The first pancake is lumpy ... (part 1) - Toyota Platz, 1.0 liter, 2002

Brief background.

It all started in the spring, when my wife and I decided that there would be a vacation this year, it only remained to decide when and on what. The question "where" was not raised, because for 2 years in a row we went to the same place - to the mountains on the Black Sea coast to our hospitable friends Artur and Oksana. We liked this place very much and we decided to start there.
The question "on what" was born in agony, because. it took 3 days to travel by train from the glorious city of Yekaterinburg to the Black Sea, and in 5 years we had run into so much that I didn’t want to repeat this voyage.
The aircraft was considered an option until the question of "when" arose. That my wife and I had misunderstandings about the vacation, in which month we could both go ... In general, this only put off our chances to book tickets at a reduced price in the spring.
In the end, I suggested this option: if everything works out, we will go by car. It doesn't take long to get together, you don't need to order tickets, in general, you don't depend on many factors.

Good luck…

3 o'clock in the morning. Alarm clock. Outside the window, darkness and light rain. No, I thought, and delayed the alarm for another 2 hours. 5 o'clock in the morning. Alarm clock. Something reminiscent of dawn and the same light rain. We're getting up, we're going. Everyday life is like going to work, only there are a lot of bags and it’s too dark outside the window. I still can't believe that my vacation has started today.
"Well," I say, "good luck." To which he received an approving answer and a kiss from his wife, we drive out.
Rain and dusk on the street did not give the feeling of the beginning of the holiday.

First hundred, second hundred. Soon Krasnoufimsk. The weather begins to improve, the rain stops, somewhere the sun peeps through. The mood begins to wake up along with the body. As a common decision, we make a stop to refuel our bodies with tea and coffee, the mood finally rises. The weather is practically getting better. We take the first photo from our vacation that has begun and go further, hoping to overcome the first thousand km today.

Mileage 250 km.

Sim-sim-sim.

Who traveled in this direction, he knows what Sim is. There are a lot of stories about how much time you waste on Sim and how you don't like this place.

Approaching Sim, I expected to see something apocalyptic - many kilometers of traffic jams at the entrances and many hours of waiting for a green traffic light on the bridge. In fact, everything is simpler - well, yes, we stood, waited, climbed up the mountain. Nothing like that. So, cork. Here is a 5 km stretch of road on which there has never been asphalt at all and the speed of movement does not exceed 8 km / h - this pissed me off a little. Solid potholes, stones, barely crawling cars ... I would have known in advance what awaits me ahead ... but first things first.
Here we again crossed the conditional border with Bashkiria - we are going to Ufa. The road - where as, basically one lane in each direction. Overtaking is prohibited. At some point, it gets out of my head that the markup with the signs may not match.
Hill. One row. Descent. Visibility - to the very outskirts. Marking - continuous with intermittent (intermittent on my part). A turn signal, a slipper on the floor ...
Having already overtaken 4 or 5 cars, I suspected something was wrong ... Two traffic police crews, smiling in their cars, greedily rubbed their hands ...
I didn’t want to get out of the car - it was raining again, it was gloomy on the street and in my soul.
My Gold drooped and got frustrated because of the interrupted flight at the
650 km mark.

PS Photo attached