Absolutely amazing!
Absolutely amazing!
How many kms? How many checkpoints? How many tasks? 3 minutes to spare? You guys are TSD masters.
Back at the first office, we're much calmer now that the bulk of the work is done. Vikki calls the rehabilitation center, and tells them that we're on our way. Mrs. Hungary and I thought we'd just give Vikki the EKG to take, but she had already explained to us that our visit at the facility was "not optional". Once we get there we see why:
The UV disinfectant lights had arrived just the day before (we had them shipped in from Kyiv), and the EKG was meant to be the cherry on top.
Since we were there we offered them our entire supply of stuffies (which they happily accepted) and our extra bags of chocolate and boxes of candy. They're going to hand them out to their clients as they're needed. The facility treats people for developmental and physical disabilities, all aged between 3 and 35 years of age.
With no deadline working against us, we're able to spend some nice time with the director (a doctor), and her husband. Both speak English and are happy to show us the facilities and some videos of the care they give their patients. It's absolutely wonderful to see. Both of us wish we had more time to spend there, but we work out an arrangement to send them the remaining balance that we weren't able to spend on toys for children. They've got some areas of the facility that are in need of renovation, and what we have to send will go towards helping them complete those. When we leave, we get the most delicious smelling bag of fresh, home-made pastries we have ever seen!!!
(Pastries: One was pomegranite, one was also sweet we think it might have been cherry?, two others were savory. One was potato, and one tasted like it might have had cooked onions in it. We devoured both savory varieties later that night, and by the time we got home, only a few of the sweet varieties remained for our family to sample)
Eventually we say goodby, and we're invited back to Vikki's neighbors for a tour of his garage. The guy has an absolutely BEAUTIFUL Lada, and obviously has some serious work in it (at the very least it's got a beautiful coat of paint, and an exhaust that I 100% don't mind listening to as I follow him home). When we get there, he pulls out a bottle of liquor and has me smell.
It smells wonderful
Handing the bottle back he pulls out a glass and fills it to the brim! Not a shot glass, mind you. An actual rocks glass. Bill is now getting scared.
See, I have a no drinking and driving rule. Zero drinks, or Bill doesn't drive. That being said, I am not above pushing that rule from time to time. One shot, and I don't mind hanging around the garage until it wears off. But this cup I'm looking at? There is no way I'm going to be able to not sleep at this place if I drink it...
Luckily it wasn't for me. 
His wife comes in with tea for the rest of us, and we each have a glass. Vikki's neighbor fires up the wood stove and we spend some time exchanging gifts, and chatting. I get a tour of the beautiful Lada. It's even nicer on the inside! The guy's put the seats and all the trimmings from a Mercedes in it, and has done some serious top-tier work.
It's nice to wind down after such a taxing run.
Loving the stories of your journey sir! Wife of the year status for sure.
matthewmcl said:How many kms? How many checkpoints? How many tasks? 3 minutes to spare? You guys are TSD masters.
Honestly, no idea about the KMs, but it's an honest 24-hour run each way.
I have a GREAT news - all gifts have received 
We did it!!! We all did it together 
It's UNBELIEVABLE!!! These are real Christmas miracles
Bill I read everything you wrote 
i like it
I'll write a few words some later 
Merry Christmas and Happy new year!!! Peace and joy, happiness and success, great adventures and opportunities and happy holiday season for everyone
And holiday song from Ukrainian band Grandma's smuzi 
MR and Ms Hungary, and Vikki are some amzing people.
Merry Christmas everyone
Lots of awesome happy faces. Hopefully forgetting about some things for a bit.
84FSP said:Lots of awesome happy faces. Hopefully forgetting about some things for a bit.
Hopefully.
Late in purchasing the gifts, we noticed a bit of a "theme" with what was being asked from some of the children. We had a lot of people ask for art supplies and headphones and the like, and we kind of realized that these people weren't asking for a"gift", they were asking for a "calm escape". Things like music, video games, and art don't take up much room and the materials needed are always readily available if you have a good foundation of supplies. Best of all, they can transport you out of your surroundings and into a world of your own.
We had a few videos come in!
Sorry guys, I caught a virus that knocked me flat (some winter "break", huh?) but I finally got them uploaded:
This next one is my personal favorite (admittedly, I'm biased). Shortly after receiving his soldering station and supplies, Yaroslav sent us back this message:
Followed by a video of something he made for his mother with the tools and materials we gifted him:
That one really hit home for me. I've got a tackle box full of electronic equipment and consumables that I keep around but never use (I haven't done any work on circuit cards in forever). On the next trip, I want to personally send this guy another package.
Kisgorbo:
Just before the Christmas holiday, I checked the Paypal account. Even with the big drive to Dnipro this month, we still exceeded our goals for the Kisgorbo shelter! When I checked on the 21st, we had 655,000 (just over $1700) sitting in the account.
