So we left Calumet on June 20th. It was great. Said goodbye to our friends, locked up the house, drove out of town. We stopped in central Michigan to visit Matt’s parents on our way out of the country. That was great too. The only thing we had to deal with was the shipping details for our kayaks. Our generous sponsor P&H sea kayaks was handling the shipping and we just needed some confirmation. And we got it. I talked to our local rep Kelly and he passed me off to there main office in the UK. No problem. Then I got an email. An earth shattering email. At the last minute P&H finds out they can’t ship to Russia. Boom! Like a bomb being dropped on our trip. We are less than a week from flying to Moscow and the bulk of our planning has been blown to smithereens. Our lives entered a free fall. After a few phone calls we found out we could get boats, just not in Russia. Ok. So we had to get them there ourselves. In about 4 business days. Ok. Crisis mode ensued. We spent a lot of time on the phone planning, replanning, then planning again. All the while Kelly was scrambling and doing everything he could on P&H’s end. Slowly and painfully a plan emerged from the chaos. Not a great plan. Not even a good plan. But a plan, sort of. We decided to wing it and trust our luck. Seemed reasonable. We’d just handle it one step at a time. No big deal. The stress was slowly killing us. We didn’t sleep, didn’t eat and spent a lot of time yelling at each other and the people around us.

So step one was getting the boats. Can’t paddle a boat you don’t have. We already paid for our travel so we had to work around that. We decided to meet them NYC in an attempt to simplify. This cut out our Detroit to New York leg. Made sense. But where do you get three boats delivered on short notice in a city that big? We didn’t know. Eventually, after being laughed at by airport personal and hung up on by the post office we found Empire Kayaks in Long Beach. They agreed to help. They were skeptical but willing to do all they could. And they did. I can’t say enough nice things about them. We received the boats and they took us to the airport.

Step 2 – get boats to Moscow
Ok so we have boats, now what. Let’s just check them as baggage. We’d heard stories. Seemed almost reasonable. That’s how Brandon and Heather Nelson did it when they paddled Baikal. What’s the worst that can happen. We sat with three 17 foot boats at the airport for 22 hours. When it came time to check them it happened so fast we weren’t sure what happened. They laughed at us, then took the boats. No problem. They almost didn’t even charge us.

Step 3 – storing and transporting in Moscow

We were met at the airport by a family friend, Max, of Anya’s. Max had hired a truck. We loaded the boats into the box truck and an hour later were at his apartment. We hoisted the boats to Max’s second story balcony with our tow ropes. Boats stored. Problem solved.

Step 4 – boats to Irkutsk
We had a week in Moscow to figure this out. Seemed easy. We tried the trans Siberian train that we had tickets for but it was a no go. They recommended a shipping company in Irkutsk. We called and made the arrangements. They said the boats would arrive the day before we did and it would cost about 3000 rubles ($100). Deal. We hired the same truck, lowered the boats from the balcony and dropped them at the station.

Fast forward 8 days and 3000 miles. We get off the trans siberian, get deposited at a hostel by the wonderful people at the Great Baikal Trail Association and call the shipping company. Boats? What boats? Oh, those, they won’t be here until Monday. Crap. We waited, not so patiently. Call back Monday. Boats? Oh yeah, they’re here but we don’t unload until Tuesday. Crap. Call back Tuesday. Boats? Yeah they’re still on the train, no one unloaded it. They’ll be off Wednesday. Oh yeah, and the three thousand rubles we told you is actually 8000. Jesus. I hate Russia.

So that’s where we sit. Waiting in horrible frustration for our boats to be unloaded. It’s been a week. We’re fed up, burned out and this adventure is wearing thin before we even get on the water. I think we used up all our luck early on. Hopefully the boats get unloaded, we get a truck to haul them and the rest of our stuff to the lake and we can start to paddle. But I’m not holding my breath.

At least we have a story…and it beats working. Hopefully the next chapter is a little less eventful.

Subway. Train. Tickets. Wait. Train. Wait. Coffee. Wait…Wait…Wait. We had potentially all day to kill in a place with no parks, no benches, and no public toilets. We got a bagel at Starbucks and waited until we felt we had overstayed our welcome. Walk. Walk. Sit. The bench outside Ruby Tuesday’s was free until they opened at 11:30. Wait…Wait…Wait. The restaurant opened so we walked to the hardware store – looking at chainsaws was entertaining and they had bathrooms. Wait. Walk. Wait. We found benches out front of Outback Steakhouse and they don’t open until 4pm. Wait. Wait. Read 150 page Baikal guidebook. Wait. Call the shipping company (yes [ they’re coming). Wait…wait…Wait…Some weird guy came and joined us for about 10 minutes. Wait…Wait…wait. Lunch. Wait. Start to feel panic. Wait. Wait…Wait…wait. Phone Call!! We had 30 minutes to get to Empire Kayaks. Walk. Wait.

