These racks are called hjell, they're used in the spring months to dry cod

We see these drying racks everywhere while riding along the coast in Norway. The fish is dried in the cold spring air, the temperature just warm enough to avoid freezing the fish but cold enough to ward off bacteria and insects. Looks like it would make for a quick tent.


The weather gets drier the closer we get to the most northern point in Europe


We see tons of reindeer along the side of the road. This is moulting season, so their fur is falling off.

I think this is the first time that we've seen reindeer in the wild! Very cool! There are about 200,000 of them in Northern Norway. They're raised by the indigenous Sami people who used them for their meat, pelts and antlers, and to sell them to jolly, fat men in red suits.


Inukshuk on the side of the road, heading towards Nordkapp. The sun is still high in the sky despite it being 10PM

Although the inukshuk is a Canadian Inuit symbol, the teepee isn't. We've seen lots of teepees and related pictures and signs while traveling through the north and at first, I thought it was just North American kitsch that the Norwegians were borrowing. But actually, the native Sami people live in similar cone-shaped huts called lavvu.

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Monument at Nordkapp at the end of the world. Well, at least one end of it...

Nordkapp is basically just a very expensive parking lot. It's $30USD per person just to enter the premises, which consists of a huge parking lot and a visitors centre. We sat through the panoramic movie screening which was interesting, but the diorama displays inside the centre were poor and embarrassing. Most people just come to see the sunset.

It's so cold and windy up here. We had to put on all our layers and we alternated from hanging around the monument and then ducking inside the vistor centre to warm up. I think it's so windy because of the lack of any mountains at the very north coast.


Since we arrived at Nordkapp around 10:30PM, we had over an hour to kill before "sunset", so we goofed around a bit

This is the second time we've ridden to the very northern reaches of a continent. The last time was when we trekked up the Dalton Road to Deadhorse, Alaska. What a different ride that was through the muck and mud. Norway's road to the Arctic Ocean is pretty much paved all the way, but it is still quite a long journey to travel from the rest of Europe. The distance from Copenhagen (the gateway to Scandinavia) and Nordkapp is 2,400 kms! That's almost half-way across Canada.

Nordkapp is actually further north than Deadhorse, Alaska. Just over 100 kms closer to the North Pole.


Got so bored, I brought my motorcycle out from the parking lot and rode around the monument a few times

Nordkapp is a popular tourist destination because a lot of people want to say they've traveled as far north as they could in continental Europe. But also, this spot is where you can catch the last Polar Day (24 hours of daylight) on the continent. It just worked out that this was the actual last day in 2015! We totally did not plan that, but when we found out, we were very excited to see it!

As you can tell, so were a lot of other people.


Over an hour of waiting and loitering around, the moment is almost here! Neda waits with excited anticipation!

It was a few minutes before midnight, and the sun was slowly sinking towards the horizon, turning the sky around it a deep shade of orange. But rather than disappearing from view and letting darkness slowly creep over the land, it halted its downward path right at the moment it touched the water and at the stroke of midnight, reversed direction to start climbing the sky again. Wow, that was cool!

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Sunrise at 12:01AM. And there it is: the last day of the 24 hours of daylight in 2015

With the show over, we headed back to our campsite just a few kms away. There was a bit of traffic on the road back, because everyone else was leaving as if a concert or a baseball game just let out.


Back at our campsite just outside of Skarsvag

This picture was taken around 1AM. This sun's been up for an hour already! Well, technically it never set, so really it's been up since May 14th... Isn't that crazy?

I'm so surprised that Neda is not only wide awake but practically wired at this time of day (night?). Normally she starts turning into a pumpkin around 10PM and is fully asleep by 11. It's amazing how attuned she is to the sun. Unlike me, my normal sleep time is consistently around 2-3AM regardless of the time of year or where the sun is. But the minute Neda puts on her eye mask she is fast asleep.

So I work a little bit on another blog entry in the campsite's kitchen before turning in. We've been constantly on the move over the last few weeks that it's left me with little time to edit pictures and write, so the blog is falling very far behind!


We wake up very late the next day and everyone's left. We're the only ones in the campsite!

We're at no risk of running out of daylight up here, which suits us just fine because we like to dawdle in the mornings. However, this isn't going to last. Nowhere to go but south now and I'm not looking forward to the days getting shorter. At least it's finally sunny!


[B][SIZE=1]Deserted cabins at our campsite. These were expensive to rent out.


We rode into Skarsvag for a little bit to check out the town. Typical fishing village, but it has the distinction of being the northern-most one!


We got so close! And the antlers are so furry! Cute!

