My Russian visa application was sent by mail this morning. The last pieces came together as I got the invitation last Thursday and the HIV certificate from Larimer County this morning. In my cover letter, I wrote of my intent to cycle across Russia and that I didn’t expect to stay in any city other than St. Petersburg for long. Hopefully this all goes in and gets approved.

I did some more looking at my medical insurance online to understand coverage procedures overseas. I didn’t find much and the only contact number as a 1-877 number. So, I called the provider to at least learn what number to use with international access. Six voicemail prompts and two entries of my account later, I finally got to a live person who put me on hold to let me know ten minutes later of a 1-866 number to dial from overseas. Perhaps that might work, though I am skeptical of being able to properly register a claim from wilds of Russia let alone on a 1-800 number. I’ve since browsed online and found some companies offering travel insurance policies including medical overseas and will likely to get such a policy just in case – and because it covers some things like trip interruption or medical evacuation as well. I was interested to find that their extreme sport exclusion adds things like hang gliding and motorcycle racing but doesn’t have bicycling across Russia as an extreme sport.

It is going to be nice to get some of this stuff behind me and finally be on the road. My three largest worries at this point are (1) visa and registration (2) mechanical issues in wilds of Siberia and (3) getting by with enough language. It will be nice to just get some riding behind me and work with these sorts of things as they come up.

Last Friday word went out to my groups at work on my pending leave. So now trying to see what I can do to get everything transitioned as best as possible.