Teaching moment, learn from another's missteps Part 1

[Taz]

Crimea was a place I really wanted to return to. I planned on having a nice vacation and helping the boys along the way. As usual, I got more than I bargained for and few things went according to plan. Last time I really wanted to go to Crimea JD screwed it up but I met Lana. It pays to be flexible in the FSU.

A long time acquaintance, CCowboy, was also in country. I had encouraged him repeatedly to go to Mari but he chose to go to S’pol to search for a woman. Personally I think Crimea is not the best place to look but what do I know… Anyway he decided the ecology of Mari wasn’t good enough. Hell, I wasn’t going to live there so it wasn’t that much of an issue to me. It isn’t like Ukraine is a pristine country in the first place!

SwissKid and Myrddin were sort of anxious about what kind of response they received. I wasn’t worried that they would have a great response. They were both sincere guys and I tried to convey that in their profiles. I was sort of concerned if Myrddin had too much time to think about it, he might become a little nervous. I wanted everything to be as smooth as possible.

I got word back that the response was pretty good but not quite what I expected. Mostly because of the fact that we were coming during a holiday period of time and many women had made plans to leave the city for the week.  I called up the director and suggested she contact the women again. I asked her to stress the fact that these were VERY SINCERE guys and a meeting with a good man could change these women’s lives. If they were truly looking for love this was an incredible opportunity.  Next day I get an email back and WHAM! They were suddenly booked to overflowing. We weren’t too far out until we’d actually leave and everything was looking pretty good.

I know that sometimes you can have downtime if you are waiting for meetings as sometimes the women are able to meet you until after work. I had strongly encouraged my travel companions to bring along some entertainment. I suggested they pick up a Xootr scooter. This scooter is sort of like the kids Razor scooter but a truly a work of art. They have 7” wheels that have incredibly low rolling resistance. It’s what happens when aerospace engineers decide to design and build a scooter. I’ve used them for years and my original one is so old now I can’t exactly remember when I bought it about 7 or 8 years ago.

They don’t have pneumatic wheels so they don’t get flats and are very fast and lightweight. They weigh about 9lbs (4kg) and I use them almost every time I go except when there is snow. I like to call them my “range extender”. As long as I am not rolling on to bad of pavement (or cobblestones) or something akin to a cow path then they are a great option. I typically can easily average about 10mph on them so I can cover ground pretty quickly.  A 5 minute walk turns into a 2 minute cruise on the scooter. One major plus is the positive attention these things draw from the local citizens there. I’ve met quite a few interesting people and some absolutely gorgeous women have gone for a ride on my scooters over the years. My plan was to give the guys a taste of that for themselves.

[Taz]

I had plans to go to Crimea for sure so I also arranged lodging there. This turned out to be a PITA. I had to WU the money there. All was fine except when the person I sent it to went to pick it up. Of course the money wasn’t there and supposedly I had a valid code according to WU. Then why the heck couldn’t the woman get it? She went to about 10 banks and nobody would give her the money nor could they find it in her system. I got a less than polite phone call about me running her all over the place for no reason at all. After several hours talking to WU I finally got the answers. They had screwed up and sent it to RUSSIA instead of UA!!! I had to send another one and they wouldn’t refund my commission back. I was PO’d to say the least. I called the lady back the next day and all was groovy as they say. Send a wad of cash to someone in the FSU and they typically forget about the previous issues…for at least 5 or 10 minutes anyway. All seemed ok. I had lined up 2 NICE apartments for SK and MD (or MD and some lady or SK and some lady) together and Lana and myself.

Finally all seemed as well prepared as I could make it. As usual quite a few things were in flux or I knew they weren’t as well sorted out as I tried to make them but I did the best I could.         

I talked quite a few times with SK and MD. Gave some suggestions on little gifts to take and keeping them abreast of current plans. MD kept reiterating that he’d like to line up a lot of this stuff on his own. While I admire his desire to do so, I kept thinking in the back of my head “Enjoy it kid while you have the chance!” I’d more than love someone to take care of all the planning, calls, searching, etc. I did to make this go as smoothly as I hoped it would but knew deep inside that it is still UA after all. You know the old “Best laid plans of mice and men…”

Last few days were pretty much a blur. SK and MD were obviously as anxious as a bride on her wedding night. LOTS of calls and contact to help keep them at ease. I admired the trust they put in me and I’d never lost a soldier yet on the battlefield and I weren’t about to let them be the first casualties. This is war dammit! It’s either US or the Feminazis and I am not about to go down without a fight. They guys seemed ready and I know I was. They had bought Xootrs too and were ready to roll (pun intended). I suggest snacks to bring such as beef jerky, microwave popcorn, hot sauce and good booze. Women there seem to really dig Mojitos!

