October 6, 2025 • 49 mins
How To Move The Stars is the day by day retelling of a bicycle ride around the world. Start from the beginning to get the whole story.
My adventure was a modern day epic, a solo, self-supported bicycle ride spanning 38,000 miles across six continents. There were moments I barely survived, and times I cried tears of joy, but mostly, this is a story about the thousands of people I met along the way. I moved through their cultures, and dramatic landscapes. I ate their food and slept on their land. I was constantly arriving to the open arms of strangers who were excited to help me achieve a feat that few could imagine. I did this for years, immersing myself in the world and meeting the people who live here. The story I returned with is a snapshot of humanity, captured in a lived experience. Thank you for joining me on my journey.
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How to Move the Stars by Jacob Lemansky Chapter 10 Ukraine May
12th, 2013 Into Ukraine I packedmy things in the morning and
walked around the campground to say goodbye.
A jar of pickled vegetable juicewas being passed around as a
hangover cure. I felt OK, but I took a drink
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out of curiosity. The flavor was certainly strong
enough to clear my head. I was given 2 loaves of bread,
two more canned meats, a lighterfor my stove, and a guitar pick
in memory of the veterans. An orange and black stripe
ribbon was tied to my trailer flagpole.
Hopefully it will bring me goodwill somewhere down the
road. I said goodbye to V last.
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I thanked him for inviting me totheir celebration.
He smiled and told me to come back next year.
I peddled down the road away from my new friends, feeling
refreshed and happy. A young boy on a bicycle coming
the other direction said something to me as we passed.
I couldn't understand him, but there was a tone of warning.
A minute later, 2 loose dogs came roaring out of the bushes
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to chase me. I kicked one as she snapped at
my foot. In retaliation, she bit a hole
in the pocket of my rear panyer.With the campground less than a
mile behind me, the tack was a sharp reminder that the time had
come to be vigilant once again. Biking today was difficult.
The rough roads dragged on my tires, a light head wind
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resisted my effort and trucks didn't give me much room.
My frustration was exasperated by wanting to arrive in Odessa.
I miss Katie, wanted to find a hotel to call her from.
The city was 65 miles from the campground and I had to pedal
straight through the day to get there before dark.
My only stop was to get my passport stamped as I crossed a
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bridge into Ukraine. I was at the end of my daylight
when I reached the edge of the city.
The first hotel I found was full.
They sent me down the road to another which was also full.
The sky had turned black by thenunder sparse streetlights.
I dodged speeding cars while searching the darkness for a
place to sleep. I went another dozen blocks
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before finding a room in a cheaphostel.
I was happy to get to talk to Katie.
She's on a weekend climbing tripand answered her phone from the
side of a mountain. The sun had set here but was
still high over her head. She said she was having fun and
that the view was amazing. I told her I hadn't seen a hill
all day and so she described themountains to me.
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I love her. May 13th, 2013, Odessa On my way
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out of Odessa, I stopped in a park to play guitar and enjoy
the city around me. As I was packing up, two elderly
women dressed in colorful, ragged clothing came to me and
asked for money. I'd not yet been to an ATM in
Ukraine, so I didn't have anything to give them.
I pulled my front pockets insideout to show them.
One of the women persisted, pointing to my bags and
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demanding that I open them. The second woman moved closer
while the first went for my backpocket, groping my butt in
search of my wallet. After finding nothing, she began
to unzip my handlebar bag while also scolding me for not giving
her anything. I lost control of the situation.
To get away, I simply grabbed mybike and ran.
They were in their 70s and whiletheir fingers were still nimble,
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their feet were not. The women didn't take anything,
but I thought I had made a mistake by exposing myself to
the possibility. The lesson I took away is to not
stop in the cities and certainlydon't spread my things out in a
way that prevents me from leaving quickly.
I need to keep anything I'm not using packed away at all times.
I'll have to stick to taking breaks only when I'm alone in
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the farm fields where I can let my guard down.
I passed a continuous stream of war memorials as I left.
During World War 2, the city wastaken by the Axis powers in a 73
day siege. The battle resulted in 130,000
casualties between the two sidesand the resulting occupation
killed an additional 280,000 civilians.
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I can't imagine what that was like.
The scene of destruction, mass murder, fear and grief.
How terrible that must have been.
I was glad to put the city behind me while sprinting to
keep up with the cars. I had to navigate the traffic
ahead of me, watching my mirror so that I didn't get run over
and keep an eye on the road to avoid the many deep potholes.
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The drivers never shared their lane and passed so close that I
was swerving to avoid their mirrors.
The biking was hectic and stressful.
Local residents clearly understood the danger I was in.
Across the city of a million people, I seem to be the only
person on a bicycle. Tonight I push my bike 1/2 mile
from the road to get to a narrowstrip of trees where I could
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hang my hammock. I needed somewhere peaceful to
calm my nerves, and this place is working.
For the past hour I've been lying in my hammock and
listening to the birds. May 14th, 2013 Wet roads This
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afternoon I watched a storm approach across the wide open
land. I pulled off the road to hang my
tarp in a tree, then sat beneathas the rain drifted over me.
I got out my guitar while I waited for the clouds to break
up. For the first time, I was able
to strum and change chords whilesinging at the same time.
Each one was done poorly, but they were done together.
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I feel as though I've achieved some low threshold of talent.
I've been following the most direct route between cities.
The farmland is so vast that I have no desire to meander.
I'm essentially on the highway, though the road is only two
narrow lanes with a shoulder no wider than my handlebars.
Typically I feel safe, but thereare puckering moments when an
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oncoming truck passes a slower moving vehicle.
Together they fill the road ahead, creating a wall of steel
that barrels pass me close enough to reach out and touch.
In one instance, 2 speeding semis came down the road towards
me. The ground was still wet from
the rain, and as the passing driver pulled out to overtake
the slower truck, the back end of the trailer skidded onto the
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shoulder directly at me. I dodged into the grass, wincing
and turning my head as I brace for an impact that never came.
The sharp steel bumper passed mewithin inches.
I steadied myself, stayed my emotions, turned back onto the
road, and kept going. In order to continue this
journey, I must maintain my unquestioning faith in my skill
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and luck to keep myself safe. If I ever come to expect that I
will be injured or worse, I believe I will surely quit in
the moment. Right after the truck slid past,
I made the conscious decision not to let the incident bother
me. I have no room for doubt.
My can opener broke tonight trying to Pierce one of the
unidentifiable cans from the Moldovan party.
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I wasn't too upset. Given the day I had, I was
feeling genuinely grateful to beaway from the road, cooking
dinner and looking out at the grand expanse of soybean plants.
I did have one option to get into the can.
At the veteran's day party. I saw a Russian man opening
canned beans by stabbing the lidwith his knife, then sawing the
top off. I have a knife, but I didn't
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like the idea of dolling the blade on a can.
The mystery meat will have to remain a mystery for another
day. May 15th, 2013 Motorcycle
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tourists. I woke up in a sort of
purgatory. My vision was cloudy and white.
I couldn't see where I was or even tell which way was up.
My face was strangely wet and growing panic.
I fought my sleeping bag to freemy arms.
Pulling myself upright, I lookedout of my hammock to see that a
thick fog had settled in the dimmorning light.
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I could see just fine, just not farther than my feet, and
everything was dripping wet. The sun appeared to the mist as
a dim orb of light hanging just out of reach.
You know, eastern sky. Visibility was not good enough
for me to be safely on the road,so I biked for a few miles along
a tractor path where the track ended.
I pushed my bike into an unplanted field to wait for the
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fog to lift in the world to reveal itself.
Once I could get back on the road, I pedaled a few hours
before pulling into a pleasant modern gas station that had
Wi-Fi and a cafe. I was happy to get out of the
heat and sit on a chair. I called Katie as her work day
was starting. Now that she has all the surveys
for her project, she's working on figuring out what the data
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means. We talked for an hour, which is
a welcome distraction from the persistent farm fields in
traffic. While I was sitting in the cafe,
I met 3 Germans who spoke English, two men and a woman.
They were on a motorcycle tour to Mongolia, then eventually
back to where they started. We talked about where to find
good places to sleep in the dangerous Ukrainian drivers.
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They said that they avoid citiesbecause the drivers are so
unsafe there. When they asked how I was
faring, I told them as long as the cars don't hit me, it's not
dangerous at all. We laughed, though the Ukrainian
drivers do make me nervous. The woman in the group bought me
a bottle of orange juice. She said I know how much things
like this can help, how very kind of her.
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People that ride motorcycles long distances have a sense of
what I'm doing and they sense it's very hard.
This evening I left the road onto a tractor path that I
followed for a mile to find thisquiet spot in a Grove of lilacs.
Birds chirped in the trees around me in a warm breeze
rustled the leaves. I sat in my hammock and watched
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a glow of a fiery sunset linger on the horizon with a new cane
opener from the gas station. The mystery meat given to me in
Moldova was revealed to be a duck Pate, something I've never
eaten or even seen before. I ate the tan duck flavored
paste for dinner, spread over half a loaf of bread.
I like the flavor enough that I'm not sure I would ever buy
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any. Now I'm lying in my hammock
watching the stars shine brightly over dark fields.
I've seen 3 meteors burn up in quick white dashes.
For billions of years they explored the cosmos before
vaporizing in the course of a single exhale.
I like to think they appreciate me bearing witness to the end of
their long journey out here. I might be the only one who sees
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May 16th, 2013, a hot dog in Ukraine.
I've been struggling to find grocery stores along the
highway. Today.
I resorted to eating at the gas stations and cafes that service
to motorists. Frequently the cafes are nothing
more than sheds with a single plastic table sitting outside.
There are one person operations and sometimes there is an
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attached room where the owner lives.
I've served a boiled hot dog in a fresh bun topped with a carrot
salad, ketchup, mayonnaise and asprig of parsley as garnish,
making this hot dog the fanciestI've ever eaten.
As a side, I was served a warm, oily bowl of potato soup with a
single white chicken leg floating in the broth.
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The meal cost $1.20 and made me think I should eat out more
often throughout the day. I passed another 50 miles of
farm fields. A large city offered a change of
view, but I was scared off by the traffic.
I decided to follow the bypass to keep myself safe in Ukraine.
More than anywhere else, the reckless drivers have forced me
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to confront the risk of what I'mdoing.
Though the road is only two lanes, whenever a vehicle
catches up to another one, the driver will pass, and once the
maneuver begins, I've never seenthem back down.
There is oncoming traffic. The passing vehicle will
straddle the center line while the vehicle being passed and the
one coming at them will drive onthe shoulder to make room.
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Even when vehicles are passing in both directions, the brake
lights never come on. 4 tight lanes are created as the cars
squeeze by each other. Whenever I see this happening, I
wince in expectation of a crash.For the six hours I was peddling
today, I needed to maintain an exhausting level of focus,
looking both forward and back, always ready to ride off the
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road. Even when cars had room to move
over, they rarely did. After five days of this, stress
and anxiety have begun to weigh on me yet again.
This evening I arrived at my camping spot in perfect health.
I feel the dissonance of my emotions not matching the
reality of my physical well-being, and to continue this
journey with the expectation of being harmed simply does not
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serve me as a remedy. I resolved to shift my attention
away from what could be to what is.
From now on, I'm accepting that a driver passing me by a hair's
breath leaves me as healthy as if they were 10 paces away.
No longer will I subscribe to the idea of a close call.
Either I've been struck by a truck or I haven't and so far
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I'm perfectly fine. May 17th 2013 Following a canal
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last night I slept in a narrow strip of trees pinched between
the road and the canal. Several times loud trucks Jarred
me awake. I wasn't able to rest so I left
early just as the sun was cresting the horizon.
An hour later I was still drowsyand when more trees appeared I
hung my hammock for a morning nap.
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I was wakened by two middle-agedfarmers arriving in a small
green jalopy towing an old wooden cart.
They had sickles to cut all the grass growing thickly between
the trees. The man had been covered by
crops for days, and men harvesting the grass from the
side of the road has become a common sight.
I tried to talk to them, but they kept to their work.
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The canal I slept next to stretched straight to the
horizon in both directions. The man was so flat that water
pulled in the base without flowing.
Either way, I followed the canalfor 35 miles, never crossed a
single small hill or lull in theland.
Eventually, the canal led me into the town of Armiansk, where
I stopped at an outdoor market to buy another day of meals.
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A row of 10 booths lined the streets, all selling the same
assortment of cheap cookies and candy, Nothing I wanted.
I bought a package of noodles for dinner in hopes that there
would be better options tomorrow.
A man came out of the crowd to talk to me.
He asked me a question in a Slavic language I couldn't
identify. I shrugged and pointed to my ear
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to let him know I didn't understand.
He made a call on his cell phone, then handed it to me.
The voice on the other end introduced himself as Roman, the
son of the man in front of me inEnglish.
He invited me to their home for dinner and a place to stay for
the night. The father walked me to a
concrete apartment building, a perfect representation of Soviet
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era housing. Inside, bare light bulbs cast
shadows down drab concrete hallways.
We were going to the 9th floor, which made the stairs a bad
option. There was an elevator, but it
was too small to fit both myselfand my gear.
I set my bags in the hallway with the father, and he held the
door while I squeezed inside, standing in my bike straight up
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on its back wheel to get it to fit.
The father and I did not have a common word between us, but we
did have a moment of clear understanding.
As I stepped inside the elevator, about to abandon all
of my gear with him, I hesitatedand looked at him questioningly,
the look of a parent saying tellme the truth to a child caught
in a lie. He knew exactly what I was
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accusing him of and reacted withunderstanding.
Shaking his head no, he crossed his heart with his finger
adjuster so sincere that it transcended our spoken language,
and I decided to trust him. I arrived at the apartment, and
the father followed shortly after with my bags.
I entered a small living room nearly filled by two recliners
and ATV. The kitchen was on my right,
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wallpapered with a patterned scene of cornucopia.
Ahead of me, the hallway led to two bedrooms and a bathroom.
The home was simple and plainly decorated, but the mood was
inviting and warm. I met Roman, a thin man in his
early 20s, and his mother, who was always smiling.
Roman offered me the shower to use and a washing machine.
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I declined. I was soaked by mist 2 days ago
and felt clean enough. He throwed his brow and
confusion and said no, take a shower.
His basic English didn't allow for a nuanced suggestion, but I
wasn't offended. I so rarely bathe that I've lost
the contrast between feeling dirty and clean.
At this point I'm not sure what would be required for me to
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crave a shower. The five sweaty days since my
last one were not enough. I cleaned myself, then joined
the family and a neighbor aroundthe small kitchen table for
dinner. Roman's mother had cooked a
wonderful feast of soup, sausage, salad, bread, mashed
potatoes, fish, wine and vodka. I felt happy to be around them
and there was a lot of laughter as we ate.
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Tonight I'm sleeping in the parents bedroom while they sleep
on the recliners in the living room.
They told me they usually sleep out there.
The bedroom has pink walls and curtains, and an old television
is sitting on a dresser. An altar in the corner has
images of Jesus. I feel grateful for their
kindness. May 18th, 2013.
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Treasure hunting. Roman's parents left early.
They are both engineers at a local chemical plant, which
affords them a nicer lifestyle than many of their neighbors.
His mother left us a breakfast pie made from a big pancake,
which she decorated to look likea face that ketchup lips and
lunch meat eyes. Roman wanted to show me the
local battlefield, which he saidwas the most interesting thing
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around. The site was 5 miles northwest
of town. I rode my bike carrying a shovel
in my pannier while Roman joggedalongside.
He announced our arrival when wegot to a dry field along the
Karkaneska Gulf. The place was unremarkable
except for a ditch with 20 foot mounds of earth running on each
side. Roman explained the construction
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was 1800 years old and stretched6 miles straight across the
narrowest point of land between the Crimean Peninsula and
mainland Europe. He said that many battles have
occurred right there because theraised mounds are the only cover
around. I looked North and South across
the salty floodplain. Truly, the only thing worth
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dying for in that place was the strategic importance.
As a natural choke point, the line of that ditch has always
been the logical position to hold off an invading army.
For that reason, the soil has been soaked with blood across
millennia. I was struck by the realization
that we were standing on a killing ground with a long
history. The place was somewhat miserable
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in the present too. The temperature is 90°, there is
nothing around to offer shade, and a dense cloud of small black
flies buzzed in my ears and darted into my nostrils while
the sun bear down on us. Roman took the shovel and
started to dig into the side of the bank over.
In the next hour he broke away the dry soil until there was a
hole up to his thighs. In the process he found 7 rifle
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casings, 2 anti take casings as long as my hand in the 1949
German penny embossed by swastika.
He told me that the penny had novalue to a German soldier on the
front line and would have been carried only as a keepsake from
home. I imagine the penny falling from
a soldiers pocket, perhaps in a moment of chaos.
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Roman gave me the coin to keep, saying that he had others about
the rifle casings. He noted that there were three
different calibers, meaning thatdifferent men from different
armies or even different wars had been in that spot fighting
for their lives. Back in town, I ate lunch with
Roman, then gathered my things to leave.
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When we were parting, he asked about the necklace I was
wearing, which had a round medallion given to me.
My friend at my going away party.
He bought the engraved metal circle off a late night TV
infomercial because of claims that the wearer's balance would
be improved through the use of holograms or some other
unqualified means. With a mix of bewilderment and
sadness, Roman said Americans will spend money on anything.
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He asked if the medallion workedand I told him I hadn't fallen
over so far. I thanked him for his friendship
and waved goodbye as I peddled away.
I was a mile out of town when I fell over.
The road had no shoulder and where the pavement stopped there
was an 8 inch drop onto loose gravel.
The traffic was heavy and the trucks were not giving me any
space. I rode on the white line,
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staying as far right as I could,but in a distracted moment I
drifted too far. My front wheel slipped off the
road and the height of the drop made it impossible to steer my
bike back under me. In an instant I was sprawled
face down in the middle of the lane.
I had imagined this happening, and I knew what was coming next
from my stomach. I turned my head to face the
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oncoming traffic that would surely crush me, but nothing was
there. No cars, no trucks.
I was safe. I picked myself up and quickly
gathered my things onto the sideof the road.
The fall was so sudden that my trailer broke away from my
bicycle, snapping one of the bolts.
I had a spare for this exact purpose, but I only brought one.
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Now the bolt must last to the end.
