Hotel
Had a hearty breakfast, packed up, and said goodbye to the family (Thank-you so much Family Aleeva!).
Headed across the bridge to Engels, and then turned north into a moderate headwind and followed the left bank of the Volga up the coast. Pretty flat and low-key riding on good road with wide shoulder so my mind wandered fairly freely! Stopped at 30 and 60km to have coffee and warm up.After leaving town, I noticed that something funny was going on in my rear panniers.
So I stopped to see what was going on, and came upon a bicycle repair situation that I didn't plan on. 
Somehow, the head of a screw holding my rear carrying rack sheared off leaving the body of the screw deeply implanted in the hole. The rack was thus lying lopsided and often rubbing against the wheel. I pulled out my little zip ties to hold it temporarly and then 4km later found a car repair shop. Fortunately, there was a someone who could speak German, and I was able to explain the issue using my rusty Deutsch! They broke out a small drillbit and were able to drill out the screw body without ruining the threads (maybe i should carry a drill with various bits and a backup tap-and-dye set as well?) I had brought along a number of metric screws and was able secure my backrack!After the fix, I was pretty hungry and decided to stop at the next cafe 17km up the road. Had a large feast and was pretty stuffed and tired. Noticed that there was a transient hotel just up the road, and decided to try to get a good 10 hour sleep that night. Paid the 300 roubles for the 12'x6' cubicle, had a shower, and then bought a couple of beers and finished off my book. I couldn't take my eyes off of the two paintings in the room - a U.S.S Virgina portrait and a mixture of unicorns, castles, fair maidens. Individually, they were random enough, but together were quite a stunning combination! Fell asleep at 2230h to the sweet noises of tractor trailor air-brakes...ahh...relaxing.
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