The Baltic Lap Trip is getting close now! Just a few more days until I fly to Frankfurt to start another adventure ride. The Channel Islands Bike trash guys will soon be the Eurotrash Bunch!
The paperwork is all sorted (I hope). Got my International Driving Permit, the motorcycle is contracted, plane tickets are purchased and I have my Russian Visa and an invitation letter as you can see here.

Of course I have NO idea what they may say since they are in Russian. I’ll find out if everything is OK when I get to the border. Hope I don’t wind up in a gulag somewhere. :=) Now I have to try to fit a HUGE pile of stuff into ONE suitcase that weighs less than 50 pounds. The airline restricts me to that unless I want to pay $70 to check a second bag. I remember some advice I received from a world traveler before I left on my first adventure trip to Central America in 2003. He said “put everything you think you will need for the trip in one pile, and put all the money you think you will need for the trip in a second pile. Now take HALF the stuff out of the first pile and DOUBLE the size of the second pile and you should be good to go.” :=) From the looks of things, if the dollar gets any weaker against the Euro, I will be looking for a second (or third) part time job when I get home (got to add to that second pile). :=) Shelly (who has the house and motorcycle in Sweden) says we can expect to pay about $8 or $9 a gallon for gas on the trip and even WORSE, $15 FOR A BEER. Thinking of going on the wagon for a while (he says that now, but at the end of a long hard day of riding ……..) The next update should be coming from Europe. Thanks for riding along. Don’t forget that I will have access to email while on the road at my usual email address so feel free to stay in touch especially if you want removed from the update notifications (please don’t do that).

Rick