I got seven hours of sleep, and after looking at my options (limited by snow closures), we (myself and the guys I met last night) decided that I would backtrack through the Valley (aka the East-West Highway). The E60 is the second-longest road in the International E-road network and runs for roughly 390 km through the country of Georgia, as a portion of the total length of 8,200 km through thirteen countries. Many road projects, some currently in progress, require bridges and tunnels to shorten travel time and increase access to villages.

I got my parking validated and then went to Hotel N16 for their 10-lari breakfast. I’ll drive north to Poti, passing cars and cows on the way, before turning east for the drive back to Tbilisi. The coastal drive has me looking out under a grey cloud cover to blue skies that are just out of reach, perhaps because they’re over the ocean to the west and the mountains to the east. I see a dog and can’t discern whether he is trying to mourn or fornicate with his friend on the street corner.

Outside the city of Senaki, I got pulled over for not signaling that I was following the road as it split into two directions. My thought was that I would signal if I were not staying on the main route, now I know. Of course, I had mixed emotions about getting a ticket in a foreign country, but the experience (for what it was) was pleasant. I took a piece of paper with only a website that I could read on it and exchanged it at a Bank of Georgia for a receipt with my name and birthday legible to me. I paid my 51 lari ($17) fine in cash.

I use their toilet, and upon coming out, a lady tries to give me a speech. I let her finish before replying with the word English. I stop for a snack after 2 pm, green tea with feijoa (a guava-pineapple-like fruit in taste) and a layered cake. There are a lot more dogs lying on the side of the highway, perhaps this is their passage route from this world to the next. A tunnel provides respite in the middle of the muddy highway. I stop again when I see the sunshine, hoping for added warmth on this 37°F day. The guys in charge of gas also have the key to the outhouse, as the lady inside would only tell me no.

I notice a lady getting dropped off via taxi on the side of the highway so she can presumably walk to her house in the woods or beyond the trees from my view. The road narrows to one lane temporarily, so the construction crews have room to build more highways. Coming up on a bend, each lane has its posted speed limit of 90 km/h on the outer curve and 70 on the inner one. Once I’m back in the administrative region of Tbilisi, I find a (not my) hand car wash to vacuum, power spray, soap, and rinse the slushy mud from my ride for under $5.

After half an hour, possibly at Greenwash, the power hose keeps shutting off in the middle of rinsing. If I lived here, I would find a better place to pass the time, but since I don’t, I watch the guys work for a bit and then look at a yellow bus packed with people to the extent that one guy is sitting on the handrail for the steps. Luckily, the Guest House Zemeli (where I first stayed in Georgia) isn’t far from here as I’m starting to get hungry.

The man at the desk recognized me, and I got my room upgraded since he was able to find my prepaid reservation. I walk to Cellar on Rustaveli (as posted inside) past the Georgian National Museum on my left, but I have trouble finding it now on maps. Their last Facebook post was from 2015, so hopefully, it remains a hidden gem of a restaurant. I fill up on eggplant and walnuts, mushroom dumplings, and a glass of family wine. I eat less and less of the dumpling skin as the meal progresses.

The walk back to the room doesn’t take as long as I thought it would, so I’m still bursting at the gastral seams as I sit in the chair to remove my boots. I will debate between sleeping in the small and soft bed or the big and firm one. My room comes with a candle and matches, so I light it and wind down by placing it on the beds and table for a photo shoot. I will not be sharing those pictures as I’m not sure if I was going for shadows, mood, reflection, or safe sleeping darkness when I blew the fire out.