visas have been shipped!

as of yesterday afternoon, the passports have been put in a mighty fine secure envelope and sent off to visa machine headquarters in london. Upon arrival they will make the rounds of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. When they return to us we will send off for the remaining two visas. Here in San Francisco we will get a Russia visa and then afterwards ship it off to Washington DC for Azerbaijan.

During the handwriting madness of filling out visa paperwork, I had to rewrite the Kazakhstan visa several times(in the end it was 5!) One of those times involves just a tiny little error by me, though luckily we caught before sending it off. Somehow when I chose the city and hotel for our temporary destination, I missed that Bishkek is actually in Kyrgyzstan and not Kazakhstan. You know, just a minor detail.

One line item on the visa for Kazakhstan requires to list current medical coverage. I've spent a day or three looking into to travel insurance and checking prices and coverage. In the end all of our current medical insurance covers internationally emergency and urgent needs while outside the US. We will still buy travel insurance and additional medical coverage but have postponed it until at least we buy plane tickets.

I've been receiving great information from Brian from Baatar Hero who did the rally in 2010. So far he has diminished our fears of ferrying across the caspian sea, and more recently our travel insurance woes.

We have also made progress with our contacts in uk. Bryan's friend Mick has managed to find Ryan to help us with some of our car mechanic details.

Our fund raising event plans are back on track. I got a little lost with the launch of Color. Expect more concrete details to come. There will be some video footage and auctioning off items that we will bring with us on our 10,000 miles journey.