Finally we are in the home stretch. You can finally count the hours more comfortably than the days until our departure. I'm prepared but are they? We'll know soon. I have faith in them but there was so much information to impart to them in such a short time. If the even remember half of what I told them it would be a Herculean effort! I think they are up to the task but it is too early to tell for sure. Normally my hunches and instincts are pretty good. I hope they didn't fail me now.

[Taz]

Finally game time! Flights are in a few hours. Quick check with the other guys. JD seems to be ready and to my total astonishment has actually been studying the Ruslan course I encouraged him to buy YEARS ago!!! OMG! He actually can speak some Russian. Pigs truly CAN FLY! Why the hell didn’t he do this years ago I’ll never know but he had a reasonably decent grasp of Ruslan 1 now. Now I won’t have to babysit him so much. Turns out it was incredibly useful on his trip.

I am a bit hurried getting to my flight. The shuttle was a bit late but I had ordered it early. Even then it was late enough it almost ate up my buffer. I had a bag for MD’s scooter and I had it carried with me. I am LOADED when I pull up to the ticket counter. A guy I know here locally wanted me to take some stuff over to UA for him as he plans on living with his fiance’ in Simferopol and I was doing the nice thing and taking what I could for him. I knew I was pushing the baggage limits.

Sure enough I get there and I am over. They want a big wad of cash. I whip out my FF card. I’ve got status. The price goes down quite a bit. I suggest a compromise. We settle on 50 bucks and I shift a bunch of stuff into my carry-on and from one bag to another. I make way to security and I apparently set off every alarm known to man. All the crap in my hand luggage is so densely packed that their x-ray equipment can’t penetrate it. I obviously fit the profile of a terrorist. I have a gazillion miles on this airline (and several others). I am a tall, handsome, outgoing Tasmanian Devil. Yea, yea, I know, lack of confidence isn’t one of my issues at times. Anyway I guess they expected Devils to be shorter in person. Yes, we look small on TV but in person we are much larger! Yes, we are truly a whirling destructive vortex of energy or at least the character that plays us on TV is. Better than being Cheburashka or the other Che…you know, the dictator one. My favorite “Che” is chebureki. Mighty tasty if you ask me and only surpassed by a RW/UW! Least favorite Che is Che-chnaya. Although Che is closely related to Chai and I do love to drink Chai, don’t you? If not, better learn. I swear drinking tea is more popular in the UA than possibly England and probably right up there with India.

[SANDRO43]

Everyone has their quirks and eccentricities. Even ol’ Taz has a few but I do try and be pretty consistent...

Like getting injured ? I wouldn't seek consistency in that particular area, it can get pretty painful in the long run .

[Taz]

As they say "I'm not dead yet!" Or perhaps "Only the good die young" is more appropriate. 

Actually the story of my life is "No good deed goes unpunished!"

[UTRO]

Oh don't stop now! This is particularily entertaining! I never ever considered such a Trip while I was on my Search Sounds like it would have been Fun! This Scooter thing is reeeeaaaaly Cool. I did this on Santorini and I had a Blast!!

[Taz]

After 45 minutes of searching, bomb tests, unpacking everything, they are satisfied they aren’t letting a terrorist get away. Amazingly they still missed my blade but oh well. At least my beef jerky is still intact. One time through EU customs in Germany the police took about 10lbs of prime beef jerky. Apparently US beef jerky is contraband in the EU! Bastards didn’t throw it away but started eating it as I walked out.

So off I go on my flight to Chicanoland…err I mean Chicagoland. Yes, it is also Polishland, Russianland and a lot of other lands and I believe very few non-hyphenated Americans actually live there.  No offense to all you hyphenated Americans out there. Get a clue and ditch the hyphen. We don’t need any more divisions in our society than we already have. My ex- was a hyphenated American but never made a big deal of it. She was always just an American even though both of her parents weren’t born in the US they were glad to be Americans. My ancestors got royally screwed by the white men from Europe but I don’t make a big deal about it. Life sucks at times, just get over it. So if you are easily offended you probably shouldn’t be reading my post anyway.

Of course I come into a terminal that forces me to take the train to meet MD which means I must go back out through security. I don’t know about you but I firmly believe in a personal quota of only one proctology exam per day! Any more than that and they need to be performed by some good looking Smoking Hotkova and she better be in a negligee or something else equally as revealing! A TSA guard with a bad attitude is not my idea of fun.

