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From the Soviet era, there are bus stops to support the farm collectives every 1-2km or so in the rural areas. The collectives are .5km away on typically, dirt roads and we saw people walking along the roads, carrying things, or occasionally waiting for buses. These bus stops seem to be in the middle of no where. At least people have some transportation possibilities. Some are tiled quite beautifully, although deteriorating a bit. Many of our rest stops would be at a bus stop! Today we rode to Rybinsk, a very industrial area and got a city tour.
As we left the beautiful resourt across the river from Myshkin, the flies were biting! Argh. Have I mentioned the Russian flies? They are spectacular. I know I've mentioned them. Seems I get to again! I rode a bit with Roger and he noted that he had me all wrong and that I could ride! LOL. Oh Roger, will I ever let you live that down?... So, we were CRUISIN along and got to the more urban area. Sadly, neither of us knew Russian. We got to this pretty large intersection. Who knew that a sign of CnOR means STOP!? Who knew we should look to the left and see the cars about to smash into us from over the bridge? Who knew? Apparently, neither Roger nor I, who blindly followed him through this HUGE intersection, caught onto the general rules. It was SO rural and POW. We hit the urban traffic on the outter road. Roger slammed on his brakes and came within 6 inches of getting wiped out by a car. Our hearts were pitter-patter, but we were ok. Thank goodness for those great Lada brakes.... (Lada is a Russian mfg car). Time for a rest stop. Actually, this was the thing... we were riding so hard and saw Andre and the truck right in front of us, so we took a dive to him... Just after that, Andre left to go SAG one of the riders and the truck broke down! I must tell you, if the truck breaks down, it must be fixed. There is no backup. So, Andre fixed it!
This city was a center of Soviet aero and until the past 2-3 years, NO foreigners were allowed in the city! We had a short tour and saw some nice art
Anne sang at dinner - what a beautiful voice. Benita and Herbert toasted Nelson Mandela as the greatest Leader in the world - it was Mandela's birthday!
Lovely day and glad to be alive and healthy ;D
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