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news that all of the international trains were booked for the next week.
    “Okay, I guess we’ll have to just get as far as we can and figure out what to do from there. We sure can’t sit here for another week, so we don’t have much choice,” Ammon said, pulling open his map. He searched for the major towns along the route before inquiring so he could make up his mind based on whether we could get tickets.
    “Could you ask when the next one is going in that direction and how far it will take us? I think there is likely one that goes to Barnaul.”
    “Yes, there is one going there tonight,” Elder Timmons said after asking. “It leaves at 7 p.m., and it’s a fifteen-hour trip.” This way was inevitably slower. Instead of one direct train, it would be a three- or four-step journey on various buses and trains that would take days. But we didn’t have a lot of options, so we traded our rubles for tickets, feeling grateful to at least be heading out in the right direction. The elders were reluctant to say goodbye, but they were on a tight schedule and had only minutes to catch a train of their own.
    “It was so great to meet you. Boy, a Canadian family…” They shook our hands vigorously as they bid us a hearty farewell. “Oh, and if you last the year, you guys should definitely write a book.”

    The next morning we dragged our tired bodies off the train in Barnaul. Once again, there was no room left on the trains going to Almaty, so we walked across the street to the bus station. Apparently our luck hadn’t expired, as we were able to snag the last four seats on a ten-hour bus ride to Semipalatinsk, just beyond the Kazakhstan border.
    Half an hour later, I was sitting beside Bree, travelling on yet another one-way ticket, wondering where in the heck we’d end up that night. I had my Gone with the Wind open on my lap, but I was busy reflecting on our chance encounter with the elders. Just as my mom had said, it seemed that whenever we were in trouble, someone was put in our path to help.
    I had no idea at all what to expect from the next two countries on our itinerary; I could still hardly remember how to pronounce them. Only a few months earlier, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan didn’t even exist in my vocabulary. I had the sense that we were stepping out into the complete unknown, sort of like it might feel to go to Atlantis. How would anyone ever find us if they had to? Sure, we’d found help when we needed it, I reasoned, but could that just be coincidence? What happens if help doesn’t come? Will it really come again and again, or have we used up all of our lucky breaks? None of the others seemed to have any worries. They were excited and anxious for the road to reveal itself. Conversation and storytelling continued as normal: just another day of adventure.
    Ammon finally told us the rest of his short-lived, could-have-been, Russian romance story. I secretly enjoyed hearing him tell his old travel stories, and they distracted me from inventing more reasons to worry. When he’d gone to Russia with his university buddy, Ammon had fallen for the receptionist at the hostel.
    “When we first got there, she actually reported us to the police and had us thrown in jail for arriving without the proper registration,” he said.
    “Jail?” Mom said, raising a disbelieving eyebrow at him.
    “Okay, so it was just the police station, but still… They threatened us with arrest and big fines, which we ended up somehow talking our way out of. It was kind of intimidating. But man, she sure was beautiful,” he said. By the time they’d finally been released, he’d decided it wasn’t really her fault and went to apologize. He ended up talking with her until 2 a.m. Despite their earlier mishap, her subsequent actions made it clear in every way that she was flirting and coming on to him. Keeping to his schedule, though, he’d said goodbye, leaving his friend speechless except for calling him a complete fool.
    “We just