Road Trip

Another Road Trip

            Roads are just a crazy and common part of our lives. No one in the US talks about driving as much as we do, not unless you have a crazy-long commute or drive for a living. Every trip we take is a complete unknown as to how it will turn out and you just never know what story is coming out of a given trip down a road.

            This last one is yet another “adventure.” I remember an essay Louis L’Amour wrote that basically said that only an idiot goes out looking for adventure. I believe it was titles So You Want Adventure Do You? Basically it said you can get yourself into all kinds of adventurous trouble if you want but you are stupid if you do. Adventure is what happens when stuff goes wrong, when plans are derailed and all of a sudden you are making do in a new and potentially disastrous situation. It’s rarely fun, often dangerous, and something you really shouldn’t go looking for, but at the end of the day (if you get out in one piece) it makes quite a story.

            This was supposed to be like pretty much any fall trip up. The weather hadn’t got bad in a while, it was about to rain but the rain hadn’t started yet, and the road keeps getting better and better. I was hoping to leave the capital around 6am and get home in under 12 hours this time, a very ambitious but not impossible timeline with the current road conditions. We packed up as smart as we could, got as much ready as possible the night before, did our shopping and pulled out half an hour late on Monday morning.

            All went pretty much as expected for the first 3 hours. We got gas in a big town about 220km from the capital, then headed out of town over a pass that would take us to the border. Just at the edge of town we got pulled over. I didn’t think I was speeding, you never know what law you are getting pulled for breaking but I stopped without feeling too defensive. Turns out the very polite and friendly police were just saying the road was closed for construction up ahead, at least until lunch.

            Now, you never know why roads are actually closed, but it’s not always why you are told. Sometimes you aren’t told at all. Sometimes it’s something totally different than you are told. Sometimes the army is doing maneuvers, sometimes there is an actual military operation, sometimes someone important is going to be there, you just never know. So, we pulled over to the side of the road and watched a few tv shows on the computer. About lunch time I asked again and the police were willing to let us through, so we lost about 2 hours but the journey is still worth making.

            So we went up a hill. There is really one high pass left on the way home, this is it. At the top of the hill is a police and army post stopping access to the border towns and a small town. As we got up to the post, the army registered us and let us through like normal but the police stopped us and said, once again the road is closed for construction. No one is allowed on it. It’s closed from 6am to 6pm every day. Ah.

            So talk as I did, I could not talk my way through that post to the road even to see if the construction crews would let me through. It was just after lunch time by this point, so we drove back down the hill to the town to look for a place to stay. There are hotels here, but it’s usually hard to find anything that’s even basically comfortable for a family. The one place we did find I went in and there was not even anyone around to book a room with, not a good sign. Back to the capital we drove.

            We took a day to rest again. 11 hours on the road just to end up back where you started can be a bit draining, so I spent Tuesday repacking and reorganizing the car a bit, getting ready to try again. Our initial plan was to drive starting at 1:30am, get to the post before 6 and hope that lets us through, then get home early afternoon. This is a long drive in the dark and tired, but it seemed like the only thing to do. The other option was leaving late enough to drive through the post at 6pm, but arriving at home in the early morning hours after driving all night on mountain roads is just a bad idea.

            Then we got a phone call that opened another option: the Northern Route. There is the first road cut through the mountains that goes over a pass in the north of the country. By reputation the road is shorter, but higher and worse quality than the southern route, which is saying something. So, off we went on a new road out.

            Now, one thing about living in the former Soviet Union, they figure if you don’t know how to get there, you ought not to be going anyway. So, they won’t make good maps that show you the turns or put up signs in most places, you just need to know how to go. It makes travel to a new place interesting to say the least. On the plus side, it’s not like there are many roads around, so it’s hard to get lost once you get on the right path.

            So we were off on an unknown road in terrible weather. I did make one wrong turn on the way, ended up 17 kilometers (10 miles or so) out of our way so it lost us half an hour early in the morning. It was raining on us just a few minutes after we left and kept on all morning and into the afternoon, which didn’t slow us down much but did keep it from being dusty. I say raining, but there are more passes on this route and just outside the capital we crossed the first one in a couple inches of snow.

            The road is smaller and much less traveled than the first 200km of our normal drive, which is nice when you don’t have to do any passing or getting stuck behind big trucks in the mountains. We made the turn off the main road to go over the pass and the road got noticeably worse. It is paved in parts, though mostly what’s left is little bits of pavement with mostly pothole rather than road. The road winds up the mountains, through villages and in some really beautiful country. This side of the mountains has trees, a new experience for us here.

            After lots of driving we ended up driving into snow again. It was still coming down and the higher we got up the pass the more snow was on the road. Before too long there were several inches of snow standing on the road, making driving interesting to say the least. It was slow and deliberate going, especially with no other traffic (no one to help if you get in trouble) and no familiarity with this particular road. It was a little slick on the way down, I get pretty focused when the brakes no long work downhill on the side of a mountain because of the ice on the road, but then soon the snow stopped and we were on the dry side. The sun came out and we went down a very steep section of switchbacks and before long were back on the road we know and have traveled before.

            This drive wasn’t the 11 hours I hoped for. 14 hours on the road from start to finish and we got home quite tired but happy to be there. Every adventure like that makes me grateful to be home and grateful to be back in once piece. We don’t go looking for it but adventure comes our way from time to time anyway.