Just landed back in the U.S. y’all and soon we’ll be sharing more stories, images and memories as we debrief from this life eventful 3 week tour of Russia and Ukraine. In the meantime however we’ll leave you with some beautiful images from July 13-26 in NWR, (Northwest Russia) the Urals and ancient cites in Siberia. We traveled by train, plane and automobile, some 3200 klicks (kilometers!), over many oblasts ( admin division= to states or provinces). Pictured with us are James Land and Michael Byrne, our fellow Americans, our U.S. diplomats working in Russia. Not pictured are their invaluable Russian colleagues, Vera Savko, Anna Gvozdeva, Yulia Grigoryeva and all the other fine men, but mostly, women who worked behind the scenes to make this “Zydeco Zig Zag” tour happen. James and Michael are some of our finest representatives and they are in this region for good reason. The U.S. has a very strained relationship with the Russian gov’t and our country imposed some very strict sanctions on this country because of Putin’s actions in Ukraine. These men & women on mission in these sensitive areas are extremely skilled, intuitive and very experienced at their jobs. We’ve seen it first hand, and are extremely honored to have worked with them, and forever grateful to have had this rare and wonderful opportunity to represent our country in this capacity. 
