Ukraine- Lviv and Vinnytisa

I have entered into the former Soviet Union.  Almost thought I wasn't going to make it.  The border crossing took over 7.5 hours.  Longest border crossing of my life (previous one was the Saudi-Qatar border that took 4 hrs).  Not sure why they were so inefficient, only 100 cars or so, with a new car arriving approximately every 5-10 minutes. The problem seemed to be on the Ukraine side.  Poland guards were as bored as we were waiting on them.  I watched the three episodes of Breaking Bad that I had downloaded onto my phone from Netflix, then waited another 5 hours.  C'est La Vi.

Entering into the country, one thing becomes very apparent, the roads SUCK!  I bumped, bounced and surfed my way through L'viv and into Vinnytisa.  In straight up honesty, with the one exception being Afghanistan, the roads here are the worst I have ever come across.  Pot holes, rutted-out tire tracks, wash boarding, spalling, complete sub grade failure, and entire sections of road missing.  It was a challenging and exciting portion of the trip.  Greta handled them with no issues though, she is quite the gal.

Are there nice parts Ukraine? absolutely, actually everything that is not a road, is beautiful.  One thing of note, this is the richest farmland I have ever seen. And there is tons of it.  Farmland, farmland and more farmland.  The soil is the color of dark chocolate. It almost looks fake, or what Microsoft would put on their entrance screen after they had used Photoshop.  Corn and sunflowers seem to be the predominate crops...from what I could see anyway.  I ran into a local rider at the gas station and he told me that during WWII, the Nazis hauled dirt from Ukraine all the way to Germany.  Not sure if the story is true, but ...Further, during the times of the USSR, due to its farming importance, Ukraine was referred to as the Soviet Bread Basket.  It really is a spectacular country.

Somewhere in the middle of Ukraine, if I could read Russian, I could probably figure it out.

Lviv Market Square

Static display outside a former Soviet fighter wing HQ, which is now a theater.

Leg 2 .....so Far

Stage Distance: 434mi (699km)
Total Distance Traveled: 18,967mi (30,448km)

Countries/Territories Visited: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino. Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine