My parents arrived for a visit two days ago, and since we recently got a car, we decided to take them for a fun, relaxing outing. Five miles away from us there is a liman, a large, shallow body of salt water. Esther loves to play in it & it's remote enough so that it's usually not crowded, and our dog can run around without a leash. I drove the car out on to the beach & everyone got out. Soon the decision was made to move down to a place where the water was more accessible. The ground felt firm enough, & our car is 4 wheel drive, so I thought I'd be fine driving, but very soon I got very stuck. The car sunk up to the axle in mud so thick the wheels could not spin. Dad & I got to work jacking up the car and looking for trash, branches, etc. to put under the wheels. When we walked one step the ground was firm, but then on the next step we would sink in mud up to our knees.
There were not many people there, but our plight started to attract some attention. A man from Siberia, in town for a motorcycle festival, asked for help from the owner of a jeep a few hundred yards down the beach. We hooked up a tow rope but the car didn't budge. Fortunately the owner of the car was a local who spoke English since he had worked on a cruise ship from Los Angeles to Hawaii. He remembered a small sign under some branches on one of the dirt roads to the beach that had the number of a tow truck. We found the sign and he made the call (I barely knew how to describe where we were in English, let alone Russian).
Meanwhile, it was clear we were not moving any time soon so Sarah, my mom, Esther, and our dog had to walk the 5 miles home. Ordinarily it would be a pretty walk, but with a toddler in the heat of the day, a tad long. As it turned out, Esther did fine but our poor little dog nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. He found a mud puddle by the road, laid down in it and refused to move for about 10 minutes. After 2 hours they made it home.
The tow truck was still nowhere in sight, but a man rode up on his bike and took our situation personally. He covered himself in mud trying jack the car up higher and find ways to give the tires traction. It was a hopeless cause, but I appreciated his zeal. He told us the few English words he knew (mostly swear words), and said, "Welcome of Ukraine!" As we talked we found out that he is a retired bodyguard who lives on $120 a month, loves to talk and is always up for a challenge. Finally the tow truck arrived, hooked us up to their winch and pulled the car about 20 feet before it was finally free. In the process however, the tow truck had sunk just enough so that now it was stuck. I tried to tow him, but that predictably got nowhere. The driver made a phone call, charged me $50 for the tow and told me it would cost him $100 to get his truck towed. After 5 hours, I was finally free but he had at least another hour to wait. "It's the liman, what can you do," he said with a shrug and a smile. "At least I can work on my tan!"
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