With the trailer taken care of, I stood my bike upright and
turned towards the busy Rd. The fall had shaken me, but I
knew there on the side of the road was not the time to dwell
on it. In order to continue, I had to
suppress my emotions and trust that I wouldn't make the same
mistake twice. I lifted my bike back onto the
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dangerous roadway and began again.
Tonight, I'm lying on the groundbetween farm fields with the
Milky Way hanging high above. I arrived here safe and healthy,
but I couldn't shake the feelingthat circumstances might have
been different. My fall happened during a brief
gap in the steady stream of traffic.
Essentially, I was saved by luck, an idea that deeply
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unsettles me. Feeling safe in my camp, I tried
to process what happened. I thought about the moment I hit
the ground. Lying there face down in the
road, I expected to be killed under the wheel of a semi.
In the next instant, I saw that my life would be spared.
In perfect balance and contrast,I experienced both the fear of
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imminent death and the joy of unexpectedly living.
The intensity of the emotion wasmore than I could bear.
I sat alone in the darkness and sobbed, overwhelmed by the
precariousness of life. May 19th, 2013 My parents visit.
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The sun was already bright when I climbed out of the bushes
where I'd been sleeping. Clouds were gathering like small
cotton balls, and as they came together, the sunshine could
only breakthrough the thin gaps between them.
Pillars of light streaked to theground in 100 places, creating
the appearance of scaffolding holding up the sky.
I was happy for such a nice start to the day.
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My route took me South through unending expanses of farmland,
past a few small towns in an occasional row of trees.
Ukraine is known as the bread basket of Europe because of all
the wheat and barley they grow. Nearly 60% of the land is used
for crops, or 140,000 square miles, an area that would be
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inconceivably large if I weren'tpeddling across it.
By this point, the immensity feels quite clear to me.
Today was a rare one that I actually had somewhere to be and
someone to meet. My parents had booked a trip to
see me and today I had 50 more miles to go to see them.
I arrived in some Farrah pool inthe early afternoon and headed
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to the hotel where we agreed to meet.
They flew 9 hours from New York City, then drove 11 more from
Kiev. My mom worries about me
bicycling on the opposite side of the earth, and her point was
well taken and how far she'd come to give me a hug.
They hired a tour guide for the week named Eugene.
I didn't meet him today, but he's the one who met my parents
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at the airport with a car after the long ride from Kiev.
My dad commented on the Ukrainian drivers and their
daring passes. I told him I knew all too well
about their antics and after their long drive, we explored
the city on foot for the rest ofthe day.
I was amused to see how often sex appeal was used to advertise
products in the city. One guy that stood out to me.
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It was a small billboard for a sewing machine store.
Yellow text was beneath an imageof a sewing machine that would
be used in a home, and in the background behind the machine
was a beautiful woman in a seductive pose with black hair,
wearing a black necklace and a tight black dress that exposed
her shoulders and thighs as she reclined on her side and leaned
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on her elbow. I couldn't tell if their goal
was to advertise their sewing machine to men who wanted to be
with the model or women who wanted to look like her.
Seemingly, in Ukraine, beauty isused as a means to reach a
higher social class. Perhaps this is not so uncommon
around the world, but as we walked around some fair pool, I
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saw women trying harder at this than other places I've been.
There were many who were dressedwell, wore makeup, flaunting
themselves, and beautiful young women taking pictures of each
other was a common sight. We returned to the hotel this
evening. I'll be sleeping in relative
luxury while my parents are withme, and tonight I'm in a bed.
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I don't mind though, my spot in the bushes last night was pretty
nice too. May 20th, 2013.
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Some Therapol Eugene, our tour guide for the week, arrived this
morning to take us around some Farrah pull.
Eugene is an interesting man. Thoughtful, energetic, and quick
to laugh. He has lived in this area for
much of his life. In the past he worked as an
engineer and then a professor. He looked like a professor.
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Square framed glasses rested lowon his nose.
He wore collared shirts and khakis and his graying beard was
neatly trimmed. Currently, the weak economy has
led him to be an English speaking tour guide.
My first priority was to go to abike shop and Eugene led the
way. I had my parents bring me a new
top of the line bottom bracket to replace the loose bearings
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and have been bothering me for the past month.
With the right tools, the bike shop was easily able to swap the
parts. A couple of guys were there
hanging out with the shop owner and they enjoyed hearing about
my journey. As we waited for my bike to be
done. I did a short test ride and I
could tell right away the bit ofplay that had been bothering me
was gone. With that chore out of the way,
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I was able to relax into the break with my parents.
We walked through some Farrah Pole, visiting a War Memorial
along the way. German troops occupied the city
from late 1941 until 1944, shortly after arriving the Nazis
massacre. 22,000 of the citizens, including 14,000
people in a single day. The memorial was in a sunny park
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with an old green tank mounted on a marble stand.
Given what happened, I felt the scene needed to be sadder.
I wanted the memorial to push people to contend with the
cruelty that humanity is capableof, forcing us to face that part
of our nature with the hope thatreminding us what happened will
prevent history from repeating. That's what I was feeling.
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So maybe the memorial is working.
Another stop was to a winery, where Eugene ordered us a flight
to four different wines, then expertly explained to us the
flavor profiles and wine making methods.
The wine with the most unusual flavor, he said, was originally
shipped on the deck of a sailingboat.
The daily heating in the sun andcooling at night created a
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unique flavor that I've never tasted in the wine.
This happy accident was capturedin a process that they now do
entirely at the winery. No need for an old wooden ship.
This evening we went out for a nice dinner with Eugene, his
wife, and his two adult daughters, all of whom were
lovely people. My dad ordered pierogies, and
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out of respect to the women at the table, Eugene pulled my dad
aside to privately tell him a joke, which my dad later shared
with me. Eugene started.
Two men sat eating an enormous plate of pierogies, eating and
eating, until one man finally said to the other, I cannot eat
even one more bite. The last pierogi I ate is here.
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Eugene indicated the top of the stack with a flat hand placed at
the bridge of his nose. In the first pierogi, the man
said I'm sitting on May 21st, 2013, Cave City.
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Eugene arrived in his car this morning to take us to a place
that he said was very special tohim.
We headed out of town past greenfields and forested hills,
making our way deep into the countryside, eventually onto a
road made of dirt and slabs of concrete that was in terrible
condition. Eugene said that some of the
rural dirt roads get to potholesfilled with concrete, but as the
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dirt continues to weather away, the concrete is left sticking up
like a stone mushroom. Where we are going was 60 miles
from Eugene's childhood home, and he said he walked there a
few times, covering the ground in three days and sleeping in
the farm fields along the way. He called the place Cave City,
and we arrived into a beautiful landscape of sheer white mesas
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rising over fields of poppies and horse bastards.
As we got started, Eugene gave me a handheld GPS device in a
Polaroid of a Bush with coordinates written on the back.
He's taking me on a treasure hunt.
I punched their location into the GPS, and together we
followed the arrow across the field and up a wooden hillside.
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When we got to the spot, the Bush in the photo is right there
in front of us, except the branches had grown much larger.
Using my hands, I dug at the dryleaves and loose soil underneath
until a few inches deep, I uncovered a bottle of wine that
Eugene hid five years before. I felt honored that he would
give me a gift so long in the making.
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I believe he saw some of himselfin my spirit of adventure.
I thanked him for the bottle andfor giving me a story of very
treasure. After finding the wine, we hiked
up the side of one of the white mesas.
Eugene explained that the peopleonce lived on the flat tops.
The cliffs offered protection ina time when battles were won by
being higher. On a hill where we reached the
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plateau, there was an abandoned village, the most unusual I've
ever seen. Dozens of homes were carved
directly into the stone. There were staircases and
alleyways. Doorways LED into large rooms
with sculpted stone benches. Some rooms had windows, others
had skylights. Ancient specks of paint still
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clung to the ceiling and walls. A tiny church is carved into a
single large boulder. Eugene showed us what he called
the honeymoon suite. He confessed, or maybe bragged,
of spending nights there with girlfriends when he was young.
The room was carved into the lipof the Mesa, creating a natural
balcony that looked out 50 milesto white, glistening cliffs and
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distant green hills. I thought of Katie.
The night in that ancient room is the sort of date she would
appreciate. We ended the day in Sevastopol,
at a hotel in the city. My parents took me out for
dinner and we had a nice meal. So far in this journey, I've
kept eating what I know and whatI can cook.
Having gone out to eat with my parents a few times already,
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I've enjoyed trying some of the local cuisine.
Tonight I got potato soup servedin a rye bread bowl.
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May 22nd, 2013 The Black Sea. Eugene picked us up this morning
to take us on a tour from Sevastopol to where we would be
staying in Crimea's southern coast.
Our first stop along the way wasat a World War 2 battlefield in
the Memorial for the Defense of Sevastopol.
There are artillery pieces on display, still pointing away
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from the city in trenches dug into the hillsides.
Trees grow there now, but at thetime of the war they would have
all been blown to pieces. The battle took place from
October 1941 to July 1942. Sylvester Poole was surrounded
and placed under siege by the access powers.
All of Crimea had already been overrun and the city was the
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last holdout. Over 200,000 Soviet Union
soldiers perished trying to defend the land.
The Germans pummeled the area with so much artillery and
bombing that in the end there were only 11 buildings left
undamaged in a place where 110,000 people lived before the
war. Such a waste.
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I think of those citizens, the happy plans they had for their
lives, How angry they must have been to have everything taken
from them. We continued following the
coast, striking whitestone Spires pierced forested
hillsides to tower hundreds of feet over the landscape.
Stopping at the base, I saw climbing routes bolted up the
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rock walls. Katie and I climbed a lot
together. She would lead and I would
follow. I still think of myself as a
rock climber. Go out here on my bike.
I'm losing finger strength by the day.
Once at the hotel, my parents and I took a walk to the beach.
We found a stretch of white gravel between a few large
boulders and a barrier constructed of tetrapods.
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Taller than me and abandoned oilrig sat offshore with a bit of a
lean seemingly on the way to collapsing into the sea. 2
middle-aged women laid on beach towels separate from them.
Another woman, much younger and more traditionally attractive,
stood in the water up to her butt, striking sexy poses in a
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skimpy swimsuit while a 5 year old boy, I assume her son, took
pictures with a digital camera. A strange scene, but for Ukraine
what she was doing was completely normal.
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May 23rd, 2013 Ukraine Palace. I explored the black seacoast
with my parents Today we drove the sea.
The Lividia Palace, which began as a summer home for an imperial
family in the 1860s. Apparently the picturesque black
seacoast has been a vacation destination for a long time.
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The opulence was magnificent andI marvelled at the skilled
craftsmanship from a time beforethe help of modern machines.
The walls and ceilings were covered in intricate hand carved
flourishes. Chandeliers were made of complex
flowing glass shapes. The fireplaces had figurines
chiseled into the stone mantels.The grounds around the building
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held decorative trees, carefullyshaped bushes, and flowing white
fountains. During World War 2, after the
fall of Sevastopol, the Nazi celebrated at the La Vardia
Palace. Three years later, the same
rooms were used for the Yalta Conference.
This was the second meeting between Franklin Roosevelt,
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Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.
They came to divide Europe between them and to try to
create a new world order that would prevent the tragedy of
another continental war. 75 million people had been killed
under their watch. I wonder what the weight of that
loss felt like. They must have wanted so badly
to make things right. Yet within two years, tensions
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from their agreement started theCold War.
Over the next 43 years, proxy battles between communism and
capitalism led to another 20 million deaths.
How terrible these world leadersare at their jobs, not killing
10s of millions of people. Seems like such a low bar to
pass. This evening we opened the
bottle of buried wine from Eugene and I got out my guitar.
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I played a song for my parents, never having shown any interest
in music as a child. This would have been the first
time in my life that I performedfor them.
I sat on the balcony strumming my guitar, and as the sun began
to set, a rainbow appeared, arching gracefully between the
sea and the towering white cliffs.
The scene was just perfect. May 24th, 2013.
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Flower Garden my parents and I visited in the Kitsky Botanical
Gardens today. Built in 1812, the botanical
gardens are one of the oldest inEurope and cover an area of 11
square kilometers. We walked among the many
varieties of flowers, trees, shrubs, cacti and succulents.
Including the work of the on site research post, the garden
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has a collection of 50,000 different plants.
We happen to be here in just theright season for the flowers to
be in full bloom. The variety of colorful roses
filled in around a labyrinth of walking paths.
The ground cover was especially impressive with patches of white
and pink Clover planted in colorful patterns circling the
trees. We made our way to the coast
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this evening to find a restaurant along the water.
As we walked through a commercial area, I was
interested to see the different types and quality of
construction. The whole place was bustling
with workers as they rushed to make the area look good before
the height of tourist season. The buildings were fairly
primitive due to the materials available, and while none of the
structures looked like they weregoing to fall over, the rawness
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of them made me wonder if there was any sort of building code.
The street too was being repaired and I noticed the
sweaty laborers working in thin flip flops as they shoveled
gravel. In the United States their
company would be fine if they didn't wear steel toed shoes
though. Shoveling gravel is a minimum
wage job here. Then they would only be making
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the equivalent of $45.00 per month.
Perhaps they wear flip flops because they can't afford shoes.
The restaurant we settled on hada young woman in a black dress
singing from a small stage in the corner of the small room.
Her songs were in Ukrainian or maybe Russian.
Before we walked in, she was only singing for the bartender
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and as the only customers, she gave her table a lot of
attention. I wasn't sure what I was
ordering, but a cut of meat cameout with a side of potatoes and
I was quite pleased with my selection.
We ate as the sunset and our daylight faded.
By the time we walked out of therestaurant, clouds had moved in
and the sky had turned an eerie blue.
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Lightning struck at the sea and the light rain began to fall as
we drove back to the hotel. I would be out in a wet field
tonight if I were biking, but this hotel was pretty nice too.
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May 25th, 2013 A BBQ with EugeneOn the final day of my parents
visit. Eugene invited us to join him
for dinner at his home with his wife and two daughters.
We drank wine and ate BBQ pork kebabs in his backyard.
Eugene taught me a few of the local drinking customs.
He told me that empty bottles never go on the table.
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They were placed on the ground and called dead soldiers.
When we drank cognac, the chaserwas a slice of lemon coated in
sugar. Perhaps his most sage wisdom was
to never drink alone. But he said if you have to, get
a mirror so you can drink with agood man.
His advice for my journey was equally useful.
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He said to never eat more than half of my food in the sitting.
This way I'll never run out. As the night was winding down,
Eugene borrowed my guitar for a song.
He began with a sad melody, softand lonely.
With his eyes closed, he startedto sing in Russian.
His voice was clear and moving, the lyrics delivered with
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heartfelt emotion, a sorrowful song of loss and mourning.
I was moved even without understanding the words.
When he ended, I asked what the song was about.
He said it's the story of a skier.
It was sad that the ski season is over when the party was
ending. I thank Eugene for taking me
around and sharing his knowledge.
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I'm always passing through places without knowing anything
about them, so having him along was a treat for me.
Eugene shook my hand and wished me luck for the rest of my
journey. My parents were happy to be
guided around as well, and they were especially glad to get to
see me. They were nervous about me
heading into Russia. Their worries weren't distinct,
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just unease about what I'm doing.
They could imagine Europe, but now that they don't know what's
ahead for me, that's scary. I understand their sentiment,
but I'm undeterred. The nature of this journey is to
go into the unknown and I trust myself to handle any situation I
get myself into. May 26th, 2013 Back on my own.
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My parents left this morning andI got going too.
I was feeling refreshed and excited to start pedaling.
My gear was feeling refreshed too.
My bike was running smoothly with the new bottom bracket.
My parents had brought me a new headlamp to replace the one I
lost, and I added another wrap of clear tape around my guitar
tube. My mom also loaded me with 35
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lbs of canned raviolis and cheese from the United States.
I keep my food in my right pan here, and I could feel my bike
listing as I started down the road.
Up to this point my journey, I've avoided carrying extra
weight by only purchasing enoughfood to get me to the next place
to buy more, usually one or two days worth.
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I didn't fully realize that whatthis was doing was forcing a
sense of scarcity on myself. That habit broke today.
The glut of meals for my mom gave me a wonderful sense of
abundance. My situation felt less dire, as
if I'd stepped back from an edge.
I won't have to skip a meal if awindy day slows me down.
I can take an unplanned day off or have extra food to share.
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If that scenario comes up. From now on, I'm going to try to
always carry a little extra food.
Being off of my bike for severaldays also gave me some time to
recover. My nerves have calmed.
My legs are rested, nagging painto my wrist, knee and neck all
feel better. These first few months have
proven to be a breaking in period.
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Small repetitive use, injuries or healing as I strengthen to
the task at hand. But the process of sculpting my
body is a slow, persistent task.Tomorrow marks 100 days on the
road and I still arrive each evening on weary legs.
I didn't realize bicycling around the world would be so
tiring. I've set up my camp between farm
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fields tonight. After a week of sleeping in
hotels, I'm happy to be back in my hammock.
A pleasant breeze is sweeping across the land.
The stars are shining. I feel good to be on the move
again. May 27th, 2013 Lotta.
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I seem to have found a corner ofthe map few people drive
through. The quiet Rd. was a joy to ride
and I relaxed as I took in the landscape.
There were fields of purple flowers blooming under the sun.
I watched swirling wind ripple across long rows of green wheat.
Little Gray birds danced in the sky.
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I've been seeing car repair ramps alongside the road.
There are twin concrete structures sloping upward,
leveling off and sloping back down.
The car parked on top. A person could walk underneath
to access the bottom. Eugene told me the road to cross
the Soviet Union was so bad thatpeople would carry spare parts
in their trunks to make repairs on the go.
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The ramps were the compromise between improving the road and
doing nothing. I still see the ramps being used
and sometimes a car called a Lotta is parked on top.
Many of the cars I've seen across Eastern Europe are the
same model. They're compact 4 door cars that
came out in the late 70s and forthree decades they were the best
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selling vehicle in Russia. Eugene told me that they were
cheap and easy to work on and sothat they would always be that
way. The car was barely updated even
when the Lauder was discontinuedin the mid 2000s.
A new car off the lot was actually a model from the 80s.
The whole country is now full ofspare parts to keep them
running, and with ramps to do the work, I expect the lotta
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will be around for decades more.In the late afternoon I met a
Russian cyclist out on a 10 day lap around the peninsula.
He looked like he was having funin Russian.
He told me his name was Victor, but I wasn't able to understand
much more than that. We rode together for a few
miles, quietly enjoying each other's company, before our
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paths diverged and I was alone again.
I carried on for another hour before sneaking away from the
road to sleep between the farm fields.
How to Move the Stars by Jacob Lemansky Chapter 10 Ukraine May
12th, 2013 Into Ukraine I packedmy things in the morning and
walked around the campground to say goodbye.
A jar of pickled vegetable juicewas being passed around as a
hangover cure. I felt OK, but I took a drink
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out of curiosity. The flavor was certainly strong
enough to clear my head. I was given 2 loaves of bread,
two more canned meats, a lighterfor my stove, and a guitar pick
in memory of the veterans. An orange and black stripe
ribbon was tied to my trailer flagpole.
Hopefully it will bring me goodwill somewhere down the
road. I said goodbye to V last.
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I thanked him for inviting me totheir celebration.
He smiled and told me to come back next year.
I peddled down the road away from my new friends, feeling
refreshed and happy. A young boy on a bicycle coming
the other direction said something to me as we passed.
I couldn't understand him, but there was a tone of warning.
A minute later, 2 loose dogs came roaring out of the bushes
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to chase me. I kicked one as she snapped at
my foot. In retaliation, she bit a hole
in the pocket of my rear panyer.With the campground less than a
mile behind me, the tack was a sharp reminder that the time had
come to be vigilant once again. Biking today was difficult.
The rough roads dragged on my tires, a light head wind
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resisted my effort and trucks didn't give me much room.
My frustration was exasperated by wanting to arrive in Odessa.
I miss Katie, wanted to find a hotel to call her from.
The city was 65 miles from the campground and I had to pedal
straight through the day to get there before dark.
My only stop was to get my passport stamped as I crossed a
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bridge into Ukraine. I was at the end of my daylight
when I reached the edge of the city.
The first hotel I found was full.
They sent me down the road to another which was also full.
The sky had turned black by thenunder sparse streetlights.
I dodged speeding cars while searching the darkness for a
place to sleep. I went another dozen blocks
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before finding a room in a cheaphostel.
I was happy to get to talk to Katie.
She's on a weekend climbing tripand answered her phone from the
side of a mountain. The sun had set here but was
still high over her head. She said she was having fun and
that the view was amazing. I told her I hadn't seen a hill
all day and so she described themountains to me.
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I love her. May 13th, 2013, Odessa On my way
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out of Odessa, I stopped in a park to play guitar and enjoy
the city around me. As I was packing up, two elderly
women dressed in colorful, ragged clothing came to me and
asked for money. I'd not yet been to an ATM in
Ukraine, so I didn't have anything to give them.
I pulled my front pockets insideout to show them.
One of the women persisted, pointing to my bags and
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demanding that I open them. The second woman moved closer
while the first went for my backpocket, groping my butt in
search of my wallet. After finding nothing, she began
to unzip my handlebar bag while also scolding me for not giving
her anything. I lost control of the situation.
To get away, I simply grabbed mybike and ran.
They were in their 70s and whiletheir fingers were still nimble,
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their feet were not. The women didn't take anything,
but I thought I had made a mistake by exposing myself to
the possibility. The lesson I took away is to not
stop in the cities and certainlydon't spread my things out in a
way that prevents me from leaving quickly.
I need to keep anything I'm not using packed away at all times.
I'll have to stick to taking breaks only when I'm alone in
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the farm fields where I can let my guard down.
I passed a continuous stream of war memorials as I left.
During World War 2, the city wastaken by the Axis powers in a 73
day siege. The battle resulted in 130,000
casualties between the two sidesand the resulting occupation
killed an additional 280,000 civilians.
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I can't imagine what that was like.
The scene of destruction, mass murder, fear and grief.
How terrible that must have been.
I was glad to put the city behind me while sprinting to
keep up with the cars. I had to navigate the traffic
ahead of me, watching my mirror so that I didn't get run over
and keep an eye on the road to avoid the many deep potholes.
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The drivers never shared their lane and passed so close that I
was swerving to avoid their mirrors.
The biking was hectic and stressful.
Local residents clearly understood the danger I was in.
Across the city of a million people, I seem to be the only
person on a bicycle. Tonight I push my bike 1/2 mile
from the road to get to a narrowstrip of trees where I could
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hang my hammock. I needed somewhere peaceful to
calm my nerves, and this place is working.
For the past hour I've been lying in my hammock and
listening to the birds. May 14th, 2013 Wet roads This
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afternoon I watched a storm approach across the wide open
land. I pulled off the road to hang my
tarp in a tree, then sat beneathas the rain drifted over me.
I got out my guitar while I waited for the clouds to break
up. For the first time, I was able
to strum and change chords whilesinging at the same time.
Each one was done poorly, but they were done together.
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I feel as though I've achieved some low threshold of talent.
I've been following the most direct route between cities.
The farmland is so vast that I have no desire to meander.
I'm essentially on the highway, though the road is only two
narrow lanes with a shoulder no wider than my handlebars.
Typically I feel safe, but thereare puckering moments when an
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oncoming truck passes a slower moving vehicle.
Together they fill the road ahead, creating a wall of steel
that barrels pass me close enough to reach out and touch.
In one instance, 2 speeding semis came down the road towards
me. The ground was still wet from
the rain, and as the passing driver pulled out to overtake
the slower truck, the back end of the trailer skidded onto the
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shoulder directly at me. I dodged into the grass, wincing
and turning my head as I brace for an impact that never came.
The sharp steel bumper passed mewithin inches.
I steadied myself, stayed my emotions, turned back onto the
road, and kept going. In order to continue this
journey, I must maintain my unquestioning faith in my skill
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and luck to keep myself safe. If I ever come to expect that I
will be injured or worse, I believe I will surely quit in
the moment. Right after the truck slid past,
I made the conscious decision not to let the incident bother
me. I have no room for doubt.
My can opener broke tonight trying to Pierce one of the
unidentifiable cans from the Moldovan party.
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I wasn't too upset. Given the day I had, I was
feeling genuinely grateful to beaway from the road, cooking
dinner and looking out at the grand expanse of soybean plants.
I did have one option to get into the can.
At the veteran's day party. I saw a Russian man opening
canned beans by stabbing the lidwith his knife, then sawing the
top off. I have a knife, but I didn't
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like the idea of dolling the blade on a can.
The mystery meat will have to remain a mystery for another
day. May 15th, 2013 Motorcycle
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tourists. I woke up in a sort of
purgatory. My vision was cloudy and white.
I couldn't see where I was or even tell which way was up.
My face was strangely wet and growing panic.
I fought my sleeping bag to freemy arms.
Pulling myself upright, I lookedout of my hammock to see that a
thick fog had settled in the dimmorning light.
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I could see just fine, just not farther than my feet, and
everything was dripping wet. The sun appeared to the mist as
a dim orb of light hanging just out of reach.
You know, eastern sky. Visibility was not good enough
for me to be safely on the road,so I biked for a few miles along
a tractor path where the track ended.
I pushed my bike into an unplanted field to wait for the
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fog to lift in the world to reveal itself.
Once I could get back on the road, I pedaled a few hours
before pulling into a pleasant modern gas station that had
Wi-Fi and a cafe. I was happy to get out of the
heat and sit on a chair. I called Katie as her work day
was starting. Now that she has all the surveys
for her project, she's working on figuring out what the data
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means. We talked for an hour, which is
a welcome distraction from the persistent farm fields in
traffic. While I was sitting in the cafe,
I met 3 Germans who spoke English, two men and a woman.
They were on a motorcycle tour to Mongolia, then eventually
back to where they started. We talked about where to find
good places to sleep in the dangerous Ukrainian drivers.
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They said that they avoid citiesbecause the drivers are so
unsafe there. When they asked how I was
faring, I told them as long as the cars don't hit me, it's not
dangerous at all. We laughed, though the Ukrainian
drivers do make me nervous. The woman in the group bought me
a bottle of orange juice. She said I know how much things
like this can help, how very kind of her.
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People that ride motorcycles long distances have a sense of
what I'm doing and they sense it's very hard.
This evening I left the road onto a tractor path that I
followed for a mile to find thisquiet spot in a Grove of lilacs.
Birds chirped in the trees around me in a warm breeze
rustled the leaves. I sat in my hammock and watched
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a glow of a fiery sunset linger on the horizon with a new cane
opener from the gas station. The mystery meat given to me in
Moldova was revealed to be a duck Pate, something I've never
eaten or even seen before. I ate the tan duck flavored
paste for dinner, spread over half a loaf of bread.
I like the flavor enough that I'm not sure I would ever buy
(10:45):
any. Now I'm lying in my hammock
watching the stars shine brightly over dark fields.
I've seen 3 meteors burn up in quick white dashes.
For billions of years they explored the cosmos before
vaporizing in the course of a single exhale.
I like to think they appreciate me bearing witness to the end of
their long journey out here. I might be the only one who sees
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May 16th, 2013, a hot dog in Ukraine.
I've been struggling to find grocery stores along the
highway. Today.
I resorted to eating at the gas stations and cafes that service
to motorists. Frequently the cafes are nothing
more than sheds with a single plastic table sitting outside.
There are one person operations and sometimes there is an
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attached room where the owner lives.
I've served a boiled hot dog in a fresh bun topped with a carrot
salad, ketchup, mayonnaise and asprig of parsley as garnish,
making this hot dog the fanciestI've ever eaten.
As a side, I was served a warm, oily bowl of potato soup with a
single white chicken leg floating in the broth.
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The meal cost $1.20 and made me think I should eat out more
often throughout the day. I passed another 50 miles of
farm fields. A large city offered a change of
view, but I was scared off by the traffic.
I decided to follow the bypass to keep myself safe in Ukraine.
More than anywhere else, the reckless drivers have forced me
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to confront the risk of what I'mdoing.
Though the road is only two lanes, whenever a vehicle
catches up to another one, the driver will pass, and once the
maneuver begins, I've never seenthem back down.
There is oncoming traffic. The passing vehicle will
straddle the center line while the vehicle being passed and the
one coming at them will drive onthe shoulder to make room.
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Even when vehicles are passing in both directions, the brake
lights never come on. 4 tight lanes are created as the cars
squeeze by each other. Whenever I see this happening, I
wince in expectation of a crash.For the six hours I was peddling
today, I needed to maintain an exhausting level of focus,
looking both forward and back, always ready to ride off the
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road. Even when cars had room to move
over, they rarely did. After five days of this, stress
and anxiety have begun to weigh on me yet again.
This evening I arrived at my camping spot in perfect health.
I feel the dissonance of my emotions not matching the
reality of my physical well-being, and to continue this
journey with the expectation of being harmed simply does not
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serve me as a remedy. I resolved to shift my attention
away from what could be to what is.
From now on, I'm accepting that a driver passing me by a hair's
breath leaves me as healthy as if they were 10 paces away.
No longer will I subscribe to the idea of a close call.
Either I've been struck by a truck or I haven't and so far
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I'm perfectly fine. May 17th 2013 Following a canal
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last night I slept in a narrow strip of trees pinched between
the road and the canal. Several times loud trucks Jarred
me awake. I wasn't able to rest so I left
early just as the sun was cresting the horizon.
An hour later I was still drowsyand when more trees appeared I
hung my hammock for a morning nap.
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I was wakened by two middle-agedfarmers arriving in a small
green jalopy towing an old wooden cart.
They had sickles to cut all the grass growing thickly between
the trees. The man had been covered by
crops for days, and men harvesting the grass from the
side of the road has become a common sight.
I tried to talk to them, but they kept to their work.
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The canal I slept next to stretched straight to the
horizon in both directions. The man was so flat that water
pulled in the base without flowing.
Either way, I followed the canalfor 35 miles, never crossed a
single small hill or lull in theland.
Eventually, the canal led me into the town of Armiansk, where
I stopped at an outdoor market to buy another day of meals.
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A row of 10 booths lined the streets, all selling the same
assortment of cheap cookies and candy, Nothing I wanted.
I bought a package of noodles for dinner in hopes that there
would be better options tomorrow.
A man came out of the crowd to talk to me.
He asked me a question in a Slavic language I couldn't
identify. I shrugged and pointed to my ear
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to let him know I didn't understand.
He made a call on his cell phone, then handed it to me.
The voice on the other end introduced himself as Roman, the
son of the man in front of me inEnglish.
He invited me to their home for dinner and a place to stay for
the night. The father walked me to a
concrete apartment building, a perfect representation of Soviet
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era housing. Inside, bare light bulbs cast
shadows down drab concrete hallways.
We were going to the 9th floor, which made the stairs a bad
option. There was an elevator, but it
was too small to fit both myselfand my gear.
I set my bags in the hallway with the father, and he held the
door while I squeezed inside, standing in my bike straight up
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on its back wheel to get it to fit.
The father and I did not have a common word between us, but we
did have a moment of clear understanding.
As I stepped inside the elevator, about to abandon all
of my gear with him, I hesitatedand looked at him questioningly,
the look of a parent saying tellme the truth to a child caught
in a lie. He knew exactly what I was
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accusing him of and reacted withunderstanding.
Shaking his head no, he crossed his heart with his finger
adjuster so sincere that it transcended our spoken language,
and I decided to trust him. I arrived at the apartment, and
the father followed shortly after with my bags.
I entered a small living room nearly filled by two recliners
and ATV. The kitchen was on my right,
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wallpapered with a patterned scene of cornucopia.
Ahead of me, the hallway led to two bedrooms and a bathroom.
The home was simple and plainly decorated, but the mood was
inviting and warm. I met Roman, a thin man in his
early 20s, and his mother, who was always smiling.
Roman offered me the shower to use and a washing machine.
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I declined. I was soaked by mist 2 days ago
and felt clean enough. He throwed his brow and
confusion and said no, take a shower.
His basic English didn't allow for a nuanced suggestion, but I
wasn't offended. I so rarely bathe that I've lost
the contrast between feeling dirty and clean.
At this point I'm not sure what would be required for me to
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crave a shower. The five sweaty days since my
last one were not enough. I cleaned myself, then joined
the family and a neighbor aroundthe small kitchen table for
dinner. Roman's mother had cooked a
wonderful feast of soup, sausage, salad, bread, mashed
potatoes, fish, wine and vodka. I felt happy to be around them
and there was a lot of laughter as we ate.
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Tonight I'm sleeping in the parents bedroom while they sleep
on the recliners in the living room.
They told me they usually sleep out there.
The bedroom has pink walls and curtains, and an old television
is sitting on a dresser. An altar in the corner has
images of Jesus. I feel grateful for their
kindness. May 18th, 2013.
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Treasure hunting. Roman's parents left early.
They are both engineers at a local chemical plant, which
affords them a nicer lifestyle than many of their neighbors.
His mother left us a breakfast pie made from a big pancake,
which she decorated to look likea face that ketchup lips and
lunch meat eyes. Roman wanted to show me the
local battlefield, which he saidwas the most interesting thing
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around. The site was 5 miles northwest
of town. I rode my bike carrying a shovel
in my pannier while Roman joggedalongside.
He announced our arrival when wegot to a dry field along the
Karkaneska Gulf. The place was unremarkable
except for a ditch with 20 foot mounds of earth running on each
side. Roman explained the construction
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was 1800 years old and stretched6 miles straight across the
narrowest point of land between the Crimean Peninsula and
mainland Europe. He said that many battles have
occurred right there because theraised mounds are the only cover
around. I looked North and South across
the salty floodplain. Truly, the only thing worth
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dying for in that place was the strategic importance.
As a natural choke point, the line of that ditch has always
been the logical position to hold off an invading army.
For that reason, the soil has been soaked with blood across
millennia. I was struck by the realization
that we were standing on a killing ground with a long
history. The place was somewhat miserable
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in the present too. The temperature is 90°, there is
nothing around to offer shade, and a dense cloud of small black
flies buzzed in my ears and darted into my nostrils while
the sun bear down on us. Roman took the shovel and
started to dig into the side of the bank over.
In the next hour he broke away the dry soil until there was a
hole up to his thighs. In the process he found 7 rifle
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casings, 2 anti take casings as long as my hand in the 1949
German penny embossed by swastika.
He told me that the penny had novalue to a German soldier on the
front line and would have been carried only as a keepsake from
home. I imagine the penny falling from
a soldiers pocket, perhaps in a moment of chaos.
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Roman gave me the coin to keep, saying that he had others about
the rifle casings. He noted that there were three
different calibers, meaning thatdifferent men from different
armies or even different wars had been in that spot fighting
for their lives. Back in town, I ate lunch with
Roman, then gathered my things to leave.
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When we were parting, he asked about the necklace I was
wearing, which had a round medallion given to me.
My friend at my going away party.
He bought the engraved metal circle off a late night TV
infomercial because of claims that the wearer's balance would
be improved through the use of holograms or some other
unqualified means. With a mix of bewilderment and
sadness, Roman said Americans will spend money on anything.
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He asked if the medallion workedand I told him I hadn't fallen
over so far. I thanked him for his friendship
and waved goodbye as I peddled away.
I was a mile out of town when I fell over.
The road had no shoulder and where the pavement stopped there
was an 8 inch drop onto loose gravel.
The traffic was heavy and the trucks were not giving me any
space. I rode on the white line,
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staying as far right as I could,but in a distracted moment I
drifted too far. My front wheel slipped off the
road and the height of the drop made it impossible to steer my
bike back under me. In an instant I was sprawled
face down in the middle of the lane.
I had imagined this happening, and I knew what was coming next
from my stomach. I turned my head to face the
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oncoming traffic that would surely crush me, but nothing was
there. No cars, no trucks.
I was safe. I picked myself up and quickly
gathered my things onto the sideof the road.
The fall was so sudden that my trailer broke away from my
bicycle, snapping one of the bolts.
I had a spare for this exact purpose, but I only brought one.
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Now the bolt must last to the end.
With the trailer taken care of, I stood my bike upright and
turned towards the busy Rd. The fall had shaken me, but I
knew there on the side of the road was not the time to dwell
on it. In order to continue, I had to
suppress my emotions and trust that I wouldn't make the same
mistake twice. I lifted my bike back onto the
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dangerous roadway and began again.
Tonight, I'm lying on the groundbetween farm fields with the
Milky Way hanging high above. I arrived here safe and healthy,
but I couldn't shake the feelingthat circumstances might have
been different. My fall happened during a brief
gap in the steady stream of traffic.
Essentially, I was saved by luck, an idea that deeply
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unsettles me. Feeling safe in my camp, I tried
to process what happened. I thought about the moment I hit
the ground. Lying there face down in the
road, I expected to be killed under the wheel of a semi.
In the next instant, I saw that my life would be spared.
In perfect balance and contrast,I experienced both the fear of
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imminent death and the joy of unexpectedly living.
The intensity of the emotion wasmore than I could bear.
I sat alone in the darkness and sobbed, overwhelmed by the
precariousness of life. May 19th, 2013 My parents visit.
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The sun was already bright when I climbed out of the bushes
where I'd been sleeping. Clouds were gathering like small
cotton balls, and as they came together, the sunshine could
only breakthrough the thin gaps between them.
Pillars of light streaked to theground in 100 places, creating
the appearance of scaffolding holding up the sky.
I was happy for such a nice start to the day.
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My route took me South through unending expanses of farmland,
past a few small towns in an occasional row of trees.
Ukraine is known as the bread basket of Europe because of all
the wheat and barley they grow. Nearly 60% of the land is used
for crops, or 140,000 square miles, an area that would be
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inconceivably large if I weren'tpeddling across it.
By this point, the immensity feels quite clear to me.
Today was a rare one that I actually had somewhere to be and
someone to meet. My parents had booked a trip to
see me and today I had 50 more miles to go to see them.
I arrived in some Farrah pool inthe early afternoon and headed
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to the hotel where we agreed to meet.
They flew 9 hours from New York City, then drove 11 more from
Kiev. My mom worries about me
bicycling on the opposite side of the earth, and her point was
well taken and how far she'd come to give me a hug.
They hired a tour guide for the week named Eugene.
I didn't meet him today, but he's the one who met my parents
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at the airport with a car after the long ride from Kiev.
My dad commented on the Ukrainian drivers and their
daring passes. I told him I knew all too well
about their antics and after their long drive, we explored
the city on foot for the rest ofthe day.
I was amused to see how often sex appeal was used to advertise
products in the city. One guy that stood out to me.
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It was a small billboard for a sewing machine store.
Yellow text was beneath an imageof a sewing machine that would
be used in a home, and in the background behind the machine
was a beautiful woman in a seductive pose with black hair,
wearing a black necklace and a tight black dress that exposed
her shoulders and thighs as she reclined on her side and leaned
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on her elbow. I couldn't tell if their goal
was to advertise their sewing machine to men who wanted to be
with the model or women who wanted to look like her.
Seemingly, in Ukraine, beauty isused as a means to reach a
higher social class. Perhaps this is not so uncommon
around the world, but as we walked around some fair pool, I
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saw women trying harder at this than other places I've been.
There were many who were dressedwell, wore makeup, flaunting
themselves, and beautiful young women taking pictures of each
other was a common sight. We returned to the hotel this
evening. I'll be sleeping in relative
luxury while my parents are withme, and tonight I'm in a bed.
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I don't mind though, my spot in the bushes last night was pretty
nice too. May 20th, 2013.
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Some Therapol Eugene, our tour guide for the week, arrived this
morning to take us around some Farrah pull.
Eugene is an interesting man. Thoughtful, energetic, and quick
to laugh. He has lived in this area for
much of his life. In the past he worked as an
engineer and then a professor. He looked like a professor.
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Square framed glasses rested lowon his nose.
He wore collared shirts and khakis and his graying beard was
neatly trimmed. Currently, the weak economy has
led him to be an English speaking tour guide.
My first priority was to go to abike shop and Eugene led the
way. I had my parents bring me a new
top of the line bottom bracket to replace the loose bearings
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and have been bothering me for the past month.
With the right tools, the bike shop was easily able to swap the
parts. A couple of guys were there
hanging out with the shop owner and they enjoyed hearing about
my journey. As we waited for my bike to be
done. I did a short test ride and I
could tell right away the bit ofplay that had been bothering me
was gone. With that chore out of the way,
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I was able to relax into the break with my parents.
We walked through some Farrah Pole, visiting a War Memorial
along the way. German troops occupied the city
from late 1941 until 1944, shortly after arriving the Nazis
massacre. 22,000 of the citizens, including 14,000
people in a single day. The memorial was in a sunny park
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with an old green tank mounted on a marble stand.
Given what happened, I felt the scene needed to be sadder.
I wanted the memorial to push people to contend with the
cruelty that humanity is capableof, forcing us to face that part
of our nature with the hope thatreminding us what happened will
prevent history from repeating. That's what I was feeling.
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So maybe the memorial is working.
Another stop was to a winery, where Eugene ordered us a flight
to four different wines, then expertly explained to us the
flavor profiles and wine making methods.
The wine with the most unusual flavor, he said, was originally
shipped on the deck of a sailingboat.
The daily heating in the sun andcooling at night created a
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unique flavor that I've never tasted in the wine.
This happy accident was capturedin a process that they now do
entirely at the winery. No need for an old wooden ship.
This evening we went out for a nice dinner with Eugene, his
wife, and his two adult daughters, all of whom were
lovely people. My dad ordered pierogies, and
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out of respect to the women at the table, Eugene pulled my dad
aside to privately tell him a joke, which my dad later shared
with me. Eugene started.
Two men sat eating an enormous plate of pierogies, eating and
eating, until one man finally said to the other, I cannot eat
even one more bite. The last pierogi I ate is here.
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Eugene indicated the top of the stack with a flat hand placed at
the bridge of his nose. In the first pierogi, the man
said I'm sitting on May 21st, 2013, Cave City.
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Eugene arrived in his car this morning to take us to a place
that he said was very special tohim.
We headed out of town past greenfields and forested hills,
making our way deep into the countryside, eventually onto a
road made of dirt and slabs of concrete that was in terrible
condition. Eugene said that some of the
rural dirt roads get to potholesfilled with concrete, but as the
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dirt continues to weather away, the concrete is left sticking up
like a stone mushroom. Where we are going was 60 miles
from Eugene's childhood home, and he said he walked there a
few times, covering the ground in three days and sleeping in
the farm fields along the way. He called the place Cave City,
and we arrived into a beautiful landscape of sheer white mesas
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rising over fields of poppies and horse bastards.
As we got started, Eugene gave me a handheld GPS device in a
Polaroid of a Bush with coordinates written on the back.
He's taking me on a treasure hunt.
I punched their location into the GPS, and together we
followed the arrow across the field and up a wooden hillside.
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When we got to the spot, the Bush in the photo is right there
in front of us, except the branches had grown much larger.
Using my hands, I dug at the dryleaves and loose soil underneath
until a few inches deep, I uncovered a bottle of wine that
Eugene hid five years before. I felt honored that he would
give me a gift so long in the making.
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I believe he saw some of himselfin my spirit of adventure.
I thanked him for the bottle andfor giving me a story of very
treasure. After finding the wine, we hiked
up the side of one of the white mesas.
Eugene explained that the peopleonce lived on the flat tops.
The cliffs offered protection ina time when battles were won by
being higher. On a hill where we reached the
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plateau, there was an abandoned village, the most unusual I've
ever seen. Dozens of homes were carved
directly into the stone. There were staircases and
alleyways. Doorways LED into large rooms
with sculpted stone benches. Some rooms had windows, others
had skylights. Ancient specks of paint still
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clung to the ceiling and walls. A tiny church is carved into a
single large boulder. Eugene showed us what he called
the honeymoon suite. He confessed, or maybe bragged,
of spending nights there with girlfriends when he was young.
The room was carved into the lipof the Mesa, creating a natural
balcony that looked out 50 milesto white, glistening cliffs and
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distant green hills. I thought of Katie.
The night in that ancient room is the sort of date she would
appreciate. We ended the day in Sevastopol,
at a hotel in the city. My parents took me out for
dinner and we had a nice meal. So far in this journey, I've
kept eating what I know and whatI can cook.
Having gone out to eat with my parents a few times already,
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I've enjoyed trying some of the local cuisine.
Tonight I got potato soup servedin a rye bread bowl.
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May 22nd, 2013 The Black Sea. Eugene picked us up this morning
to take us on a tour from Sevastopol to where we would be
staying in Crimea's southern coast.
Our first stop along the way wasat a World War 2 battlefield in
the Memorial for the Defense of Sevastopol.
There are artillery pieces on display, still pointing away
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from the city in trenches dug into the hillsides.
Trees grow there now, but at thetime of the war they would have
all been blown to pieces. The battle took place from
October 1941 to July 1942. Sylvester Poole was surrounded
and placed under siege by the access powers.
All of Crimea had already been overrun and the city was the
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last holdout. Over 200,000 Soviet Union
soldiers perished trying to defend the land.
The Germans pummeled the area with so much artillery and
bombing that in the end there were only 11 buildings left
undamaged in a place where 110,000 people lived before the
war. Such a waste.
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I think of those citizens, the happy plans they had for their
lives, How angry they must have been to have everything taken
from them. We continued following the
coast, striking whitestone Spires pierced forested
hillsides to tower hundreds of feet over the landscape.
Stopping at the base, I saw climbing routes bolted up the
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rock walls. Katie and I climbed a lot
together. She would lead and I would
follow. I still think of myself as a
rock climber. Go out here on my bike.
I'm losing finger strength by the day.
Once at the hotel, my parents and I took a walk to the beach.
We found a stretch of white gravel between a few large
boulders and a barrier constructed of tetrapods.
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Taller than me and abandoned oilrig sat offshore with a bit of a
lean seemingly on the way to collapsing into the sea. 2
middle-aged women laid on beach towels separate from them.
Another woman, much younger and more traditionally attractive,
stood in the water up to her butt, striking sexy poses in a
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skimpy swimsuit while a 5 year old boy, I assume her son, took
pictures with a digital camera. A strange scene, but for Ukraine
what she was doing was completely normal.
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May 23rd, 2013 Ukraine Palace. I explored the black seacoast
with my parents Today we drove the sea.
The Lividia Palace, which began as a summer home for an imperial
family in the 1860s. Apparently the picturesque black
seacoast has been a vacation destination for a long time.
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The opulence was magnificent andI marvelled at the skilled
craftsmanship from a time beforethe help of modern machines.
The walls and ceilings were covered in intricate hand carved
flourishes. Chandeliers were made of complex
flowing glass shapes. The fireplaces had figurines
chiseled into the stone mantels.The grounds around the building
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held decorative trees, carefullyshaped bushes, and flowing white
fountains. During World War 2, after the
fall of Sevastopol, the Nazi celebrated at the La Vardia
Palace. Three years later, the same
rooms were used for the Yalta Conference.
This was the second meeting between Franklin Roosevelt,
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Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.
They came to divide Europe between them and to try to
create a new world order that would prevent the tragedy of
another continental war. 75 million people had been killed
under their watch. I wonder what the weight of that
loss felt like. They must have wanted so badly
to make things right. Yet within two years, tensions
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from their agreement started theCold War.
Over the next 43 years, proxy battles between communism and
capitalism led to another 20 million deaths.
How terrible these world leadersare at their jobs, not killing
10s of millions of people. Seems like such a low bar to
pass. This evening we opened the
bottle of buried wine from Eugene and I got out my guitar.
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I played a song for my parents, never having shown any interest
in music as a child. This would have been the first
time in my life that I performedfor them.
I sat on the balcony strumming my guitar, and as the sun began
to set, a rainbow appeared, arching gracefully between the
sea and the towering white cliffs.
The scene was just perfect. May 24th, 2013.
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Flower Garden my parents and I visited in the Kitsky Botanical
Gardens today. Built in 1812, the botanical
gardens are one of the oldest inEurope and cover an area of 11
square kilometers. We walked among the many
varieties of flowers, trees, shrubs, cacti and succulents.
Including the work of the on site research post, the garden
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has a collection of 50,000 different plants.
We happen to be here in just theright season for the flowers to
be in full bloom. The variety of colorful roses
filled in around a labyrinth of walking paths.
The ground cover was especially impressive with patches of white
and pink Clover planted in colorful patterns circling the
trees. We made our way to the coast
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this evening to find a restaurant along the water.
As we walked through a commercial area, I was
interested to see the different types and quality of
construction. The whole place was bustling
with workers as they rushed to make the area look good before
the height of tourist season. The buildings were fairly
primitive due to the materials available, and while none of the
structures looked like they weregoing to fall over, the rawness
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of them made me wonder if there was any sort of building code.
The street too was being repaired and I noticed the
sweaty laborers working in thin flip flops as they shoveled
gravel. In the United States their
company would be fine if they didn't wear steel toed shoes
though. Shoveling gravel is a minimum
wage job here. Then they would only be making
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the equivalent of $45.00 per month.
Perhaps they wear flip flops because they can't afford shoes.
The restaurant we settled on hada young woman in a black dress
singing from a small stage in the corner of the small room.
Her songs were in Ukrainian or maybe Russian.
Before we walked in, she was only singing for the bartender
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and as the only customers, she gave her table a lot of
attention. I wasn't sure what I was
ordering, but a cut of meat cameout with a side of potatoes and
I was quite pleased with my selection.
We ate as the sunset and our daylight faded.
By the time we walked out of therestaurant, clouds had moved in
and the sky had turned an eerie blue.
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Lightning struck at the sea and the light rain began to fall as
we drove back to the hotel. I would be out in a wet field
tonight if I were biking, but this hotel was pretty nice too.
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May 25th, 2013 A BBQ with EugeneOn the final day of my parents
visit. Eugene invited us to join him
for dinner at his home with his wife and two daughters.
We drank wine and ate BBQ pork kebabs in his backyard.
Eugene taught me a few of the local drinking customs.
He told me that empty bottles never go on the table.
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They were placed on the ground and called dead soldiers.
When we drank cognac, the chaserwas a slice of lemon coated in
sugar. Perhaps his most sage wisdom was
to never drink alone. But he said if you have to, get
a mirror so you can drink with agood man.
His advice for my journey was equally useful.
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He said to never eat more than half of my food in the sitting.
This way I'll never run out. As the night was winding down,
Eugene borrowed my guitar for a song.
He began with a sad melody, softand lonely.
With his eyes closed, he startedto sing in Russian.
His voice was clear and moving, the lyrics delivered with
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heartfelt emotion, a sorrowful song of loss and mourning.
I was moved even without understanding the words.
When he ended, I asked what the song was about.
He said it's the story of a skier.
It was sad that the ski season is over when the party was
ending. I thank Eugene for taking me
around and sharing his knowledge.
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I'm always passing through places without knowing anything
about them, so having him along was a treat for me.
Eugene shook my hand and wished me luck for the rest of my
journey. My parents were happy to be
guided around as well, and they were especially glad to get to
see me. They were nervous about me
heading into Russia. Their worries weren't distinct,
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just unease about what I'm doing.
They could imagine Europe, but now that they don't know what's
ahead for me, that's scary. I understand their sentiment,
but I'm undeterred. The nature of this journey is to
go into the unknown and I trust myself to handle any situation I
get myself into. May 26th, 2013 Back on my own.
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My parents left this morning andI got going too.
I was feeling refreshed and excited to start pedaling.
My gear was feeling refreshed too.
My bike was running smoothly with the new bottom bracket.
My parents had brought me a new headlamp to replace the one I
lost, and I added another wrap of clear tape around my guitar
tube. My mom also loaded me with 35
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lbs of canned raviolis and cheese from the United States.
I keep my food in my right pan here, and I could feel my bike
listing as I started down the road.
Up to this point my journey, I've avoided carrying extra
weight by only purchasing enoughfood to get me to the next place
to buy more, usually one or two days worth.
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I didn't fully realize that whatthis was doing was forcing a
sense of scarcity on myself. That habit broke today.
The glut of meals for my mom gave me a wonderful sense of
abundance. My situation felt less dire, as
if I'd stepped back from an edge.
I won't have to skip a meal if awindy day slows me down.
I can take an unplanned day off or have extra food to share.
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If that scenario comes up. From now on, I'm going to try to
always carry a little extra food.
Being off of my bike for severaldays also gave me some time to
recover. My nerves have calmed.
My legs are rested, nagging painto my wrist, knee and neck all
feel better. These first few months have
proven to be a breaking in period.
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Small repetitive use, injuries or healing as I strengthen to
the task at hand. But the process of sculpting my
body is a slow, persistent task.Tomorrow marks 100 days on the
road and I still arrive each evening on weary legs.
I didn't realize bicycling around the world would be so
tiring. I've set up my camp between farm
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fields tonight. After a week of sleeping in
hotels, I'm happy to be back in my hammock.
A pleasant breeze is sweeping across the land.
The stars are shining. I feel good to be on the move
again. May 27th, 2013 Lotta.
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I seem to have found a corner ofthe map few people drive
through. The quiet Rd. was a joy to ride
and I relaxed as I took in the landscape.
There were fields of purple flowers blooming under the sun.
I watched swirling wind ripple across long rows of green wheat.
Little Gray birds danced in the sky.
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I've been seeing car repair ramps alongside the road.
There are twin concrete structures sloping upward,
leveling off and sloping back down.
The car parked on top. A person could walk underneath
to access the bottom. Eugene told me the road to cross
the Soviet Union was so bad thatpeople would carry spare parts
in their trunks to make repairs on the go.
(47:35):
The ramps were the compromise between improving the road and
doing nothing. I still see the ramps being used
and sometimes a car called a Lotta is parked on top.
Many of the cars I've seen across Eastern Europe are the
same model. They're compact 4 door cars that
came out in the late 70s and forthree decades they were the best
(47:56):
selling vehicle in Russia. Eugene told me that they were
cheap and easy to work on and sothat they would always be that
way. The car was barely updated even
when the Lauder was discontinuedin the mid 2000s.
A new car off the lot was actually a model from the 80s.
The whole country is now full ofspare parts to keep them
running, and with ramps to do the work, I expect the lotta
(48:19):
will be around for decades more.In the late afternoon I met a
Russian cyclist out on a 10 day lap around the peninsula.
He looked like he was having funin Russian.
He told me his name was Victor, but I wasn't able to understand
much more than that. We rode together for a few
miles, quietly enjoying each other's company, before our
(48:40):
paths diverged and I was alone again.
I carried on for another hour before sneaking away from the
road to sleep between the farm fields.
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