Day 20 - Wednesday, Oct 2 - At home


Carmen had arrived home from Maine on Sunday and had been busy working outside, planting chrysanthemums, mowing the lawn and making everything look nice.

I went to the Dr. in the morning and got antibiotic drops for the conjunctivitis. He said I just had to tough it out with the cold. We returned the rental car and came home.

I had lost 14 pounds over the duration of the trip, mainly from not eating for about 4 days. My mother is very thin and weak as she has eaten little for a week. On her way home, she stopped at the ER in Cooperstown and was given steroids and antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia.

Hopefully, the health experience of our group was not typical. 10 out of the 14 of us became sick with colds and/or intestinal issues. We didn’t see several people in our group for 3 days as they were confined to their compartments on the train.

Still, it was an amazing trip, learning many things and seeing amazing sights. It is hard to pick out a favorite place but I especially enjoyed traveling through the Mongolian countryside, seeing horses, cows, sheep, goats and yaks just wandering around. The music and folk dance performances were exceptional. It was interesting to see how China and Mongolia are dealing with pollution by limiting auto travel, using electric vehicles and the many wind turbines we saw. It was fun taking a boat ride on Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. It was interesting to see the resurgence of religion in Russia with the reconstruction of churches and mosques demolished in the Soviet era.

It was also interesting getting to know our fellow travelers, most of whom have traveled widely to all the continents. Most were retired professionals. Bernie has a 2,000 acre ranch in North Dakota. Larry was a bio-engineering researcher and professor and had spent 3 years on the faculty of Tohoku University in Japan so we had a lot to talk about. Mary was a waitress, truck driver, got an MBA and was a college administrator. Sam went to Yale, was a Rhode (not “Road”) Scholar and had been a law professor at an Evangelical university. We could joke about ivy-league college rivalry (I went to Princeton) but tried not to get too deep into politics as we are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

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