My passport arrived and some real route planning

To start off my Saturday morning right, I received my passport with my three beautiful visa stamps for Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyz Republic. I took some quick photos to at least document that I have them to then turn around and immediately sent it to Washington, DC to get my Azerbaijan visa. This visa claims 10 business days, so that puts me at July 5. I then have 4 days to get my Russia visa before my departure to London. I hope for me that it's less than 10 days. Either way I'm going to have to expedite my Russia visa which is double the price. ouch! Anyways the visa front is looking in good shape for me.

Jeff and I sat down Saturday and did some route planning. Our conclusion, a lot of miles in a short period of time. I was hoping we would have some extra time to stop off in a city along the way but it seems like the time budget for this is no where to be found.

Some quick napkin math: if the length of our route is 10,000 miles and we average 35 mph (33% * 55 mph + 33% * 35 mph + 33% * 15 mph) it will take 285 hours to complete excluding borders and the ferries. Assuming we drive 10 hour days, that's 28.5 days right there! That gives us 13.5 days of free time to explorer those 10,000 miles, a lot of which unfortunately will probably be spent at border crossings.

So we will just have to make sure to choose a route so that when we stop it has a beach and good food. Reading through the guide has created even more excitement out of Jeff and myself. There's still a bunch of little details to be done but overall everything is looking great.