This is when and where everything becomes more infrequent, digitally. There is internet, but there are also lots of dirt roads and rustic crumbling paved roads and old churches and inviting groups of men with horilka at lunch, and woman selling mushrooms by the side of the road, and kids who chase on bicycles and just a few weeks of summer left. We left more than a few weeks of summer in Alaska, and we’re chasing the last of them in Ukraine. We climb up Polonina Borzhava again tonight, almost a year later.
Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine: Uzhorod, to the Karpaty via dirt roads, some small paved road, to Volovets…
gypsy by trade 
Buen viaje and keep keeping dry! (Fantastic photos, as usual.)
Joe
Thanks Joe! Dry and happy, in Zakarpattia. Join us whenever the school year leaves a few extra days.
lael (and nicholas)
That’s one serious nail in the front tire. Did the tubeless fluid (guessing stans) able to fill that kind of puncture? Or did you have to do a car tire repair job to that spot?
The Stan’s effectively repaired the puncture, although the tire refused to seal after the nail was removed. A self-made rubber plug did the job for a few days, built from the knobs of my Schwalbe tire. Eventually a tube was required.
Interesting to see how Lael’s helmet has almost lost all of its orange coloration.
What are your sources for GPS tracks in the area, or are you following some that you made last year?
I know you are busy but wanted to check this out RE your photos, why they are so dark? You have a great eye for subjects and I enjoy all of them, even far back on your blog. I have several calibrated MAC computers and many of your photos are so very dark that I cannot see much of anything at all. It’s a shame because I want to see them. Thanks.
Mike, Thanks for the feedback. My computer is not calibrated, but I have made an effort to view the blog on a variety of monitors and devices. For the most part, I’ve been happy with the presentation.
Which program do you recommend for calibration?
Mac’s have a built in calibration, you can do that to get it in the ballpark. I have found on my work Macbook Pro that the Ambient Light Sensor can cause some issues with images being to bright or dim. You can disable it under the Preferences and Display tab, then run the built in Mac Calibration. That’s good enough for almost all situations.
For the record the photographs look great to me. Great post.
re-posted here: http://rupertbuukraine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/ukraine-so-far-gypsy-by-trade.html
Thanks for showing the reality of #Ukraine