Finally meet MD. He looks happy, tired, excited, overwhelmed and relieved all at the same time. I make quick work of giving him the scooter bag and transferring some crap around. I’ve been lugging around about 100lbs of hand luggage. Last time I was forced to carry a 70lb pack it was at the request of Uncle Sam. Some chick is fighting with the airline counter about them wanting her to pay a bunch of money for her overweight luggage. I decide to skidoodle on out of here and let MD get on with he luggage lest they want to weigh my stuff too. She is adamant about not wanting to pay for the overage and the ticket counter attendant is just as determined to extract all the blood she can.

I head off to security and start looking for the lube. I know I’ll likely need it here as well. Bend over…now cough! Sure enough, same routine. Took me forever to get through the security checkpoint. MD is waiting for me as I pull up my pants. Off we go and not too much time to wait for our flight. I call SK and all is cool for him. He’s chilling in DTW pounding down Margaritas and eating some Mexican food. We apparently both have a fondness for hot chicks and hot and spicy food! JD and I spoke earlier. He’ll be there. Part of me almost wishes he wasn’t.

[Taz]

Some of the benefits of speaking Russian and having a scooter can be seen here!



Now you see why I like to ride scooters. I'll delve into more detail about this later in my trip report. Lets just say I had the pleasure of showing this fine young lass the ins and outs of riding a scooter.

[myrddin]

Now you see why I like to ride scooters. I'll delve into more detail about this later in my trip report. Lets just say I had the pleasure of showing this fine young lass the ins and outs of riding a scooter.

Man, that was quite a day (among many)! 

I can't believe I was doubtful about bringing the thing, some crazy idea about trying to pack "relatively light".  It's a lot of fun, but the line that finally convinced me to take it was "this thing is better than a puppy!"  It's true   

[Taz]

Myrddin- was I right or was I right? Scooters ARE like a puppy but maybe even better!!! The story continues below.


I have status so I get to board quickly. I’ve got great seats lined up for MD and I. Like a gentleman I gave him the better seat. Bad move, he’s got much shorter legs than me and the bulkhead affects mine but wouldn’t likely affect his. No big deal. I want his trip to be a good one and I plan to zonk out if I can and get a few winks. We chat for a while. I whip out my naked photo album of all the women on RWD and start showing him my conquests… Nah, gotcha! I show him photos of the horse that tried to kill me on my last trip in an attempt to scare him away from the evils of the FSU. He passes the test and doesn’t run away. Truth be told I was still having incredible headaches but I tried to keep it from being too obvious.

We eat some food and I decide to take advantage of an Ambien I have. I take it after our snack and prepare to doze. Five hours later I am still waiting for it to kick in. Too late to take another. I am royally screwed at this point. I know I have quite a few hours of driving ahead of me and no real time to get any sleep. I had about 4 hours of sleep the night before I left and then had to work all day. So at this point, I’ve had about 4 hours of sleep in 48 hours and I know I’ll need to be up for at least another 15 hours or so if things go smoothly. When does THAT ever happen?!!?!?!

We arrive in AMS. Beat feet over to meet up with JD and SK. I find JD but no SK. I am a bit worried. Cruise on over to the next flight and all I want to do is sleep. I am very concerned about SK. I spoke with him and he was in DTW. That meant he did make the first part of his leg to DTW. JD never saw a guy matching SK’s description on that flight. I make several calls back to the US to see if he was still there. Phone went to voicemail. I leave a pretty long message. I made a few other calls. I check with the airlines, nobobdy seems to know where he is after he arrived in DTW. They can’t tell me for sure if he made the flight to AMS. Those calls I made on international roaming on my US carrier just arrived 2 days ago. A helluva bill for a few calls. Again no good deed goes unpunished!

Finally we have to catch our flight to Kyiv. A guy in front of me is plastered. Obvious he is a Ukrainian. He goes through security but they won’t let him take his bottle of liquor. He gives it to them as he thinks they will give it back on the other side. They start to throw it in the trash. He goes ballistic and demands it back. They give it back and he pounds it down right there. This dude was already sh!tfaced and now he just puts away about another half bottle of booze. This guy is going to be trouble…I can feel it. If it doesn’t kill him I know he will be an issue. I just hope I won’t be sitting next to him. I don’t want him to barf on me somewhere during the flight.

[Taz]

As luck would have it the drunk is ejected from the flight. What a relief. Better they remove him before we fly than to cause a scene while in the air. One drunk down, 50 to go. I see a surprisingly large number of drunk people on this flight but I can’t do anything about it.

