August 30, 1996

In the Air

The alarm went off early after another restless night but I was packed, dressed, and ready to go by 7:00. Lena didn't show up, but the driver did - right on time. We waited around for Lena for awhile but decided to we'd better leave for the airport after about 20 minutes. We stopped to say goodbye to Alex en route and when he saw that Lena wasn't with us, he hopped in to escort us to the airport.

At the customs checkpoint I couldn't find my customs form from entry so the inspector wanted to know where it was. "I lost it" "Why?" "I don't know why. I lost it." "Why?" "I lost it." "Why?" So he decided to hand inspect my luggage. Once he got a whiff of my dirty socks, he asked "Do you have any caviar?" "No" "OK". And he let me go. The whole process lasted about10 minutes but the line for passport control was so long it took nearly an hour just to get to the waiting area for the bus to the plane. At least nobody asked me for my ID90 this time.

From the air Khabarovsk is all green and brown swirls with an occasional flash of blue-grey off the water. I wished I could get a picture of it but didn't get to my camera in time before we landed.

The plane is not nearly full but will probably fill up at Petropovlosk. I'm enjoying having some room. There's a woman sitting in the row behind me whom I met on the flight to Vladivostok from Seattle. Her daughter is working with environmental groups in the far east region. She confused me with the two guys from our flight who were going to Lake Baikal but when I mentioned Amursky Bay she remembered our mission. Apparently her daughter was aware of our expedition.

Petropovlosk

Petropovlosk from the air is as mountainous as Khabarovsk is flat. The volcano towers over the town. A little steam seems to be coming out of the top. Mountains sort of tumble into the ship-dotted bay dramatically . Lots and lots of old Soviet style military planes with the red star on the tail. They don't look scary, they just look old.

Out of Petropovlosk we flew over some more volcanoes spewing smoke and ash, and some really blue crater lakes. So now I can say I've seen the volcanoes and the Bering Sea. It kind of makes me want to come back to Russia next year and see Kamchatka in depth and detail.

I always want to see more of places I've been, which doesn't leave much time for new places on the agenda.

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