Our Picnic in the Forest

Last weekend we went with our friends the Markelovs on a picnic in the forest.  Just so you know there are no redwood trees anywhere near by.  We rode bus #6 to the end of the bus line - which is about 45 minutes from our house.  President Markelov met us there in his Lada.  A Lada is a Russian automobile manufacturer.  I have a couple of pictures of the Lada - one parked and one going up a muddy hill on our way to the forest.  The road we drove on was muddy and very rutted - the portion I have a picture of was the best part of the road.  

When we got to the Markelovs he said he had a little problem.  Sherry went into their apartment and Jenya (President Markelovs first name phonetically) said only one of his brakes was working.  So, I watched him play around with bleeding the brakes - I helped by pushing on the brake pedal - and after an hour or so and a few calls to his mechanic brother we got three brakes working.  Jenya said we weren't going on any busy roads and were only driving about 20 kilometers so three brakes would be okay.  We all piled into the Lada - his family of three, a friend of theirs and Sherry and I.  I called "shotgun" and got to explain what that means.

I think they didn't realize that we have areas with muddy roads and streets with huge potholes because they seemed surprised when we were okay with driving on them.  We've certainly done that before - lots of times.  Maybe not in a Lada but still...

We got to the forest which was near a nice pond with some dachas (summer cabins) around them.  Dachas are a Russian institution - usually have a garden and fruit trees and are an escape from the hectic city life and crowds.  Dachas pass down families through the generations - Jenya's Dad has one and we have been promised a visit.  Our district president also has one and he has promised us a barbecue and sauna...not too sure about the sauna part!  Very sure about the barbecue part!  Hannah mailed us some of my Soon-To-Be-Famous dry rub (I guess that will be Soon-To-Be-Internationally-Famous) so we're going to make some tri-tip sandwiches for them.  Of course we can't find tri-tips roasts and I don't like the beef here so we'll probably have dry rubbed pork sandwiches but that will be another story.

Hope you enjoy the pictures of our friends and our campfire.  We cooked some sausages over the fire - the sausages were tasty.  If fact, they were so tasty we tasted them all night!.