I tried to get MD’s seats next to me but the gate agents won’t deal with it. They claim the flight is too full. I am too tired to complain and just want some sleep for at least 10 minutes. Some English twit is wanting to ask me about Ukraine. Like I am the all-knowing expert on UA or something. Do I have a tattoo on my forehead saying “Ask me anything you want about Ukraine or something?”  Obviously it is there but every time I look in a mirror I just can’t see it. Maybe us Tasmanian Devils don’t truly look like we’ll rip your head off and sh.. down your lungs. Ooooppps, I forgot, that was a former life though part of that is still evident. I was trained to be prepared for all manner of things. You know the adage “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail!” More apropos was to keep your airspeed up or your altitude up; you can trade one for another but if you have neither you are dead but I digress.

Finally we are airborne. What a relief. I am so tired at this point and the flight isn’t really long enough to try and sleep. I am still trying to figure out why the heck the Ambien didn’t work or is maybe has a really longggg delay kicking in. If so, that would be terrible as in about 4 hours or so we’ll be loading up the rental car. Then the long drive follows to drop off JD and then on to Mari. Flight is pretty uneventful except for miss Smoking Hotkova that keeps looking at me. I take a look around and no SK to be found. I get the stewardesses attention to ask about tracking down SK. She says she’ll see what she can do. JD is somewhere on the plane and so is MD. I maybe get about 15 minutes of sleep. I wake up really groggy. It probably would have been better to not have slept at all.

Finally down on the ground. It feels good to land. As I am getting off the plane I still don’t see SK. JD looks like a zombie but not quite as bad as usual. MD looks a little torn. Something emotional is going on with him but then I lose sight of him.

As usual there is a big line for passport control. I keep looking for SK but no luck. JD comes up and cuts in front of me. He goes on to claim his luggage. I make it through but no SK or MD. Finally MD comes through. I see one of my bags but no luck on the other one yet. JD finds his bags and instead of waiting for everyone else just bolts out of the baggage claim and on through customs.

He curtly tells me he is going outside. What a bonehead move. Why not wait until everyone is accounted for before leaving to smoke? I ask him to have SK paged at least. Finally all the luggage has arrived EXCEPT for my last and most important bag. It appears they’ve lost my bag and about 40 other people’s bags. I am talking to MD when SK spots me. I was pretty worried about him. At least he has all his stuff and so does MD. It appears I am the only one that got screwed by the baggage shuffle.

Downside to the bad is I have 2 scooters in it. I have all my clothes except for about one shirt and a pair of underwear and socks I put in another bag as a contingency for exactly this type of issue. The line to report a lost bag is really long. I just want to get it reported and hit the road. We have a long drive still ahead of us. Some RW is having a breakdown because they lost her bad and she’ll miss her train. Life can really suck at times but stuff happens.

I also had a bunch of gifts for friends and a lot of other important things in my lost bag. I ask them to send it to Mari. I call Lana and get her address and ask them to send it to her house. They claim it will be their Sat. It’s Friday now and I don’t believe it. They say it should be there no later than Sunday. Sunday will still work as I have plans to leave for Crimea on Monday. My gut tells me it will be a long time before I see my luggage.

I have a theory about lost luggage. It is Taz’s theory of luggage relativity. How long your luggage is lost is directly proportional to how important it to you. Since it was very important to me it means I definitely won’t see it for a while!

[Taz]

I finally get done filling out all the documents and leave the baggage area. JD is nowhere to be found. Surprise-surprise! I walk over one of the car rental counters because I can’t find Avis. They direct me to the appropriate counter.

I walk over and speak with the counter rep. As usual things are mucked up. I wonder why I even bother to plan anything in this dang country! I know why. If I didn’t, things would be even worse off. At least with a
plan, I am starting from a fairly good point rather than already behind the 8 ball.

The CSR guy drops 2 bombshells on me in quick succession. First, the car I ordered and PAID FOR almost 2 months ago isn’t available. It appears that the corporate office just sent the reservation over this morning for the type of car I want. They don’t have the type of station wagon I requested available. I am not thrilled about this obviously as 4 big guys (ok, maybe 3 big guys and a normal sized one (MD) and a ton of luggage aren’t going to fit into most cars.

The second bombshell is they want $1,000 deposit in addition to all the money I pre-paid them for the rental which was another grand. I am not exactly thrilled about this part either. The only card they will take is my visa check card which is of course tied to my checking account. I purposely didn’t leave much money in it so using it for my deposit effectively wipes it out. Meaning if I need any cash beyond what I brought, I’ll have to rely on the other guys to help out until we get home. Nowhere was a deposit ever mentioned. It was just dropped on me when I arrived to get the car.

I can’t do much about the deposit but it would have been nice to know ahead of time. I don’t like being short of cash in what is basically a cash economy. Not too many places take credit cards. So now we need to resolve the car issue. I am still ticked that the car I ordered months ago isn't here!