Naturally, I had some ideas of where the extra 155,000 forint could go (stuffies, Ira's art therapy, etc), but in the spirit of holiday giving, I thought maybe the extra 150k could bring the shelter a bit more of whatever they needed this season. On the 22nd, the whole balance was transferred to Mayor Kozma and the Kisgoro shelter.
And last but not least: From the Instagram page of the Malva Rehabilitation Center:
Happy New Year Everyone!
Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:84FSP said:Lots of awesome happy faces. Hopefully forgetting about some things for a bit.
Hopefully.
Late in purchasing the gifts, we noticed a bit of a "theme" with what was being asked from some of the children. We had a lot of people ask for art supplies and headphones and the like, and we kind of realized that these people weren't asking for a"gift", they were asking for a "calm escape". Things like music, video games, and art don't take up much room and the materials needed are always readily available if you have a good foundation of supplies. Best of all, they can transport you out of your surroundings and into a world of your own.
I'll look for headphones and art supplies in the coming weeks. The warehouse reseller stores I frequent get them a lot.
GIRTHQUAKE said:Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:84FSP said:Lots of awesome happy faces. Hopefully forgetting about some things for a bit.
Hopefully.
Late in purchasing the gifts, we noticed a bit of a "theme" with what was being asked from some of the children. We had a lot of people ask for art supplies and headphones and the like, and we kind of realized that these people weren't asking for a"gift", they were asking for a "calm escape". Things like music, video games, and art don't take up much room and the materials needed are always readily available if you have a good foundation of supplies. Best of all, they can transport you out of your surroundings and into a world of your own.
I'll look for headphones and art supplies in the coming weeks. The warehouse reseller stores I frequent get them a lot.
That would be awesome, thank you!
Prologue:
We couldn't stay as long as we wanted back at Vikki's place. The run is only half done, and we still have the return trip to make. There's a target city in mind that I stayed in last time. I ask Mrs. Hungary to punch up a hotel in that town and we'd try to get there by a decent hour, she gets exactly one result on the GPS. I can tell by its location that its not the same place I stayed at last time, but it's A place and that's all that matters. A warm bed after sleeping in the truck the night previous is going to be very welcome.
We're off but stop for fuel and a tarp adjustment on the way out of town. With all the bags gone, there's not much to cover but having the back open invites a LOT of cold air in.
Yeah,. that's about as cold as that looks...
And if you're wondering what the insides look like, well they're not much better:
Eventually we're off. We make our destination town, but it's pretty late at night and the whole place is dark since they black-out the cities at night. When we get to the GPS's desired location, the whole place looks completely residential. Nothing that says "hotel" or anything anywhere nearby.
No prob, says I. I know a place just off the route we can stay at.
We point in what we think is the correct direction, but must have made a right where we should have made a left. It's not the biggest deal since either way takes us in a correct direction to get home, but still a deal since it means we're now completely through the town and will not be driving by the motel I had in mind. Drat.
Once through town, we decide we'll just keep going forward until we pass something and then will stop then. The last something we pass turns out to be fuel station just before we hit a road that was bad. Like "giant potholes filled with mud" bad. Double-drat.
We both decide that we've had enough for one day, and double back to the fuel station. It's already about midnight so we'll save the mud and the potholes for tomorrow morning. For now, it's sleeping bags in the back of the truck under the tarp. But before we can get to that, Mrs. Hungary starts throwing up (like, a LOT). Two days of road food has finally caught up with us looks like. For tonight she'll be sleeping closest to the passenger door. It's the one that allows for the quickest egress should it be needed (it isn't).
Goodnight, sleep tight.
Prologue (continued)
We're up and at it by 4:30am the next morning. Mrs. Hungary hasn't thrown up again, and isn't reporting any ill feelings. Nothing for us to do now but jump some potholes. I dump a can of gas into the tank and off we go!
The road isn't too bad, and having the KC-Daylighters on the roof definitely makes things easier to see. The rest of our daylight drive is pretty uneventful, with the exception of the driver's side window that decides to fall completely into the door at a security checkpoint...
Initially we're not too bothered. The truck is already warmer than we were expecting with the roof off, and we brought plenty of cold weather gear with us, but darn it if this chill can't just cut through everything!!! Eventually we're both shivering and the side if my face is starting to go numb. We stop for a repair...
Except we gave all our tools to Vikki's neighbor and had to use Mrs. Hungary's Swiss army knife to get the door card off....
Ok, looking inside it looks like everything is simple. The window simply froze in its weather seal for a split second when I was rolling it down and when gravity finally won the argument, it missed the track and fell to the bottom of the door. To fix, all we had to do was lift the window back into place, and then we could roll it back up! (to be safe though, we wouldn't roll the window down again for the rest of the drive).
Easy money.
