Storks and Sheep and Everything Neat

As our journey progresses, we're getting closer to the parts of the map that state 'here there be dragons.' At least, in the metaphorical sense that we've long since left tourist country.

We spent the day in the boonies of Romania. Sheep outnumber mankind by an order of magnitude and there are storks aplenty. I had never seen a stork previous to Romania. They mostly sit in monolithic nests and glare at tourists. I'm hoping they've forgotten the instincts of their therapod ancestors, as they ( like the sheep) seem to have us outnumbered.

There's an unmistakable downward economic trend the further southeast the adventure progresses. It became more apparent when we hit former eastern block countries. Romania was still a communist state until 1989 and generally feels further from home than I've been before. I actually took a moment to look at a map today and I see that it's less distance to the Middle East than it is to back where this road-trip started from.

The shift in atmosphere, coupled the the visit today to my ancestors' graveyard, have given Romania a more somber tone than any of our previous locations ( with the exception of that one rest-stop bathroom in Hungary). At least from my perspective.

It certainly isn't any less interesting. Case-in-point: Tilly achieved escape velocity on a particularly large and unexpected bump on the Transylvanian back roads today. For a brief moment, all 7 passengers embraced their inner stork and took to the sky. We lack a certain level of aerodynamic potential, though, and the maiden flight was short-lived; abruptly terminating with only a slightly crumpled tailpipe to show for it.

The Romanian portion of the expedition continues for the next several days, being the original reason we're on this trek in the first place. If the roads stay about the same, we should be able to beat our original air-time at some point. Especially since every bump we go over causes the car-top carrier to imprint a little further into the roof, thus reducing our overall drag.

Soon we should be soaring gracefully through the Romanian countryside. Off to parts unknown.