Did you know male reindeers shed their antlers as well as their fur during moulting season? Their antlers grow back for the winter and get bigger every year the older they are. You can tell these antlers are already in their growing phase because they're covered with fur called velvet, which feeds nutrients to the growing bone underneath. Once the antlers grow to full size, the velvet is no longer needed and falls off.


Curious reindeers interrupt their feeding to check up on us


They decide that we're not a threat and go back to eating to feed their growing antlers. Beautiful creatures!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Leaving Skarsvag and Nordkapp


Heading south with the glorious sunshine above us!




As beautiful as they are, reindeers are kinda dumb. Every time we ride by a herd them, they inevitably cross the road in front of our motorcycles

Lots of reindeer warning signs on the roads up here. Every year, 4000 reindeer collisions are reported in Northern Norway. Reminds me of the moose problem they have on the island of Newfoundland.

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/250.html



Neda is angry.

We are scheduled to make a date-sensitive border crossing in a few days. Unfortunately while we were at Nordkapp I realized that I misremembered the date and it was actually six days later than I thought. Normally six days more time is not a bad problem to have, but because I got the date wrong, we were rushing through Norway a lot faster than Neda had planned. She wanted to enjoy the nature and do some hiking but all we did was ride and ride for two weeks.

I reminded her that the weather was crappy, she couldn't have hiked anyway.

Apparently it's not really an apology if it starts with a "But" and ends with "anyway"...


At least the weather has gotten a lot nicer

We're traveling south through Finland and the scenery is the same homogeneous boreal forest that you find all over Canada and Scandinavia. It's a long ride back to mainland Europe, but we have lots of time, as I'm reminded constantly.

During this time on the road, the squabbles and arguments bubble up again over the communicator. We've been looking forward to riding Norway the entire year and Neda is still upset that she didn't get to spend more time camping and hiking. There is a huge misunderstanding about leaving Lofoten earlier than she wanted. I thought she wanted to leave, she thought I wanted to leave. So we left and that wasn't what either of us wanted.

Neda is angrier than I've ever seen her this entire trip. That makes me feel very defensive over what I thought was an honest mistake. Plus I'm also feeling under-appreciated for all the work I put in planning the next stage of our trip.

Nothing is getting resolved. It's just better if we drop it and continue our ride.

At least the groceries and camping are less expensive in Finland.


I'll be honest with you. I don't know what kind of meat this is. I only bought it cause I thought the name was funny...
It sounds like something you would say to a baby when you are tickling them.

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Pulling into our first campsite outside of Ivalo, Finland


Raining the next day.

From Ivalo, we head down the main highway that passes through Rovaniemi. This is where the Arctic Circle runs through Finland, so we take a break from riding and pull into the visitor's centre there.


Much more commercial than Norway

I'm so surprised at how developed Arctic Scandinavia is compared to North America. Maybe the weather is milder in this part of the world, but they've made more use of their land north of the Arctic Circle than we have. In Canada, 75% of our population live within 100 miles of the US border. Not that we're getting ready to do something. Yet...


Stepping over the Arctic Circle in Finland

And then back on the road towards Oulu. The scenery is still the same. We start arguing once again about having to leave Norway early.

You know how when you're fighting, sometimes it gets so heated that one person walks out and slams the door, or hangs up the phone? Well the equivalent here is switching off the comms when the other person is talking...

It got ugly.


Silent treatment through much of Finland

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Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

We have almost a week to kill before we can cross the border. So we attempt to get some regular maintenance done on our bikes at the dealership in Oulu. We've always just showed up at the service centre and have always gotten an appointment immediately. However here, they are busy for the next three weeks. The service manager helps us by calling around to the other dealerships in Finland and everyone is booked solid. We can't even make productive use of all this time we have on our hands.

We find a campsite in Oulu and during that time, we don't really say much to one another.

With the midnight sun far behind us, the nights are getting darker now.


Waiting it out in our campsite at Oulu, at least the weather is warmer

After about a week in Oulu, we pack up and head to Savonlinna. It's here that we have a final knock-down, drag-out fight to end our time in Scandinavia.

This is more than a simple argument about forgetting dates and we both know it. You don't argue about something that trivial for an entire week. We are not enjoying the trip anymore and the stress of having a schedule and rushing to meet dates is taking its toll on us after over three years of constant travel. I think all this stress started before we went to Toronto at the beginning of the summer. We had to rush through Central Europe to catch our flight back, it was busy and hectic while we were overseas, and then once we were back here we had to rush through Norway because of the border date (yes, the one I got wrong).