[Taz]

The CSR says they don’t have a lot of cars available but he will do what he can to help. I am not in the mood to be messed with considering my bag is missing and I have only one set of clean clothes to wear until God knows when. I haven’t slept for way too long and my demeanor is more of grizzly bear than my normal teddy-bear persona. If I am really PO’d then the Taz part of my personality comes out. I am pretty close to that part at this moment.

The CSR offers up a Ford Mondeo. If I didn’t have all the guys with me or even 1 less or even less luggage I’d jump on it. The Mondo is a great car with decent top speed and EXCELLENT fuel economy. Refer to my earlier postings on this topic. Alas I am not quite ready to kick JD to the curb but the thought does cross my mind. He seems edgier than normal but I’ll let it go for a while.

Next option is a POS. I inquire about any other wagons. Bingo! He’s got a Ford Focus C-max. It hasn’t been cleaned up but we could have it if we want it. I ask if gas or diesel knowing it’s like a gas motor. Yep, gas but I am still psyched. I rented these a couple of times in Germany but with the oil burner motor. GREAT car! Amazing mileage yet being a big boxy wagon it still handles pretty well. It isn’t a Focus that is available in the US. Its suspension was tuned for the autobahn.

I go back with the guys and tell them what’s happened. I am actually somewhat thrilled that we have the Focus. I tell them in a positive manner about our current car choice and I’m met with dejected looks. I hear a couple comments about Ford … Fix Or Repair Daily…Found On Road Dead…etc. I am more ticked about the deposit than anything as I am pretty sure the C-max will hold all of us AND our luggage if I pack it carefully.  Plus it has a high roofline so tall people will have headroom in the back seat. Additionally the back seats recline a bit as well. All in all it’s a great option but I am bummed about the gas motor. The diesel motor in this car will push it well over 200km/h and average high 40’s in the mpg department. I know the gas motor won’t be quite as good but it still should be adequate.

We make it out to the car. The guys look at the car and the looks go from dejected to forlorn. They obviously aren’t as thrilled as I am. I start stacking the luggage behind the car. With the CSR I meticulously go over every quarter panel on the car so as not to be shafted by any hidden damage that magically turns up later. I notice a few things he didn’t which was made tougher by the car being dirty. He marks them all down and leaves. The Focus even had a pretty full fuel tank which turns out to be a major blessing.

Next little snafu hits while loading up the car. I plug in my GPS with the Ukrainian maps and noticed the cigarette lighter doesn’t work. No power for the GPS. Of course Taz is pretty well prepared as usual. I reach into my magic electronics bag and find some of my adapters and tools. JD asks me what I am doing. He is the electrical engineer so he knows damn well what I am doing. I tearing apart the console to find a power tap and then to wire in my GPS. Unfortunately I don’t have the special tool it needs to pull apart the dash without breaking the special fastener clips.

[Taz]

Not to worry! Taz is still prepared. I just need to open the hood. Just my luck! This one doesn’t have the hood release inside the cabin like the other ones. I can’t find it. JD looks to no avail. I am stumped for a minute or 10. Meanwhile daylight is quickly disappearing. We need to get on the road soon. SK and MD have meetings in about 18-19 hours and I have a minimum of 12 hours of driving to do assuming no issues.

When all else fails, RTFM. Yes, I read the friggin’ manual. Of course it was in Russian. Once again knowing Russian saved me a lot of grief. Unfortunately the manual is huge and I don’t read Russian quite as fast as English, Spanish or German but pretty damn close. Problem is I am missing a few car related words in my vocabulary so my Russian search function isn’t that great at the moment. Finally I find the necessary info and get the hood open. I whip out my handy-dandy clamps and wire my GPS into the battery lead wired. Button up the electronics under the hood and set the GPS up to acquire a signal. I’ve already pre-programmed the route I want so all I need is a fix on the satellites and we’ll be good to go. Good to go at least after I pack the luggage into the car.

This was definitely going to be a challenge. Meanwhile the guys were shooting the breeze rather than packing anything. JD was showing MD Russian porn. Ok, maybe not really porn per se but all the women he planned to meet. Apparently he was soliciting feedback or something. I didn’t have time to waste. I had to get 20 lbs of kaka into the proverbial 10 lb bag!

Anyone know who Aleksey Pazhitnov is? If you do without reading further (nor use any type of search feature or look it up in any way, shape or form or use a lifeline of any sort), I’ll buy you a beer the next time I see you in Ukraine or Russia. Offer limited to the first 10 respondents. 