We didn't bother with the reinstall of the door card either, it was WAY too cold to stay out of the truck any longer than we absolutely had to. We just threw that thing in the back and carried on like it was a perfectly normal thing to do.
Now it was just a matter of ticking off kilometers until we got to the border. Mrs. Hungary was again on the GPS and our timing was looking good. It'd be dark by the time we got there, but we should get to the crossing before things got too late. We stopped once for souvenirs along the way.
Once we did get close to the border, things started looking much different...
First was the weather:
When it got dark, the weather was darn near zero visibility. I'd try to follow taillights if a set got in front of me, but anyone who passed me usually drove aggressively enough that I couldn't comfortably keep up for very long. After they got far enough ahead, I'd fire up the Daylighters and that would make a huge difference.
Without the roof lights on, I could probably go maybe 40 or 50kph. With the roof lights in action, I could get up to 80 or 90kph comfortably. Of course that would only last as long as there was no oncoming traffic. I tried to be very diligent about not blinding anyone headed in my direction. Shutting down the lights, meant I had to semi-aggressively decelerate back down to a safe speed, before the oncoming headlights hit my windshield and flared everything up to an opaque like status... It wasn't fun.
Traffic behind me must have caught on to what I was doing because I had a decent 4-car convoy going and nobody was riding my bumper or trying to get around. A car would pass by, I'd fire up the lights, and we'd all speed until I had to shut them down again. Rinse, repeat.
Then came the trucks:
Lined up on the right side of the road, and kind-of pulled onto the shoulder, was a line of semi-trucks that was seriously several kilometers long. Getting around them meant left-lane driving into oncoming traffic, and that's exactly what we did...
Going back to those KC lights: When I wired them up, I wasn't giving much thought to what I was doing. In the end, the left two are paired to one switch and the right two are paired to one switch and I've always thought I'd go back and re-do them so it'd be "inner and outer" instead. Left/Right actually turned out to be a very beneficial configuration. Here's why.
As I'm left lane driving (still draggin my convoy), I still need the roof-lights to be able to see what I'm doing. The middle two point straight ahead, and the outer two point to the side at a very slight angle. I've found that this gives me a very good (and very wide) field of view. BUT if I were to use the lights on the right side of my truck, I'd blind the parked truckers who were now out and wandering around their vehicles (some are hangin out, some are cookin, some are using the bathroom....). Having the option to fire up only the left side lights let me see without blinding everyone to my right.
WIN!
But it also had another benefit. If there were signs of headlights coming at us while we were rounding a blind corner (of which, there were many) and left-land driving, I could flash the left roof lights on and off and it would give the impression that a MUCH larger vehicle was headed their way and people would give us much more room to drive through. It was perfect, and I think my little convoy liked it as well.
(note: Left lane drivin' is 100% what people do to get around the trucks and into the passenger vehicle line at the border. If you didn't, you'd spend over a week trying to get across).
All in all, we got to the line at the border without incident, the problem was that even the passenger vehicle line was super long... Much longer than last time (which took 9-hours to get through). We parked and decided to walk up to the front to kill time. Along the way Mrs. Hungary asked how i knew we were in the right line...
This was something I hadn't really considered before, and never thought to ask. My compliant self just saw a line and sat in it. The cars are about to move, but we decide she'll head to the front and I'll stay with the truck. If we are in the wrong line, we just happen to be parked at the last possible spot to exit stage left and get to where we're supposed to be. She sends a message a bit later, she talked to someone and we've got head of the line privileges.
Oh yeah!
Prologue (continued):
Mrs. Hungary gets back to the truck and tells me the story. She showed our paperwork to the guard at the front who was not at all interested. She was about to give up when a lady in black got out and informed her that she spoke fluent English. When Mrs. Hungary told her about the humanitarian aid, the lady in black responded "Oh, are you in the Toyota?" (now, how in the world did she know that???).
Happy to help, the lady in black absolutely wasn't having with with the uninterested guard. Mrs. Hungary said she told the guard what was what and then told her to have me pull up to a spot on the left. Which is exactly what we did. Once the truck was there though, we couldn't find our hero again to say thanks. But man, did she save the night.
Instead, in here place was a car full of angry guys who decided that they were going to direct traffic (angrily). Every once in a while a car would go left of us, and would be allowed through the exit gate and then head out of country. There was a guard at the exit gate, so I'm guessing these random few people had some sort of exemption, but these guys decided that the would stop things before they got there... I can't tell you how much I did not want to deal with them when my time came to pull forward...
Luckily (half an hour or so later?) a guard finally did walk down to our line-up area and talked to them. It didn't make them any less angry, but it did give me an opportunity to present my paperwork to someone with a rifle. I got motioned through and I don't know what happened with the angry guys, but I never saw them again.
A few hours later, we finally got the warm bed we'd been wanting (and a drink)
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