I can’t believe it! The last two days were beautiful sunny days and today it’s raining. I do a lot of grumbling about having to load my bike in the rain. I actually made a discovery. I can open my boxes under my motorcycle cover that I use when my bike is sitting outside at a hotel. It is almost 100% waterproof. That made me a lot happier. I made my usual four trips upstairs and of course the cleaning lady knows I’m stealing something with all the bags that I’m taking downstairs. So I go to the room for the last time, put on my clothes and call the cleaning lady to check the room over, which she does. She counted all the towels, the bed sheets, the mattress cover, glasses, and counts all the items in the small refrigerator. Then gives me a big smile that everything is in order. She gives the front desk a call saying I can check out. I put my directions tape on the gas tank etc. etc. I wanted to leave at 7:00 a.m. but didn’t make it out of there until 8:00. I made it out of town with only having to ask for directions once. I drove from Kursk, to Voronez, to Borisoglebsk and stayed the night. Sometime during the afternoon I was traveling down the road, which was backed up behind a semi-truck. I stuck my head out to see if I had clearance to pass. Yes I did, but I’d have to give it a max effort. Just about the time I’m putting the pedal to metal the car alongside me decides to pull out and pass. By now I’m at the back end of the semi-truck under full power. Just then the semi-truck decides he wants to move into the passing lane and realized he was cutting me off. With all this going on the oncoming car is about to meet the semi-truck. So the semi jams on his brakes hard and stops. I’m hard on my brakes alongside the rear wheels of the semi-truck and I stopped. The car behind the semi is hard on his breaks so he doesn’t rear-end the semi-truck. The oncoming car passes me with half his car on the pavement and half on the shoulder of the road. So when the smoke finally settled, all the vehicles behind the semi-truck were stopped as was the semi-truck. So what happened? The whole ruckus was caused by another semi-truck sitting with more than half of it out on the black top and the driver was standing in the middle of the road. The semi-truck driver in front of me moved to the center of the lane to miss the guy standing in the middle of the road and nearly hit me. Then saw me and jammed on his breaks to stop. So everybody jammed on their brakes to stop except the oncoming car which drove on by. It probably took 30 plus seconds before everybody who stopped got rolling again. Everyone’s vehicle was in high gear when we came to a screeching halt and we had to downshift to get going. Once the semi got back up to speed he pitched an empty pack of cigarettes out the window. I kind of think he thought he was going to hit the truck driver standing in the road and almost pooped in his pants. It was around 7:00 p.m. when I arrived in Borisoglebsk with no idea where to stay. I saw this middle-aged couple sawing this 20 inch diameter tree trunk in half by hand. I believe they were using a carpenter's hand saw to do it. You’ve got to be a glutton for punishment to saw wood like that. I stopped 30 feet away so they didn’t think I was going to rob them when I got off the bike. I told them I was an American and was looking for a hotel. The husband said there’s one about a kilometer from the house and told me how to find it. I understood about two words but got the jist of the conversation. The lady said she didn’t think I understood, and took off for the house on the run. She comes back in a couple of minutes dragging her son or grandson and pencil and paper. She introduces her son or grandson to me while she’s wiping the food crumbs off his face. I shook his hand. She then proceeds to draw a sketch on how to find the hotel. I asked her how far I have to go before I make the first right turn. She and I walked down to the street corner and she said, turn here, less than 200 hundred feet. After that finding the hotel was pretty easy. I drove up to the hotel and into the secure parking lot. I was met by the parking lot guard who was very suspicious of me. He directed me into my parking spot and I came in and paid him for parking. After we got the paperwork done he actually was a pretty nice guy. I found out a new name for receptionist: Administrator. Well the woman working as the administrator was having a difficult time because we can’t communicate. For some reason she was having difficulties with my visa and didn’t know why and couldn’t get answers from me. Also there were five different rooms to pick from. I picked the cheapest one. She started fussing about something. Finally I figured out the cheap rooms were dumps. I said, show me the rooms and then I’ll decide. I went and looked with the cleaning lady. Yep, I was right the cheap room was a dump. A pretty slimy shower and bad toilet situation. I picked the next higher priced room, paid for it, unloaded my bike and started planning my next day. Alex in the gas station showed me how to get thru town. Taxi map.
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