[START2]

I'd like to know more about these scooters and why they're a hit with you guys. So, maybe during this post you can elaborate a bit more.

[Jet]

 JD asks me what I am doing. He is the electrical engineer so he knows damn well what I am doing. I tearing apart the console to find a power tap and then to wire in my GPS.

Yeah? don't bank on it  My brother is also an Electrical Engineer. I vividly recall a frantic phone call some years back, where my mom was begging me to talk to my brother..." Him and some of his engineering buddies from school have been out in the driveway all afternoon, the hood and left fender are laying in the side yard" What are they doing? They've been trying to change the driver's side headlight bulb for the last 4 1/2 hours 

[Chasaboo]

I just finished reading this thread from beginning to end. Crazy stuff. You are a human punching bag! I've worked around horses myself and don't care for them. I've seen them kick people, I've seen them bite a huge chunk of flesh out of people's arms. They're bloody vicious.

Love reading your stories. Keep up the good work and for the love of god, stay freaking safe!   

[Taz]

@ START2

I’ll elaborate on the scooters a bit more. I gave a little bit of info in a previous post but I’ll dedicate this specifically to the Xootr scooters. I don’t want this to sound like a shameless plug but I am a very satisfied owner.  I have had a very long relationship with Xootr scooters. I’ve had them since the very first generation and still have my original purchase.

You can go here to learn more about the Xootr scooter from their website http://www.xootr.com/xootr/nscooters.shtml

Basically the scooter comes in a wide variety of models. They were designed by aerospace (aircraft) engineers. This was my education. They use high quality materials that are very durable and lightweight. They typically use aircraft grade materials which cost more but have a longer service life.

The scooter quickly folds down for easy transport. They weigh between 9 and a little over 10 pounds. They have a variety of decks (the platform you stand on). They even have a wood one with is a little retro looking. I have an original all aluminum deck one. I also have one of their limited carbon fiber ones that they don’t make any more.

What I’ve found is they beat walking except when the road is total crap. I’ve used mine all over the world from Siberia to Germany to the Orient and almost every place in between. Since they don’t weigh much they are easy to use. They typically draw quite a reaction from people. Chicks think they are as cute as a puppy and in general they are a great conversation starter. Easy to ride double on them once you get the hang of it. It makes getting groceries easier and it sure cuts down on the time I need to get to metro station in the bigger cites. I’ve rigged up lights on one of my as well as a taillight. They are surprisingly fast if you are in decent condition.

For example I used a GPS tracker while riding with my kids. They were on bicycles except for my oldest who was on a fast set of rollerblades. He is in amazing condition as he plays soccer on an adult sized field. He runs for hours on end. So on the blades he is pretty fast. Anyway after 30 minutes of riding/blading/scootering, we’d averaged about 12mph INCLUDING our stops. Top speed on level ground for me was about 19.2 mph.  So I try to take them everywhere on a trip and use them usually for trips up to about 4-5 miles depending on terrain.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

[Taz]

@ Chasaboo

Yea, horses are pretty ornery at times. It's not like I didn't spend a lot of time around them before but that attack was vicous. Thanks for making it through all the story.

I do in general try and stay safe. Although I do consider myself the luckiest man in the world as I've survived some incredible crashes and am still alive to tell about it. Sometimes my friends think I am the unluckiest. I'll be the unluckiest when I am finally a victim of some of the freak things that happend to me. The horse truly should have killed me. Fortunately I am apparently very thick-headed and survived anyway. If I had died Lana would have never forgiven me!   

[Taz]

Jet was the first winner to answer the question correctly in a previous post. Step up to the bar and I'll buy you a beer. Of course it has to Russian or Ukrainian beer. May I suggest a Baltika 3 or 9?

[Taz]

Congrats again to Jet our first winner of the contest. With this post though the contest is effectively over but I'll still buy the next 9 respondents a beer if they are in country when I am.

Anyway as some of you might know, Aleksey Pazhitnov is the inventor of Tetris. Man I kicked a$$ at that game and Rubik’s cube. I always kicked butt on the spatial relationship awareness test in the flight programs. It appears to be a talent of mine. Thank God I have more than one. Anyway I had a real-life Tetris game before me. 10 minutes later I had 3 surprised guys and a ton of luggage in the car. I can’t say there was much room leftover but the guy breathe in the back seat and I had enough room to shift. JD did have a tendency to have his seat too far back and cramp the people behind him even more. It wasn’t ideal for anyone but it was tolerable. It was probably a good thing the airline had lost my bag as I don’t really know where we would have put it.

