A parting gift from Russia: a plague of bugs
Day 104 - Dmitrievka to Volgograd - 6.5 hours, 350 miles. Sorry, Russia, but I'd have to say, this was the most boring day of riding of the entire trip. Nothing but straight roads, empty fields, and road construction. No choice but to just blast through it.
Likely the most entertaining aspect of the day was spotting the cardboard cop cars placed tactically along the roadway. When moving at a good clip, these guys look very real in the distance.
Day 105 - Volgograd to Astrakhan - 6 hours, 290 miles. Dropped into the BMW dealership in Volgograd for a more permanent tire repair. They quickly pulled the wheel off and applied a patch/plug combo. I feel much more secure with this bad boy.
Before leaving town, we stopped by the Mamayev Kurgan ("Motherland Calls") statue, which commemorates the Battle of Stalingrad. This 279-foot statue sits atop a commanding hill in the center of Volgograd and is nothing short awesome. Soviet Sniper Vasily Zaytzev, credited with killing 225 enemy soldiers, is buried in the center of the monument. There are some pretty amazing military monuments around the world, but I've never witnessed one so grand and majestic.
Unfortunately, the heat and mosquitoes in Volograd chased us away quite quickly and we headed south toward the last major town before crossing into Kazakhstan. I was surprised by the abundance of winged insects in the city--usually they only hang out in the more remote marshy areas. Holy crap, were we in for a surprise.
If we stopped on the side of the road for more than 3 seconds, a swarm of small buts would be in faces,and seconds later they could be in our helmets, mouths, shirts, everywhere. Forget about stopping to relieve yourself. The only real option was to keep moving...both on the bikes or walking in circles while someone pumped gas for us. The locals walked around with large nets over their heads.
While we'd wanted to camp, it was not possible. We rolled into Astrakhan at dusk, just as the bugs also went to bed. The hotel host was amazingly hospitable, wanting to hear of all our travels, what we thought of Russia, and where we were headed. Kenny and the host's 12-year-old nephew played pool late into the night, but I crashed hard. Tomorrow we'd cross into Kazakhstan.