To make matters worse, we are heading into a part of the world that requires visas and carnets at every crossing, with entry and exit dates carved in stone. So the dates and deadlines would only get tighter and more strict from hereon. We've always traveled when we wanted to and on our own schedule, but this won't be possible anymore when we travel though the countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. Just thinking about trying to stick to all those dates made our stress levels skyrocket.

Part of me is very embarrassed that we've turned into the non-committal kind of people that cringe with visible distress at the sight of dates on a calendar. Has all of this freedom spoiled us that much?

This is supposed to be fun and it most obviously isn't anymore. It's not worth the time or the damage to our relationship. So after much talk, we finally discussed the possibility that this trip might be over.

And as soon as we both acknowledged this, an immense weight seemed to be lifted off of our shoulders. A weight that we've been carrying for a few months now. Perhaps we were trying too hard to hang on to something that should have been finished quite some time ago.

The only problem is that we're not sure where home is anymore. Our trip back to Toronto confirmed that we don't really want to move back into the city. Maybe somewhere outside of it. Don't know. These are still things we have to talk about.

So the current situation is that we have a couple of appointments we have to keep - dates that we had planned months ago. But the plan now is that after we've finished with those appointments, we would not make any further arrangements to continue our trip and in the meantime give some serious consideration about where we would end up.


Okay, so we're feeling better about things, so we resume our sightseeing

I know we've missed out on a lot in Southern Finland because neither of us really felt like doing any sightseeing. But now that we've got some of our issues resolved, we try to make the most of it before moving on.


Checking out the Olavinlinna Castle in Savonlinna

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Its a shame that is has come to this for you. But better you are happy than miserable and that your relationship remains good and strong.
All the best in whatever you decide

Wayne

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The Balkans
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/poi_entity/8417

I am sorry to hear it has been so stressful for you guys. Good to know you have made a decision that feels right for you both. You know we well understand the issues of being on the road so long. Small things easily become SO BIG! The days with rain and cold really take the glamour out of "adventure motorcycling". Good luck with your next phase in life! Sara

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Sara

Those who say something is impossible should not hinder those who are achieving it!





www.worldwideride.ca

HU RR Finding Freedom...World Wide Ride

what ever you two decide being happy together is the most important. Wish you both well .

john

Thanks everyone, appreciate the kind words!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Updated from http://www.RideDOT.com/rtw/251.html



OMG, we're entering Russia today! I'm so excited! And a bit scared.

Out of all the countries we've traveled to, for me, Russia is the one that holds the most fascination and also the most uncertainty and trepidation.

I was a child of the 80s. I grew up during the tail end of the Cold War with constant reminders of an impending nuclear armageddon flashing across all media. The newspapers and magazines were always full of stories of Mutually Assured Destruction, Doomsday Clocks and nuclear winters. The movies I grew up watching were Rocky IV, Red Dawn, Firefox, Red Heat, White Nights, Gorky Park and Moscow on the Hudson. At that age, I was on a 24-hour diet of music videos: Genesis' "Land of Confusion", Iron Maiden's "2 Minutes to Midnight", Sting's "Russians" were all featured heavily in the rotation.

For an entire decade. I was continually bombarded with images and information that taught me that the Soviets hated us and wanted nothing more than to wipe the Western world off the globe with their arsenal of thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles ("Do you want to play a game?") - each individual one of them stenciled with a red hammer and sickle on the side.

Things change. The wall fell. Some bald Russian guy with a stain on his head introduced glastnost and perestroika to the Western lexicon. The USSR became Russia. AC/DC played a huge concert in Moscow and then suddenly overnight everyone became friends again.

But it's not that easy to forget how it felt to grow up under the threat of nuclear holocaust.

Thirty years later, we're riding our motorcycles towards the Finland/Russia border and I've got butterflies in my stomach. Just last year, Russia annexed the Crimea. Their actions were condemned worldwide and the entire country is now suffering through economic sanctions. Everyday, the headlines shout dire warnings about the proxy war that's escalating between Russia and the US in Syria.

It feels like the Cold War all over again and I'm more feaful of today's border crossing than I was when we first crossed into Mexico.


Filling in the Russian Visa application form

And also: Russia does not want tourists.

You can't just show up at the border with your passport and visit the Russian Federation. While we were in Toronto earlier this summer, I went through the steps to apply for a Tourist Visa - the first one we've had to do this entire trip. The form was long and tedious (see above). But worse of all, we had to state on the application the date and the place where we would be entering and exiting Russia.

Even back then, that stressed the hell out of us. We had to cross reference our routes through Northern Europe and then Scandinavia, plan out each day's mileage, activity and rest stops in order to calculate a date so far in the future that we could arrive at the border. That's just not the way we travel.