By a show of hands (or PM’s), how many of you think Taz was probably an Eagle Scout? This is something SwissKid and I have in common. Yep, you guessed it. I worked hard on the merit badges. As of late I added the Tetris merit badge along with the RW merit badge as well as the UW merit badge. The last 2 were by far the most interesting ones to obtain!

After about 3 hours on the ground from our arrival into Kyiv we are finally on the road. I am tired as hell but I’ve got a marathon figuratively yet to run. It does feel good to finally be on the road. Of course the car drives like a drunken whale. We are way over the GVWR! The suspension is totally sacked out. The car looks like a low-rider with all of us in it. I can’t change it so I just drive in a manner to try and minimize the detrimental aspects.

So far the first few hours of the road trip has been pretty uneventful but I know that will never last. Just as I am really getting into the groove and making some decent time until the feces hits the rotating air movement device! I am sure you guessed it by now if you’ve read my story from the beginning. It’s the militsia again. We are just coming into Poltava and I was being extra careful with my speed.

[myrddin]

I’ve got great seats lined up for MD and I. Like a gentleman I gave him the better seat. Bad move, he’s got much shorter legs than me and the bulkhead affects mine but wouldn’t likely affect his. No big deal. I want his trip to be a good one and I plan to zonk out if I can and get a few winks.

(Just for the record, my legs are not "much shorter" than Taz's.  But he did let me have the better seat, quite a change from my usual ride, stuck in the baggage compartment  (sometimes it feels like that).  He slept more than I did, anyway, which still wasn't much...)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread:

[Taz]

We resume our normal broadcast which is currently in progress.

As you might remember from the last on topic post we were coming into Poltava. There were militsia by the side of the road. I was watching my speed very careful. Of course that didn’t stop them from stopping me anyway. The officer runs out into the middle of the road and flags me down to the opposite of the road. He is obviously pretty hungry. He comes over and asks for my documents in Russian. I do the old slow but compliant drill. This guy is getting pretty antsy.

I drag out things as long as I can. He claims we were doing 90km/h in a 16km/h zone. There is no such zone. It is all BS. Nor was I doing 90, I was at 60 in the city limits. I wasn’t going to get drilled on that one. Even JD and MD knew it was a pile of steaming poo! They couldn’t believe the guy was saying 16.

This goes on for a while and the officer motions me out of the car. This is going from bad to worse. This guy is obviously persistent but I have no choice to follow him over to his car and where 2 other police cars are parked. He has my documents and I can’t afford to let them out of my sight. Before I go I leave my wallet and all my money in the car. I don’t want any cash on me but about $5. He asks me to get in the car and he calls over another guy who has a better grasp of English. So we go from a .5 to a .6 on a scale of 1-10 in English ability. This is obviously just a speed trap and I wasn’t speeding.

He asks where we are going; “Where you go?” I mention we are going to Zap. He says no. We are going turma which means jail in Russian. Then I hear him discussing with another 2 officers when can they get an interpreter for us. They say the earliest is Saturday. They mention that court won’t be until Monday but we can meet with the interpreter on Saturday. The 3rd officer says just arrest them all and we can look through their luggage. Maybe we have some interesting stuff.

Meanwhile officer 1 is thumbing through a folder that contains the passports and documents of all the other people he has apparently ran this con on. I know he is pretty serious. They want to screw us and I realize at this point that discretion is the better part of valor.  I hear one of the officers asking the other who wants to drive our car to the station. The officer still seated next to me starts writing up the trumped up charges on their ticket pad. I slowly reach into pocket and pull out my $5 bill. I lay it on top of his clipboard. He shakes his head no. He then motions low enough so that nobody can see me or him that it isn’t enough. He says there are 4 of us and he wants more money; 4 times $5 or $20. I motion that I understand him and indicate 1 minute and leave the car.

I speedwalk back to the car and get more money. I am not about to give this guy $20 if I can help and go with a total of $10. He sees me come back and he is smiling. He motions me in the car and I sit down. I carefully open the glove box and take out the Ukrainian driving rule books and make a big show of opening it and putting money in it. I close the door on the glovebox. He keeps writing and nonchalantly reaches over like he needs to refer to this book and opens it up. Apparently he is satisfied with my offering at this point. He hands me back my documents but in a pointedly loud voice so the other officers can hear him, publicly admonishes for speeding but since he is in a good mood and I am a foreigner that he wants to give me the benefit of Ukrainian hospitality and is letting me off with just a warning. Warning my rectum! I just bought dinner for him and his family and a nice bottle of vodka!

I go back to the car as quickly as I can. They guys have sort of a stunned/horrified/amazed look on their face. They don’t really realize how close we were to going to jail. These cops were the most serious I’ve seen. Thankfully it only cost $10 to get out of it. I am thinking to myself I have way too much experience at this already.

