A DAY AT THE BEACH

FYI: We don't have a firm release date yet, but we know we will be home by the end of September and will speak in church on September 30 at 12:30, 2625 Stringham Avenue. This is a week later than we originally planned.

We had a wonderful day at the lake last week. One of the members made arrangements for her friend Viktor, who has a car, to take us to a lake close to Novokuznetsk. (Viktor is the one who drove us to the ski resort last winter, but we haven't seen him for a couple of months.) We were a little surprised at how many people were already at the lake when we arrived just after noon. We drove around until we found a nice place with some shade. Viktor was well prepared with camp stools and blankets for the ground in addition to plenty of wood and the cooking supplies. He promptly set up a little portable BBQ and soon had some meat cooking.

Viktor is the only one who had a swim suit and he took a quick dip. The rest of us just enjoyed the change of pace and scenery. While we ate we visited, talking about jobs, school, and various Russian and American leaders.

 

They told us the lake was very low now because it's been so hot here and we haven't had much rain this summer. Some factories may even have to close soon because of lack of water. Apparently the drought and heat are a problem throughout much of Russia. They announced at church today that there are major fires in Tomsk.

When it was time to go home we headed out. We were surprised to see that in just a few hours there were about three times as many people as when we first arrived, so we weren't the only ones who enjoyed the change of scenery. Mary pointed out an island in the lake that she said isn't visible when the water is higher. We drove across an area with lots of large loose rocks that normally would be covered with water and got stuck. Everyone except Viktor got out the car to lighten the load and Viktor tried multiple times to back up and get through, but seemed to sink deeper and deeper with each attempt.

After a few minutes a man and his family in a 4X4 drove by, noticed our plight, and offered to help. Mary told us that is unusual here in Russia. Fortunately Viktor had a brand new tow line.

 

As soon as the car was off the rocks, our good Samaritan jumped back into his vehicle and drove off, and it we got on our way again.

It was nice day.

This week's Russianism:
We finally found some creamed honey like we enjoy so much at home. We bought some and liked it so much that we went back and bought several more the next week. Now we've gone through all of what we had and went to buy more, but they're not stocking it any more.  Who knew there was a creamed honey season? Not only do we love creamed honey, but the flavor is more what we're used to than other honey we've tried here.