But we eventually came up with an entry date that felt right for us and then we started filling out the application form. "How long do you intend to stay in Russia?". Well, how long *can* we stay? "Maximum 30 days". Okay, we apply for a 30-day visa. We always apply for the maximum time at border crossings. Why wouldn't you?

You have to submit your application in person at the Russian embassy, where they interview you. That sounds pretty serious. We made an appointment, showed up with all our forms and documents and the lady that interviewed us took one look at the dates we had requested and asked, "What are you planning on doing for 30 days in Russia?". I was taken aback. We didn't have any plans, we were just going to show up, look around and then leave when our visa expired. I made the mistake of saying this out loud. The lady at the Russian embassy shook her head.

So I made up a route on the spot. I reeled off a couple of things we wanted to see, places I read about. She shook her head again, "That is not going to take you 30 days to see all of that". But... but... but... what about 'Slow Travel'? We made a YouTube video about it. That's what we want to do in Russia! I don't say this last part out loud...

Well apparently this is not the way things work in Russia. You have to document in explicit detail your route, the cities you are visiting, when you'll be there in each city, the names and addresses of all the hotels which you'll be staying at - basically they want to know where you will be in the country every minute of your stay.

The Russian embassy wanted us to show them hotel reservations *before* they were going to issue us visas. This seemed a bit backwards to me.

It was very obvious: Russia does not want tourists.

So our visa application was rejected. I want to say that the lady in the embassy did so with a thick Russian accent and with KGB-like ruthlessness: "Pearrr-mee-shun deee-nyed!", but really her accent was more Canadian with only a hint of Russian and she was quite nice and told us how to fill out the form again and rebooked us for another appointment.


Armed with a thick sheaf of supporting documentation, we passed the second visa application.
I like seeing my name in Cyrillic! Mother Russia here we come!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

So back to us in Finland. We are crossing at Niirala which is about an hour and a half east of Savonlinna.

As we were being stamped out of the Schengen Zone at the Finnish side, the border guard smiled at us and warned us of the bad Russian roads. Uh oh. Would this be the last friendly face we would see for a while?

We lined up at the Russian border surrounded by vehicles with mostly Finnish license plates and a few with Russian Federation plates. I wanted to record everything about this exciting border crossing, but there was a sign with a camera and a slash through it. No pictures allowed. I remember all those 80s movies I saw about KGB interrogation and torture and I keep my camera in the tankbag.

Finally it was our turn to cross, and we got off our bikes and walked up to the immigration booth. A young man working there, not more than 25-years old, flashed a big grin and welcomed us enthusiastically. Okay! This might not be so bad.

He was so friendly and it was a great introduction to Russia. He was eager to practice his English and everything appeared to go smoothly. Until he stared in puzzlement at my visa and called his superior over (she was not much older than him, didn't speak as much English) and they talked for a while in Russian, pointing at my visa, talking more then shaking their heads. Uh oh.

There was some kind of discrepancy with the visa. The embassy in Canada is familiar with Anglo names, so they know "Gene" is pronounced with a soft "G". The translated phonetic Cyrillic letter is "Ж". But in Russia, the equivalent of my name is Evgeni with a hard "G" (like "Ghetto") so they were expecting my name to be spelled with a "Г". That's КЯДZУ.

I was assured it was not a big deal. I got my visa stamped and Neda cleared okay as well. *phew* I used one of the three Russian words I knew, "Spacibo!" So far, Russia was young, friendly and welcoming!

...Until we hit the second booth at the border: customs. Here was the old ex-KGB officer with the fur hat and the permanent scowl on his face. Demoted from torturing western spies, his job now was to make sure we didn't smuggle Finnish cigarettes into the country. We had to fill out forms to temporary import our vehicles into Russia and all the while his frowning face made me nervous.

"Bravely we hope against all hope. There is so much at stake, seems our freedom's up against the ropes..."

I'm singing the theme song to Rocky IV in my head. I can't stop it. The ex-KGB officer glares menacingly at our paperwork, like a much older Ivan Drago staring down Rocky Balboa. And he stamps it. We're in! AHHHHH!!! We're in Russia!

I know it doesn't sound very dramatic, but I was so nervous crossing the border. Neda on the other hand was quite calm and found all my worrying very amusing. Meh, she probably tortured quite a few western spies herself back in the 80s in Yugoslavia.


Trying to find vehicle insurance. This search was so familiar. In Latin America, this would be called seguros para extranjeros.

