On August 24, after a month of travel, I returned the stalwart Mini-Cooper to the car rental office in Warsaw.  The trip odometer read 7638.8 kilometers (4746.5 miles), and I drove every single one!

Many thanks for your prayers and encouragement. I am resting and recuperating here at the Dom Amicus on the grounds of the Kostka church, right near Jerzy’s grave.

 

Here are a few special moments from the return route from the Black Sea: 

In Sofia, I met some Bulgarians who will try to help identify who Jerzy visited there—someone name Willy (possibly a priest) and Willy’s friend, a “very nice” Orthodox priest.   

In Budapest, I met Dr. Klara Berta, who has a very strong devotion to Jerzy. She generously hosted me for two days, showing me around her gorgeous city. I saw the special Jerzy memorial that she encouraged her local city authorities to build, and we took a long walk on the Isle of Margaret. Underneath Buda Castle, we toured the Atomic Bomb Bunker Museum, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki artifacts, and a space dedicated to Sadako Sasaki with many peace cranes.  In a display case, there were a few cranes folded by Barack Obama during his visit to Hiroshima.  

Klara and I also visited the Fisherman’s Bastion, a fortress that overlooks the city. Jerzy spent a night with friends there. I have a chain of peace cranes that I often photograph at special Jerzy places. I wanted to hang these from a high pillar, and I randomly asked a tall young man to help.  Of the hundreds of people from all over the world, Mateusz, on a road trip with his friends, just happened to be from Krakow, Poland!

After Budapest, I drove on to Sopron, close to the Austrian border. Jerzy visited there, too—probably with his friends from Budapest. Just outside Sopron, I found a monument to an authentic “breakthrough” in the Cold War. Here is some information on the Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park, paraphrasing information from a clever, paper model “Piknik Trabant” kit that I found in the Sopron museum:  

In 1989, East Germans hoped to reach West Germany by going through Hungary, though the Hungarian border police continued to detain individuals who violated the border. The Hungarian opposition organized a meeting for Hungarian and Austrian citizens along the border on August 19.  Just minutes before the official program was set to begin at 3 pm, refugees from East Germany, who had heard of the planned temporary opening of the border, appeared at the site, abandoned their vehicles and broke through a gate in the Iron Curtain with their bare hands at 2:57 pm. The Hungarian border police had been abandoned by their superiors and did not attempt to stem the tide of refugees, which thus became the first truly spectacular action of German reunification. The scene of this historic event is now a popular tourist destination and place of pilgrimage for the former East German refugees and their relatives.

I walked throughout the site, including a short hike to an original, preserved guard tower where I placed the peace cranes in honor of Jerzy’s role in the freedom struggle. 

In Brno, Czech Republic, where Jerzy also visited friends, I began treatment for a mild bladder infection with a round of antibiotics I had with me. (This has happened before on long road trips—dehydration, hot temps, prolonged sitting—and I was prepared.)

Everyday Miracles

In Prostejov (where I’d met Frantisek Motal Jr. at the beginning of this trip), I had to make the first of many urgent stops. Not finding a gas station, I pulled up in front of a second-hand clothing store. The sign had a very unusual English logo: “Everyday Miracles.” The manager kindly let me use the facilities, affirming the “everyday miracles” we need to be to each other. 

Further on, close to the border with Poland, I was stopped by two Czech traffic police officers who wanted to fine me for entering a “Buses Only” zone in downtown Opawa.  I could not read the signs and had no Euros or Czech Korunas. I tried to explain that I just really needed to park and find a bathroom.  I kept making my case (in English and Polish), and after they checked all my personal and car documents, and inquired about credit card payment, they let me move on. Not long after I rolled by a big building owned by someone named SVOBODA (Freedom) and pulled in to take a photo for my brother-in-law, John Svoboda.  I asked for directions at an Italian tile office and they let me use their restroom, too.  We communicated in Spanish. Eventually I got on the right road for Chalupki, Poland, where Jerzy crossed the Polish border in 1978. 

I took two much-needed rest days in Jastrzebie-Zdroj where I found the Inhalatorium, a free saline air enclosure in the main city park. I sat with people in silence for a restorative interlude and energized my spirits. 

Later that day, in nearby Katowice, I shared some Hungarian white wine with my Krzystofik cousins. The wonderful Ola also prepared an herbal tea remedy to help flush my system of the infection. 

I heard all about Berenika and Romek’s travel to Albania and Montenegro.

As I still had the car for a few days, I decided to drive north to visit the historic Lutheran peace churches in Swidnica and Jawor. 

Then I got to Lodz for an overnight visit with Sr. Maria Gruszka. 

She used to work at Kostka parish and translated for me several times. She now works for Bishop Marek Marczak, and he asked us to come by for tea. We talked about Jerzy, of course. Bishop Marek also shared his moving encounter with Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

Some Preliminary Road Trip Reflections

Knowing just how far Jerzy traveled, I am now even more impressed with his courage, curiosity, determination, and openness.  He had just a very basic car.  No cell phone, internet, credit card, air conditioning, or GPS. He wrote about his hard moments, like needing to get the car repaired in Vienna. He ran out of money, and ran out of gas at least once; he often lacked proper food, sleep, and vitamins; he got lost in big cities with incomprehensible road signs; and he noted cultural, faith, and economic differences.  And all along the way, despite some very lonely days, he found friends to share the journey. He praised the beauty of new settings, and seemed to enjoy the challenging road conditions. He may have set out to have a vacation in Yugoslavia, but he explored a range of realities in several countries. I constantly wondered how Jerzy handled all these situations, and mused about the ideas, possibilities, and inspirations he may have discovered.   

What a tremendous opportunity this journey has been for me!  It would never have happened without Jerzy’s influence and accompanying spirit.  I hope I can eventually find the connections he made in Sofia, Nessebar, Varna, Budapest, Sopron, and Brno. There are surely stories out there! 

 PS. The billboard image—definitely an eye-catcher—is one I saw all the way to the Black Sea. It made me smile every time. In the background, the fields of sunflowers are signs of abundant hope!