I got up about 7:30 put on my clean clothes, went down to reception, fired up my computer and checked my e-mails before I left the hotel. I don’t know when I’ll find the internet again. It may be one or two days, or more than a week. It’s just how it works here in Siberia. None of the e-mails were that noteworthy except the one from my sister Carol. Her son got in touch with her and she let everyone in the family know about it. I know she was waiting for that first contact for more than 27 years. She was exhilarated. I replied by giving her the thumbs up on the situation and went to breakfast. When I got back from breakfast I packed up my computer stuff and headed to my motorcycle. I took off the cover, opened up my boxes and packed that stuff away. The security guard came over and didn’t think I was a guest of the hotel and wanted payment for parking in the secure parking area. Since we couldn’t communicate he went inside and talked to somebody about it. I went upstairs and got my second load of bags, and was putting them on the motorcycle when a guy approached me from the hotel who could speak English. He asked what my room number was and how many days I had stayed in the hotel. I told him my room number and that I stayed four nights in the hotel. He left and the guard left. With all the attention I got over my motorcycle parking I made sure the house cleaning lady checked my room to know that I didn’t steal the water glasses, bedding or towels. As I was walking toward the elevator to go down, sure enough, they had a spy to check that everything went well with the room check. She was a front desk person who never left the front desk and reception area all day. I know this because I sat in front of the receptionist desk while doing my e-mails for probably four to five hours for two days straight. She was pretending to get a drink of water when I walked by so I wouldn’t think she was a spy. She got in the elevator with me and we kind of looked at each other and I couldn’t help but laugh. I returned the key, finished loading my motorcycle and left the parking lot without another visit from security. I fired up Matilda and she led me out of Irkutsk to Highway M53 which turns into Highway M55 to Ulan-Ude. That’s the next town I’m going to. I had to do a couple of recalculations when she wanted to drive down one way streets. I also was going to make a left hand turn where I shouldn’t and someone hollered out their car window not to do it. I realized right off I was making a mistake and made a right turn. So getting out of town was uneventful thanks to Matilda. I wish it worked that way going into these cities and finding a hotel. This whole trip would be a snap. I filled up with gas as I was leaving the city and I said to myself that I need to change oil in this bike pretty soon. I know it’s coming up on an oil change. I checked and I have over 2000 miles on my present oil change and about 2000 miles to go before I reach Valdivostock on the Pacific Ocean. I drove 100 miles/161 Kilometers and filled up with gas again. I walked into the gas station and there in front of me was a display of Shell 15w-40 Diesel oil, the perfect oil for my bike. I bought three quarts/litres and left. About 30 minutes down the road I drove by a garage that does car repairs. I stopped there and asked the guys if I could change my oil. Of course there was the language barrier, but after a while they got the idea I wanted to change my oil. They said to push it into the garage and do it. I drained my oil, put in a new filter, put the drain plug back in and filled it with oil. I cleaned up my mess, loaded my bike and went to pay for changing my oil. They said “no charge” and let me go. They wanted to know where Minnesota was so I got my United States map out and showed them. The son of the owner knew some English. He must have studied it in school. I gave the son a card of mine with my blog address on it. Hopefully he will be able to get on the internet somewhere and check out my blog. I took a picture of the small shop and left. I really wanted to camp on Lake Baikal, the world’s largest fresh water lake. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I drove down a road thinking it would lead me to the lake. I believe I was within a quarter mile of the lake but all the roads were flooded out. I actually crossed the flooded road in one place. The water was nearly axle-deep on my motorcycle. Further down the road was totally flooded out so that ended my idea of camping on the lake. I came back, forded the stream and pulled into some kind of a building establishment thinking it would be a private and quiet for the night. I set up camp for the night near a stream that was overflowing its banks in another buttercup field. When I was staking my tent down I couldn’t get a stake in the ground. The ground I was standing on must have been all gravel. Another thing was, the ground was saturated with water. When I put all my weight on one foot the water would squish up around the sole of my engineer boots. After I got everything set up I took a walk around the area and looked at the foundations and standing walls. Whatever was built there must have been built during the communist days. There were remnants of electricity and a fence around the whole operation with gates and a guard house. I imagine the electricity was supplied by a generator. It was nowhere near any power lines. They had a concrete ramp for changing oil in their vehicles. I located a large heavy flywheel, no doubt off a diesel engine. A definite indication it was big nickel operation. Maybe it was a small military post or maybe it had something to do with the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Only the old timers in the area would have any idea what carryings on went on there. For some reason it was all abandoned and then cannibalized by the local people. I was sitting in one of the foundations out of the sun when a truck came driving in. I noticed that someone was breaking apart the walls and chipping the concrete away from the bricks. Then they neatly stacked them up to be picked up later. I think the first truck that came in was coming in to pick up his bricks and I foiled his plan. I was sitting in the foundation where the bricks were stacked up. He turned around and left. I didn’t know it at the time but I was to be visited four times before the sun went down. I thought I had found an out of the way place to camp. This actually turned out to be the most visited campsite I ever had. Once it cooled down enough so I could sit in my tent I started working on my blog. A car drove up within one yard/one meter of my motorcycle and then turned around and left. I started having second thoughts about the selection of my campsite. This happened twice more before it was dark. I think the people that were visiting my campsite were looking for Lake Baikal with no intention of bothering me. They were people who were looking for the better campsites before they all were taken by someone else. Like me, their plans we spoiled by the flooded out road and they started looking for a different route which brought them to my campsite. I went to bed.
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