“What’s that smell?” asked Deb. “I don’t know, but I smell it too.” said Dave. “I don’t smell a thing.” I said from the back seat. We stopped to investigate under the car and the hood. We had already had a tire repaired again today in a little ger truck stop…but now we had only […]
The first thing we did when we woke up was check the rear tire to see if it still had air. We already had one flat from the day before and had to put on our spare which had a slow leak in it – but it seemed to hold ok overnight…whew. We had 100km […]
We slowly moved deeper into Mongolia where the foreign landscapes, people, and towns started to become normal to me. We were moving from western Mongolia into Central Mongolia and the Gobi Desert; from Altai to Bayankhongor. The landscapes changed dramatically as we left the Altai mountains and hills behind and had nothing but a perfectly […]
Mongolia is flat…and so are our tires. A little photo essay on our tire changes…and there were many. The roads in Mongolia are brutal on tires…especially when you start out with rear ones that are bald already! I seemed to be bad luck on the tires as we only got flats when I was driving. […]
We get in the car, adjust the seat so that the pedal distance is just right, buckle up, and put two quarters in the slot. I choose three players, level of difficulty, my route, start the engine, hear the rumble of a muffler-less rally car, and I’m off…as if I’m in a video game. Driving […]
Once the sun came up, they started appearing. They were just puffs of dust off in the distance, and as they got closer, you could see 3 or 4 people squeezed on the motorcycle. They were curious about what two little tents and a car were doing in the flat, rocky landscape they call home. […]
When I was a kid, I used to have this thing called a ‘bubble’; it was made of Styrofoam in the shape of an oval about a foot long. It was used for swimming…actually, it kept me from sinking. The bubble was strapped around my waist and basically kept me afloat in the pool. I […]
I took off driving today out of Khovd missing one important thing…Rick. He was unable to change his flights and we had to continue on without him while he flew to Ulaanbaatar. But the show must go on so Dave, Deb, and I plotted our course towards Altai. The driving started out ok for about […]
Since we had made it into Mongolia – it was time to slow down and enjoy our surroundings. One problem was that Rick had to catch a flight. He hitchhiked a ride with another team to Khovd to try to sort out his flight issues while Dave, Deb, and I took a slow day of […]
“I’m starving!” I said as the Russian waitress brings out the menu with the usual cold grimace on her face. I eagerly open up the menu so that I can find something to eat, my eyes focus on the words and then it hits my brain; I have no idea what this menu says. The […]