[Taz]

It is now pretty dark. So far the weather isn’t bad. The crappy roads make headlights extra important at night and fortunately the car has adjustable headlight aiming so I can compensate for the load. Otherwise we’d be doing some ‘coon hunting as my grandpappy would say. After our little police “rest stop” I drive for a bit more until I need to get gas.

We pull up to a gas station and I ask if anybody has changed any money before coming over. Nope. Fortunately I brought about $100 in griven with me. Good thing I did because the car is empty and we couldn’t find any open places to change money since we got on the road late.

First fill-up empties my wallet of about $60 of that. Thankfully the car had an almost full tank. It is late at night now and I know there is no place to change any money. I do a quick check on griven, fuel economy and distance. I determine that we have enough fuel to make on to Zap and then on to Mari without filling up again. There will be NO food or drink purchases though until we can get money exchanged.

It’s now pretty late on Friday; about midnight. Soon it will be time for the guys meetings. At last I see signs for Zap. What a relief. We can finally dump off JD. At least some of these roads are somewhat familiar and I know what to expect. The Focus and I have found a decent rhythm and are making pretty good time. It is a willing partner in the backroad two-step boogie. While it is no rocket while fully loaded they are quite a few times we are substantially over 160 km/h. The guys are sort of in a hypnotic state. They aren’t really conscious but nobody appears to be outright sleeping. Perhaps they are too worried to sleep considering our relatively rapid pace. For SK and MD it’s their first time in UA and the first time with me as a driver. Nothing like throwing them into the deep end of the pool for their first swim!

While somewhat tired I know there is no time to relax or let my guard down on these roads especially at the speeds we are traveling. I am no stranger to high speeds and spent many years racing MX bikes, cross country racing, hare scrambles, enduros, road racing (car and bikes), auto-x events and even a couple of baja event in bikes and trucks. It is relatively safe to assume I know my way around a steering wheel or handlebars. I still have to say that the stress of driving in UA and Russia at times is more stressful than any automotive competition I’ve been involved in. Nothing quite like the pucker factor of coming around a high speed turn to find a tractor in the middle of the road towing a trailer with no headlights or any other sort of lights.

We’ve finally reached the outskirts of Zap. Another 30 minutes or so and we’ll dump off JD at a hotel. I can’t wait to take a break. I’m getting pretty hungry too and so are the guys. They’ve been great so far and I admire the resilience. It appears I’ve good choices in both these guys.

At last we are at the hotel. Dump JD off and use its ATM machine to get a little cash out. McD’s McDrive is open 24x7 in Zap so I invite the guys to a little grub now that we have some griven to waste. I know where a fuel station is open near there and it is on our way out of town so it is all pretty convenient. It is now after 2AM Saturday morning. The guys have meetings in less than 10 hours! This won’t leave the guys much time to sleep before their meetings but the roads to Mari aren’t going to quite as extreme. I plan to take the slightly longer way but with smoother roads.

[Taz]

I know I’ll be sure to hear from JD even though he has sort of gone his own way. He has a meeting in the morning with the chick he met for a bit on our last time together through Zap. You might remember she was the friend of the wife of a guy we met there last time. She seemed pretty sincere and eager to meet with JD and was pretty enthusiastic in all areas. Apparently JD has struck up a correspondence with her over the last few months and is quasi interested in meeting her again.

Meanwhile the guy who we met, Fatty, is now back in the US with his wife and baby. I strongly warned him not to bring her back yet. He needed to work out some issues with her before bringing her to the US. He didn’t heed any of my advice and things aren’t going well for him here now primarily due to his wife. She's changed quite rapidly since coming here. The transformation is about the most rapid I've ever seen in a RW to become Americanized. That is in the sense of all the bad aspects of American women with none of the good. If you have problems there, don’t bring her here. Bringing her here isn’t going to FIX most of the problems no matter what you think!

Since we are all hungry we hit McD’s for the guy’s first Ukrainian meal. While not a big fan of McD’s in the US, they are pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food. The choice was actually quite easy since nothing else was really open. They mow down their food as fast as a drunk blonde would find a date at a frat party. All agree it definitely hits the spot.

Now that their bellies are full, maybe the guys can get a little rest. Nah, we end up jabbering quite a bit about JD. They are all too aware of the fact that they don’t have much time before their meetings and are a little anxious/nervous. Rightly so I might add. They are poised to meet some very attractive and intelligent women if I do say so myself and any one of these fine specimens could change their lives! I think they sense it too. This will be a life changing trip for them!