I finally came to the end of the bypass and was back on new blacktop, so off I went. The rain was getting lighter and I stopped for gas exactly where my road atlas said it would be. It was getting late and I had to find a campsite. This is flat land with very few trees. It was difficult finding a secluded campsite. I finally found one that didn’t meet my criteria but set up camp anyway. The mosquitoes were horrific and it was raining while I set up camp. I couldn’t hide myself from the road. I set myself back into woods as far as possible and called it good. I covered the front of my bike with wet cardboard that was lying around to hide it so it wouldn’t be so visible from the road. I got inside my tent and killed mosquitoes for the next 15 minutes. There have been some large battles inside my tent and so far I’ve won all of them. The mosquito and fly death rate has been high and the carnage is scattered about. Every day I sweep the bug parts out of my tent. The dirty little buggers. I got as far as planned for the day and was happy about that. I’m about 400 miles/657 Kilometers from Khabarovsk. I’ll try to make it over half tomorrow, maybe farther if it’s a sunny day. I worked on my Blog and went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment