A Journey Completed

I had few expectations about Batumi, but the city nonetheless managed to exceed all of them. The city had an excellent climate, and was oriented towards the pebbly beach that separated the gracious town from the Black Sea.

Unfortunately, I had little time to linger, so after breakfast I headed towards the Turkish border, stopping only to top off the tank. Border formalities were refreshingly efficient, such that despite the 20 minute wait to buy insurance I was in Turkey little more than an hour after arriving. Motorists heading in the other direction, however, had a good wait, as it took me 10 minutes at 30 kph to pass the end of the queue of vehicles waiting to enter Georgia.

A very good dual carriageway road brought me to Trabzon a few hours later, where Google maps took me straight to my hotel. Checked in, checked out the view from my terrace over the harbour, got my dirty clothing to a laundry, bought a Turkish SIM card, found some dinner and a beer, and went to sleep.

Trabzon harbour

Departed reasonably early next day after breakfast. Istanbul was too distant to attempt driving in one day, so I decided a visit to Cappodoccia would be a good way to break my journey. I booked myself two nights in a hotel there, and set Google maps to navigate me there.

As usual, three alternative routes were offered, and also as usual, I took the one with the shortest drive time. The route I chose headed directly inland, straight up into the Anatolian plateau; others continued west along the Black Sea coast before turning south. The road started as a four-lane dual carriageway, but soon narrowed to a single lane as it climbed into the mountains in a series of switchbacks. After more than hour of steadily gaining elevation, it levelled out into a long straight stretch. This road continued east towards Erzurum, but Google maps directed me south onto a secondary road.

Over the next couple of hours, the road steadily deteriorated, getting narrower and rougher until I was driving over an unfinished track through pine-covered mountains. For El Guapo, it was no real challenge, but I would feel bad for anyone in an ordinary vehicle that had been directed to this route by Google maps. Eventually, of course, I rejoined the pavement, and as I continued towards Cappadoccia the roads grew steadily wider and smoother. At Zara, I took the opportunity to fill El Guapo's diesel tank, before continuing on. Leaving town, I was distracted by a text from MJ and drifted into curb dividing the roadway, travelling at around 100 kph. I hit hard, and bounced back onto the road. The time pressure monitor loudly informed me I had just punctured the tyre.

Pine-forested Anatolia

I managed to pull over directly in front of a complex of workshops, mostly in the business of tyre repair. A mechanic soon appeared, and we jacked up the front axle, removed the wheel and took it to his workshop. Despite the abundance of tyre shops, no new ones were available. The mechanic took the tyre off the rim and together we inspected the damage. There was a gash 6 cm long in the side wall. He patched it up and it held air, but I didn't have a lot of confidence in the repair. We moved that tyre to the spare wheel carrier, put the spare on the rear, and moved the rear to the front. I paid him €100 and set off down the road.

No further mis-haps marred the rest of the journey, which took me over increasingly good quality roads to Göreme, the centre of Cappadoccia, by what I thought was around 22:00, but later that evening I learned that I had crossed a time-zone boundary at some point that day and it was an hour earlier.

I wandered into the touristy centre of town and had some drinks and dinner before going to bed around midnight. My plan was to take a break from driving and have a look around Cappadoccia the next day. Although I was in bed, I was still restless and slept lightly. Around 3:30 I got a text from my brother: my Dad had just passed away.

I sat awake texting him and then MJ for a bit before getting a little bit of sleep. I was out of bed by eight and on the road by 10:00. The friendly Kiwi owner of the hotel allowed me to cancel the second night I had booked without a penalty.

Istanbul was still a good ways away. I headed towards Ankara first and was headed north from there by early afternoon. On the way, with MJ's help, I booked a ticket to Detroit, a hotel at the airport in Istanbul, and a hotel in Ann Arbor. Approaching the city, the traffic grew steadily denser and slower. At one point I had anticipated reaching my hotel before 21:00, but the last kilometers in Asia I just crept along. I had earlier passed up some opportunities to re-fuel, and now my low-fuel warning came on. Around 22:00, I finally crossed the Bosporus into Europe.

I continued through heavy traffic on the highway towards the airport, my fuel gauge making me increasingly doubtful that I would make it. I considered an exit where there might potentially be a fuel station, hesistated, passed it, and then saw that I could have easily accessed three large petrol stations if I had exited as I considered. I had more diesel on the roof rack, so I wasn't worried about running out of fuel per se, but rather that if it ran dry I would have to bleed the air out of the fuel system. Prudence finally got the better of me and I decided to pull off and find a fuel station or to pour the contents of one of jerry cans into the tank. Naturally, unlike the exit I passed by, the exit I took 1) had no fuel stations and 2) did not lead easily back on to the main highway. I found a spot to pull over, climbed up on the roof and brought down a full jerry can, dug the spout out of the back and poured the contents into the tank. Replaced the jerry can on the roof and pulled back out into traffic.

With the help of Google maps, I navigated the spaghetti junction that led onto the avenue along the Sea of Marmora where the Hyatt was located. I pulled into the car park a few minutes later.

Checking in I was given good news and bad news. The bad news first: it was nearly midnight, I was exhausted and smelling like diesel, and my room wasn't ready. The good news: the only thing they had left was the Diplomatic Suite, which turned out to be an enormous six-room suite with two bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a conference room, living room, kitchen and master suite with an immense bathtub in the middle of a bathroom larger than most people's sitting rooms. Over the years, I've had dozens of colleagues tell stories of such good fortune, but it had always eluded me. However, now that I had finally reached this elusive goal, I was only going to be able to enjoy it for about four hours, as my flight was at 6:00 the next morning.

I told the bellman I was going to the bar and to bring me the key when the room was ready. He did so in the middle of my second drink, so I headed down one floor to my fancy suite. I plugged all of my Apple devices in to charge, each in its own private room (why not, right?), set two wake up calls and an alarm and went to sleep in the enormous bed.

On waking, I turned on all six jets in the gigantic marble shower and blasted my body with warm water. Dressed, packed up all my Apple devices and headed downstairs, where they had a take-away breakfast waiting for me. I left the keys to El Guapo with the bellman and headed for the airport. Check in, security, etc. all normal. Found my economy-class seat at the very back of the plane, surrounded by a dozen or so unhappy toddlers. All were loud, but the one directly across the aisle was possessed by particularly noisy demons. In between screaming fits, he would kick the back of the seat in front of him, take the items his parents had offered in vain attempts to calm him and throw them into the aisle, and – his favourite – lower the tray table and pummel it with his fists as hard and fast as he could. Fortunately, he soon tired of all this, and – no, actually that was just our collective wishful thinking. He never got tired of keeping up his tantrum at full intensity during the entire 5-hour flight to Frankfort.

Frankfort was a short layover, and before long I was crammed into another economy class seat in the back of another jet. Fortunately, the configuration on this one was one I had never before encountered, and it had a lot fewer kids. Can't remember what the model of the aircraft was, but the toilets were all on a lower level, down a flight of stairs. The bulkhead around the stairs was just starboard of my seat, so although I had a "middle" seat, I had no one to my right, and only one seat to my left.

Before I knew it, my brother was picking me up at what had become a familiar spot at DTW. My Mom was never one to handle even the most lightly stressful situation with any sort of grace or dignity, so losing her husband of 57 years was sending her around the bend. We felt some trepidation because of this (my brother sharing with me some of her more outrageous actions over the days since I had left), but nonetheless felt it our obligation to stop in on my Mom. Afterwards, he dropped me at my hotel on the west side of town.

Next few days were spent getting things ready for my Dad's funeral, which was planned for Friday. With the help of my niece, we sorted through hundreds of old photos, selected a few dozen, found a guy who could scan them, had a dozen or so printed up, and put the rest on a playable DVD that could play on a repeating loop during the wake. We met with the priest and made final arrangements concerning the cermony, finalised the lunch menu and the readings and the music. We cleaned up the house in preparation for visitors, prepared print-outs of my Dad's favourite poems to distribute to guests, and took the American flag that had covered my sisters remains at her funeral 30+ years ago to the funeral home. One nice touch was my brother's idea – having his seven passports on display, the photos marking both his aging and the progression of hairstyles through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond.

At the wake

The wake was well attended, by members of his family, my Mom's family, as well as friends, neighbours, and former colleagues, classmates and co-workers. The weather on the day of the funeral was flawless. I had taken my Dad's car back to my hotel the night before, and so I rose, put on a suit and headed over to my Mom's house first thing. The funeral was starting at 10:00 and my brother and I had planned to depart the house at 9:30 to be at the church no later than 9:45. I arrived at 9:15 to find that my niece and nephew weren't even out of bed yet, my brother was frantically pulling things together, and my Mom, of course, was jumping frantically from one self-manufactured crisis to the next.

Somehow, I managed to bundle them, the flag, and the poems into the car by 9:35 and arrive at the church almost on time. It was a spectacularly gorgeous Michigan summer day. A little knot of people had already gathered outside the front door, and we joined them in exchanging hugs and hellos with everyone as they arrived. Soon it was time for the funeral mass to start. My brother and I reached deep into the recesses of our memories and managed to mentally retrieve the process for properly folding an American flag, something we had both learned as boy scouts some 40 year ago and not had the occaision to practice since. We managed to do it perfectly, and then assisted the priest in spreading the pall over the coffin before processing up the aisle behind the priest, the casket, and my mother to the stirring chords of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

One of my Mom's many anxieties about the service, is that the priest she wanted, Father Bill, was on leave when my Dad passed, so we ended up in the hands of a Father Todd, a sincere young 27-year priest who turned out to be perfect for the task. One of the main reasons I thought so was the amazing homily he gave. He had only met us the day before, and never knew my father, but he asked questions and learned some things about my Dad through us, of course including his love of mountaineering. I can't recall everything he said, but a key thread running through the homily was a discussion of the meaning and symbolism of mountains and the mountain-top in Scripture – Moses at Mt. Nebo; Jesus giving the sermon on the mount, etc. and connecting my father's love of mountains to his spiritual journey through life.

After the funeral mass

After communion, my brother and I came to the lecturn, where I delivered a brief eulogy and my brother read one of his favourite – and most relevant poems, Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt. Afterwards, we had a lunch in the church hall. The church, St. Thomas, was the same church I was baptised in, and aside from attending a Sunday mass there with my cousin a few weeks ago, the only other time I had been there was for his mother's (who was also my godmother) funeral 2 1/2 years ago.

MJ flew in that evening with her son, whom I met for the first time the next morning. The three of us spent that weekend together before flying to Boston to move out of our flat there and to prepare to fly back to Istanbul, where MJ would join me for the final leg of my journey to Prague.

Blogndog

16 August 2015

Boston

The Adventure Continues

I spent a good part of my time in Iran believing I would not make it back to the USA in time to say good-bye to my Dad, but after a 20-hour, 3-leg flight from Yerevan to Detroit, I arrived at my parents' house to find him still with us. Physically, he was weakened and emaciated, unable to stand without assistance, his pain kept under control by regular doses of morphine. Mentally, he initially also seemed weakened and confused, but over the days following my arrival, he experienced numerous interludes of lucidity and awareness.

Unfortunately, at times this awareness led him to express unhappiness – that he was in pain, that he just wanted to die. My Dad never taught me a lot through instruction or advice over the years, but I learned so much through his example, and this experience has taught me I need to take steps to ensure that I have the ability to end things on my terms if and when that time comes.

My mother, brother, niece and nephew all were sharing the house and the burden of caring for my Dad. The stress, at times, brought out the worst in all of us, but on the whole, I am very proud of all of my family, and they way they have managed this very difficult time. Eventually, we were all but forced to bring in an overnight care-giver, which later became full-time assistance, but we worked as a team under difficult circumstances to give my father the care he needed whilst trying our best to keep him comfortable and maintain his dignity.

My father with my brother and I -- his response to this photo was, "hey, who's the little guy in the middle?"

My original intent, of course, was to stay through to the end. But we never anticipated that he would last more than a few days. Everyone from my mother to MJ to the hospice nurse thought he was just hanging on until I could arrive, but on the day I left he had better blood pressure than I do. I couldn't suspend this trip indefinitely, and in fact, I only had permission to bring El Guapo into Armenia for 15 days, even though my own visa was valid for 90. So on the 27th, I said good-bye to my Dad and flew back to Yerevan with the intent of getting El Guapo to his permanent home in the Czech Republic and returning to the USA as soon as possible.

I arrived in Yerevan – exhausted – after more than 24 hours of travel with long layovers in both Frankfort and Vienna early in in the morning of the 28th. I was too tired to go through the process of removing the jerry cans from the roof and driving around trying to find the hotel I had booked on-line during my Vienna layover, so I just had a quick look in the car park to verify that El Guapo was safe and then took a taxi into town. Arriving at my hotel, the Hotel Meg, I was surprised to find my seat-mate from my flight from Vienna waiting there for me – he was the owner! It's a small hotel, and very difficult to find – only a small plaque on the door, completely not visible from the street, marks it as a hotel, so it was good I chose not to drive.

I slept most of the rest of the day, and then returned to the airport by taxi, first to retrieve my rescue tool from airport security and then to collect El Guapo from the car park. I was surprised but pleased to see that the oil had ceased leaking from the rear axle, but of course hoped this wasn't due to it having leaked completely dry. I brought some gear oil – and the half-inch socket wrench I would need to open the diff fill plug – with me from the USA. I had to use my foot to get sufficient leverage, but did manage to open the rear diff fill. It took about a half-litre, so it was down but not excessively so. Drove to the exit, paid 24000 AMD (about 25 EUR, not bad, eh?) for 12 days of parking and drove back into town. I thought I had marked a GPS waypoint for the hotel, but if I did, it disappeared somehow, so I spent more than an hour, twice passing within a few dozen meters of the place, before I finally managed to return to the hotel.

Before leaving for the airport, I arranged to have a mechanic meet me at the hotel the following morning. He arrived a bit late, but we got to work on the replacing the hub seal by 10:30, and were finished with the job by 12:00. In the process of making that repair, however, we discovered that the bolt and bushings from the left rear stabiliser bar had gone missing. We made a shopping trip to a friendly local lube supply and picked up 8 liters of 5W/30 engine oil. Then to the parts shop for new bolts and bushing, and then back to the hotel car park. Stabiliser bar sorted; drained the old engine oil, replaced the filter, refilled the engine. Replaced the fuel and air filters, drained and refilled the front diff. Should be good for another 5000 km. I thanked and paid the mechanic – at around 50 EUR for the day, he was less expensive than the 8 liters of Shell Helix engine oil (60 EUR).

El Guapo gets a new hub seal

I've started beginning to wonder if I had made a gender identity mistake in giving El Guapo a masculine name -- after giving him (her?) the vehicular equivalent of a cleanse, manicure, pedicure and facial, El Guapo now wanted a foamy bath, which he hadn't had since leaving Doha in June. In fact, he was whining continuously – I noticed a high-pitched whine that had not been present before when I drove away after finishing the service. There are plenty of car washes (or "day spas", as El Guapo likes to call them) in Yerevan, so I got him checked in and ordered up the full treatment. El Guapo was positively glowing when we left, but still refused to stop whining.

Nothing like a hot bath!

I returned to the hotel, parked El Guapo, plugged in the battery charger and had a long hot shower. Had some food and a beer and tried to get some sleep, without a lot of success. Went to bed around 23:00; gave up on trying to sleep around 1:00. Went for a walk, returned at 2:00, think I finally managed to go to sleep around 2:30, and was woken by a text message around 5:00.

First thing to pop in my head was that I had forgotten to grease El Guapo's U-joints, a task I usually look forward to because it gives me an excuse to say "grease nipple." I did so straight-away, and had a check on the batteries – still charging. Had a shower, packed up, checked out, and got on the road by 12:00. The road north from Yerevan was only slightly less dramatic than the road I arrived on from the south. Lots of mountains, lots of lakes, lots of hairpin turns. I reached the border around 17:00, on the last day that El Guapo was legally in the country. Did the now familiar queue/paperwork/bank/paperwork routine, but this time it took less than an hour. I said good-bye to Armenia and then drove 100 meters to the Georgian border control. The agent there had a little difficulty processing me in, but he summoned a colleague and 15 minutes later, with no paperwork no fees, and no bullshit, I was given a Georgian entry stamp and waved forward to customs. There, the customs officers collectively were far more interested in checking out El Guapo (really -- I need to sort this out, this vehicle is obviously female, but somehow "La Guapa" doesn't have the same resonance. I'm facing a similar mental dilemna with the child I haven't even conceived yet – if it's a boy, I definitely want to name him "Joseph" after my father, but if it's a girl, "Josephine" doesn't really seem to cut it) than they were in properly checking things, and so after a 15 minute discussion on camping, off-roading, on-board water and electricity, etc., I was on my way. This is the experience I have been hoping for in the course of the last 5 or so crossings and I hope the remaining six or eight are similarly uncomplicated.

Another hour brought me to Tbilisi, which I quickly discovered was a far more interesting and beautiful city than I had anticipated. My first good impression arose from happening across the "Bridge of Peace", an absolutely exquisite piece of architecture I had never heard of. I passed this landmark over the Kura river just as dusk was falling on a perfect summer evening. The bridge is for pedestrians only and is beautifully lit. As its designers no doubt anticipated, it was thronged with people -- hanging out, making out, working out and chilling out. It's an absolute genius piece of urban architecture, and you will never see anything like in the USA because, well, it isn't automobile centric.

The "Freedom Bridge," much as I saw it driving by on a perfect summer evening

Near an immense statue of St. George with a sword in his hand and a determined "I am going to kill this dragon" look on his face, I found a Geocell shop that was supposed to still be open but nevertheless was not, but managed to find an unsecured wireless connection, logged on to TripAdvisor, and found the location of a small but highly rated hotel, the "Hotel British House." Drove there with the help of Google Maps and checked in. Simple, but very nice hotel, and fantastic breakfast included in the 65 EUR rate.

After checking in, I walked downhill from the hotel to the main drag, Rustaveli Avenue. What a trendy and lively scene – a beautiful avenue, on a beautiful summer evening, populated with beautiful, trendy people and...can it be? Yes! A Wendy's!

First time I've seen a Wendy's this side of the Atlantic since they closed their UK, Poland and Swiss outlets back in the '90s. Welcome back.

Beautiful Tbilisi at night. Just how did I achieve this dreamy, romantic look, you ask? Was it some photo programme, either Apple's or Instagram's or someone elses?

If you want to have this same look in your own photos, just follow these simple instructions:

1) Buy an iPhone

2) Stick it in your pocket, and mostly don't think about the "photo" function.

3) Sweat a lot (helps if its warm and you are a bit overweight and out of shape)

4) Take your iPhone out of your pocket, smear the sweat around a bit with your filthy t-shirt. Phone is now ready for use.

I found the "Georgian" restaurant the hotel receptionist had recommended, went in, sat down, and ordered a "local" beer (it was good, although I don't remember the brand). The appetiser was amazing – just a big plate of raw herbs and vegetables, including green onion, purple basil, parsley, tarragon, radishes, and others. No prep, no dressing, nothing fancy – but really nice and crisp and fresh – something I will have to replicate next time I have both an herb garden and guests.

Again following the suggestion of the waitress I ordered what she assured me was a "traditional Georgian dish" for the main course. It was good, but I would have difficulty differentiating it from "pizza" in a blind taste test.

This morning had a huge, tasty breakfast at my hotel. I was still a bit concerned about El Guapo's whining, so I had a look under the vehicle. There appeared to be a leak (nothing serious) from the transfer case, so on my way out of Tbilisi, I stopped into a high-tech looking garage and had both the transfer case and transmission oil replaced. They discovered bits of steel shavings stuck to the magnetic drain plug of the transfer case. Any number of potential causes, but I suspect my difficulties in shifting in and out of diff lock, which invariably involves a lot of grinding of gears. In any event, this didn't make the whining go away, but it did make me more assured.

After leaving Tbilisi, I soon found myself on the best highway I've seen since leaving Qatar.

Wow! Nice road! If it weren't for the hill I am driving up, I'd think I was back in Qatar!

This good road unfortunately didn't take me all the way to Batumi, but mostly made good time through green countryside, and eventually reached the Black Sea coast and a series of pebbly beaches and resort towns. The last few kilometers wound slowly through a lush green forest before paralelling the beach into Batumi itself. I hadn't made a hotel reservation, so I drove through town looking for a hotel, and ended up at a Sheraton. They told me they only had executive rooms left at 600 EUR/night, so I went to the bar, got a Wifi access code and logged on to Trip Advisor. Searched for hotels in Batumi, and the Sheraton came up at the top of the list for 200 USD. I booked it and returned to the reception desk. She retrieved my reservation, noted I had booked a standard room, and then upgraded me to an executive room for free.

Tomorrow I expect to achieve a significant psychological milestone in this journey, as I'll be entering Turkey, the last border crossing I will doing in Asia!

Blogndog

1 August 2015

Batumi