we are all most greatful for the questions that have been asked.
we really feel that with all this interaction we are ahead of the game.

have made it to the final frontier of russia: we are in ulan-ude, our last big town in russia. tomorrow we will begin to head south for the rest of the 'grand tour'.

our major excitement has been hitting lake baikal; however, the road we have been driving along does not take us along the edge of the river (as the train line does in many places) but takes us through the valley to the side of the lake. due to this lack of lake we were most excited when we spotted a road leading down to the lake. it was here we decided to camp. the train was in the background, running every 10 minutes and there were stretches of pebble beach and ruined buildings. most of the night was spent beach combing for drift wood with which to make a fire.

it has also been fun times again with larry. daddy was driving, in what can only be called a wreckless manner, trying to overtake a lorry on one of the windy mountain roads when he smashed into one of the biggest bumps to date. larry's right wheel flew off and rolled down the hill into a ditch. we had to unload the whole trailer again and put out our red danger triangle. we are now looking out for a garage as we have no spare wheel bearings left and daddy stripped the thread on the wheel retaining nut.

whilst shopping in the cash and carry at the edge of town they had music in the car park, relayed over loud speakers (suggestion for tesco perhaps?- says daddy). appropriately they were playing 'the great escape'. we felt most at home.

OBSERVATIONS SECTION (by dwight wood, written by loong wood):
1. lake baikal is the largest lake in the world and the villages that surround it feel very sea-sidey. the only land we have seen across the water has been and island in the middle of the lake.
2. fuel is 50-60p/l. we travel c10 miles per l.
3. we fill up wilma about every two days/ 400 miles.
4. every house, what ever type, has either corregated metal or asbestos roofs. daddy has observed that the last craze is bright blue.

Q&A:
reeve- we have two spare tyres and wheels for larry and no sets of wheel bearings because of daddy (we started with two). daddy, we are now realising, does not have a good track record with trailers and are feeling a little tense that he is so frequently driving with only one wheel. we hope you are jealous of cheap fuel. slow and steady wins the race, reeve.

greg- the food is quite basic- rice, pasta, potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, cucumber. there is no escape from the dill. fruits in supermarkets are mainly apples and, suprisingly, bananas; however, they sell many berries at the side of the road that we think are picked from the surrounding countryside.

ling- we have not bought presents for anyone. indeed, true to form, daddy and tessie spend all our spare money on wine (though it should be vodka). we have too many mosquito bites to count. tessie and lewis do a daily count and are what may be call, obsessed. we think they exagerate. tessie says lewis has 50 but we know that it is more like 10. daddy gets loads but pretends he doesn't: he is learning to man up. his bites go really angry and red.

we thank everyone for their questions and welcome any more.