Snowy Trip

We went on the road with Jeff the other day. I kept the camera on my lap for any photographic opportunities that might come up. We had to take Jasper to another ranch to help the manager for a few days. Jeff also had to pick up a horse at another ranch in the same district.

We saw snowy Russian village after snowy Russian village.

This is a very common sight. These are rundown, abandoned Communist collective farm buildings.

I saw this guy on his roof. I thought I would take a picture.

Then I realized what he was doing...pushing snow off his roof. Sorry about the blurry picture. I wanted to show you how high he was.

Jeff likes to find shortcuts to ranches so he doesn't have to go on the same road. He found a new route between some ranches and he gave it the name "Devil's Slide". It is a little steep and we have to go over 2 creaky, one-lane bridges.

On the way home Jeff had to stop and check lights on the trailer. (The tail lights were two flashlights, covered in red material and duct taped to the back. It was the only thing that worked.) We stopped next to a cemetery. I saw this cheerful, yellow flower in the dark cemetery.

This cemetery had a lot of trees. In Russian cemeteries most of the headstones have pictures of the deceased. They are a bit creepy. Jeff always asks if any of the kids want to walk through the cemeteries. He had takers only one time and it was a bright, sunny day. I walked through the cemetery with some of the kids because I was curious. The boys were ahead of me so they could get out quickly. They about ran me over coming back. They wanted to get out of the cemetery where we came in. There were 2 intoxicated guys at the other end of the cemetery by the exit gate. I told them to keep walking and then we could see Jeff waiting at the end. They went through so quickly that Jeff hadn't had time to drive to the other side. I'm afraid they will always think the cemeteries are eerie.