New update from Twitter

World's simplest pump: no handle, just a spout spraying me with gas. #mongolrally http://t.co/gMVZScV7

New update from Twitter

Today is the day! Let's hope the duct tape will hold everything together. #mongolrally

NY, USA

I made everything fit! This is an important achievement.

NY, USA

three days to go and I Can't Believe It's Not Baatar Is Almost Ready!

For The Love Of God And Baby Jesus In The Manger, or How To Get Ready To Get Visas

Whichever way you shake it, I was in serious denial for months. Not only are we aiming for lots of former soviet republics on this trip (read: lots of visas, lots of paperwork), but I was down to five pages in my passport. And in the dark recesses of my mind, I remember that years ago a friend planning a trip to Africa had a similar problem that turned into an epic nightmare. 

 See, when you start running out of pages you immediately think, “hey, I need to get some more pagesâ€, so you look into your options:

1)      Get more pages. Not so fast buddy. There are two laughably bureaucratic ways to get more pages:

a.       Schedule an appointment with the State Department no more than two weeks before you leave. You must go in person and you must provide your airline confirmation. This option is only available if you have less than four pages left. I had five. Not happening. Also, as an aside, why would I book a flight knowing I don’t have a passport that can get me there? And how the hell are extra pages going to help anyone two weeks before leaving? The point of the pages is generally to get visas. Most countries that don’t require a visa also don’t have to stamp your passport. DUMB GOVERNMENT.

b.      But wait, there is still another option. Have your Commissioner or CEO or whatever write a letter to the State Department explaining that you travel extensively and need extra pages for upcoming travel. This generally takes several months. Regarding this, WTF?

2)      OK, that is dumb. So what were my other options? There has to be a way to game the system, because this is America, right?

a.      Renew my passport – This is genius because I only have two years left anyway, so the timing…WRONG, they won’t renew until you have less than a year left.

b.      But what if my passport is “lost� No way, Jose. Evidently there is a stack of paperwork that would make a soviet border official blush at the end of that road.

What did I do? I waited until the absolute last minute before calling my friends at [ZVS](http://www.zvs.com). I spoke with a very nice lady who explained that while I was not able to get more pages (silly plebeian), the mighty patricians at ZVS were endowed with the right to storm the State Department and have pages added without anything other than a signed letter granting them authority. They received my passport on Monday and I got it back, extra pages and all, on Thursday. In fact, it only took them three hours. And all for the low price of $400!

(There is a treatise here on the rights of the proletariat, but I’ll put that aside.)

Let’s see where are we…right, I still need the actual visas. We used [The Visa Machine](https://www.thevisamachine.com/), which made the process so much easier. Thank god for Julia! But don’t think we got off without a ton of work. We had to book hotels, list border crossings, get letters of invitation, and disclose more personal information than I’m comfortable admitting here.  I think my favorite was Russia who, in addition to requiring your resume (literally), wanted a list of every country you have been to in the past 10 years.

But other than that, and the fact that FedEx basically threw away my package en route to London, the process was easy. I say this while knocking on wood because I don’t have the visas yet.

Quite possibly, there could be a part two here.