Once across the border, I knew we had to purchase vehicle insurance, but nobody at the border knew where we could go to get it. All the Finns crossing over already had their insurance, so they were of no help. Unfortunately, I forgot to look this up on the Internet beforehand, so we rode around asking random people where to get insurance. Neda had to use her Croatian/Slavic skills, which led us to the suspicious-looking shack above. They didn't have what we were looking for.

So after spending quite some time riding around the border without finding insurance, we gave up and decided to forge on. The political situation in Russia is not the only thing that concerns me. Everything that I've read warns me that Russian drivers are the most dangerous in the world. That coupled with the alleged corruption within the Russian police force makes us a bit nervous about riding without insurance, but what can we do?

While we're in Russia, it's decided that I will do all the leading because Neda is a chronic speeder and finds it physically impossible to obey speed limits. And now that we're riding without insurance it's even more important that we don't get nabbed for breaking the law.

Because KGB.


Lots of old shacks and broken down cars in the yards in rural Russia. Red Necks? Red. Necks.

The geography here is not so much different from Scandinavia, lots of trees. The greenery is more wild, less maintained and the road coming out of the border crossing was terrible, but once we were on the main highway, it seemed fine. There weren't a lot of cars around since we're kind of far away from any major urban centres up here, but so far we haven't seen any evidence of those crazy Russian drivers.

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

While we were stopped for a photo break at the side of the road, a friendly Russian motorcyclist stops to say hi

As he rode by he saw our license plates, so he turned around to talk to us. His English was good and he told us of some places where we could stop to grab food on the road. Nice guy!


Neda shops for groceries and I do some photo hunting

We actually rode on for a while longer and stopped in one of the small towns that the main road passes through. Neda ducks into the grocery store to pick up some lunch for us and I walk around to take some pictures. Most of the buildings are non-descript, I wouldn't call them Soviet-style, but they weren't modern. There did seem to be a lot of run-down buildings here. The economy doesn't seem as robust as Finland or Scandinavia.

Also I noted that the most common fashion on men walking around on the street are army fatigues. And it's obvious that they're not actually in the army.


And then we pass this on the road! I *HAVE* to get a picture with this!

It looks to be the tail or a wing of a Soviet airplane planted as a monument on the side of the road. I ride offroad to get to the monument, a little bit worried that KGB would come and take me away for breaking the law, but I was excited because this kind of stuff was what I wanted to see!

Neda thinks I'm nuts, but she takes a picture of me posing with an airplane wing at the side of the road anyway...


We were driving into town and Neda and I were talking about Russian cars because we saw several old Ladas on the road

We were behind one of them in traffic trying to make out the symbol on the badge, a stylized sail, and Neda said, "Oh, it's a ship! Did you know the Croatian word for ship is Ladja.... ooooooh!" I could see the lightbulb turn on above her helmet.

Neda's language skills are going to come in handy here in Russia.


I didn't know they still make Ladas. Here's a newer one that we were talking about. Lovin' the huge sail in the back!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com

Our first stop in Russia is a small city called Petrozavodsk. It's the capital of the region that we're in, the Republic of Karelia, and is about four hours away from the border. All the signs are written in Cyrillic, so I have to memorize what Petrozavodsk looks like in foreign squiggles. It looks like this: "Петрозаводск".

Yeah. Good luck with that, MonoLingualGene!

We pass by the road signs too quickly for me to read the whole thing, so instead I look for the pi symbol at the beginning of the word and hope that we're headed to Petrozavodsk and not Podpodrozhye...

By the way, I love saying the word, Petrozavodsk! I think that's probably the most Russian-sounding word you could ever come up with. Petrozavodsk. It sounds like a word you would use to describe Vodka that's so strong that it tastes like Petrol. And when you say it, you have to pronounce it with a drunken Russian accent: "Da Petrazavodsk, tovarisch! Nasdarovje!"

Totally going to Petrozavodsk just because of the name...


Petrozavodsk railway station, right beside our hotel. I love the star at the top of the spire! The star lights up red at night. Cool.


"Is it east vs west? Or man against man? Can any nation stand alone...."

Ahhh! Get out of my head, Survivor!

Although Petrozavodsk is not a very pretty town, I am totally loving all the signs in Cyrillic, it makes it feel so exotic. And seeing these Western companies' signs in Cyrillic reminds me of when the first McDonalds opened in Russia back in 1990. I remember when that happened, it was big news at the time.


Nice to see that motorcyclists are all the same all over the world


KFC has taken over a neoclassical building *smh*


The sign on the coffee shop reads "Central Perk" in Cyrillic. Haha!

__________________
Gene - http://www.RideDOT.com