The small, dead end street was packed with cars. I was beginning to have my doubts about the semi-driver’s ability to get to the shop. The sun had grown hot and, after about 20 minutes of pacing up and down the sidewalk, I resigned to sitting down in the cool, damp grass with my back up against the pole of a street lamp. The worn, white, Old Dominion freight semi turned the corner and crept down the narrow neighborhood street toward where I sat. Just before reaching the car-jammed portion of road, the driver made a 50-point u-turn and proceeded in reverse with 4 people in the street waving him on and his head craned out the window. The boats were unloaded and checked for damage (although there wouldn’t have been much to do if they had been damaged) before being loaded again atop the car that would take us to the airport. One small victory!

The time in Rochester passed and our plan became clearer but no less crazy and unstable. On top of all of this we still had the anxiety of leaving for months into a foreign country on the other side of the world.

Early on the 30th we loaded Hannah’s parent’s tiny car to the breaking point and got ready to leave. We ducked back into the house to say goodbye to Rainy, our faithful dog. She gets worked up and sad when we leave and it’s heartbreaking to see her face when she finally understands that she can’t come with us. It’s the hardest part of expeditions for me. We headed off to the airport at 3AM.

The flight passed quickly and quietly. We arrived at Laguardia, after an easy layover in DC, to find NYC much less overwhelming than I had anticipated. We waited in a long, hot line for a taxi – at first avoiding setting our stuff down on the oily, grimy, chewing-gum-infested sidewalk then realizing the futility and succumbing to our sleep-deprived laziness. The hour in line paid off with an all-too-exciting cab ride, reminiscent of my childhood Disney World favorite “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” which was fairly tame, but jerked you from side to side, took sudden and unexpected turns, and at one point sent you crashing through a wall. It very quickly explained why our cabby had a calendar on his dashboard from a law office that “helps get you out of tickets and keeps you on the road.”

We arrived intact at Anya’s doorstep half an hour later. I pressed the buzzer a few times, but I don’t really know how talking into those things works, so we just dropped our stuff on the curb and waited. The city surprised me – it appeared to be garbage day, but nothing was gross and everything was orderly, there were fewer people on the street than I expected, and each apartment building had a handful of trees around (which is more than I can say for my backyard). After a few minutes, Anya’s mom had come down to find us and was polite enough to ignore my idiotic lack of competency with the buzzer system. The narrow hallway was difficult to navigate with one duffel on my back, another in my hand, and the 4ft long box of paddles hanging at an awkward angle under one arm. The stairway proved even more difficult. With almost 90 lbs of gear hung haphazardly from my limbs I felt like an overburdened coat rack clambering gracelessly up 5 flights of stairs trying to hide my labored breathing. It only took 2 flights of stairs before Anya’s mother, Julia, was explaining to us exactly how idiotic we were for expecting Transaero to just load 3 kayaks on a plane. I didn’t have enough breath to object. By the time we reached the apartment door we had moved on to the subject of our idiocy in thinking we were just going to waltz past Russian customs without a serious hassle. Once inside the apartment, we were lectured on alternative shipping possibilities. While all a bit overwhelming, each point was well thought out and fairly reasonable. In fact, we would’ve much preferred to arrange things in a more traditional fashion as Julia was suggesting, and had we more time, we  would’ve, however this particular can of worms fell into our laps very late, with no warning, and it was wide open. We explained our exact situation, our concerns, and our feeble proof that our plan was possible (we know someone who has done this exact thing) and Julia seemed to unhappily accept that this was how we were doing things. Anya arrived, Julia left, we ate, caught up, sorted through gear, and rested for a few moments before beginning our next mini adventure in the city: finding the kayak shop that had agreed to receive our boats.

My first New York subway experience was positive. I’ve heard so much about the filth, stink, theft, and vagrants. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of this was exaggerated. The platforms were poorly lit and I definitely wouldn’t set anything (other than my well-shod feet) on the floor, but, other than the stifling heat, the subway was not offensive. We ended up at Penn Station, don’t ask me how – the underground labyrinth of rails is a mystery to me and how that swiss cheese holds up skyscrapers is an even greater mystery. We purchased tickets to Lon Beach and back and then waited to find out what platform we needed to go to. With 40 minutes to kill we walked around Penn Station and spent some time lingering in front of the storefronts where a little bit of cool air conditioning leaked out into the hot, milling masses. Five minutes before the train left, our platform was assigned. We hustled down a flight of stairs just to wait again. The train was cool, clean, and quiet, with well padded seats. I slept. We got out at Long Beach, the end of the rails, to find we were one stop beyond where we wanted to be. We set out on foot across a bridge and through a dingy-low-building-strip-mall part of town. It was about 3 miles before we hit the shoreline and upscale neighborhood where the kayak shop was located. We spoke with the shop owners, Gabrielle and Mike, for a bit. Gabrielle had helped me on the phone and was very much what I expected. I had no preconceived notions of Mike and was not at all surprised that he was a brusque man that met our plan with skepticism. Both owners were ready to help and we knew the whereabouts of the shop. We had completed our reconnaissance mission, firmed up our sloppy plans a bit with some very helpful folks, and were ready to head back to Manhattan, this time from the correct train stop.

Upon our return to Anya’s family’s apartment we were met by Anya’s step dad, Dennis, and a much less intense Julia. We shared stories, asked questions, and absorbed knowledge over a delicious dinner (prepared by Dennis) and a bottle of wine. The evening was far more relaxing than I had anticipated and made me feel a little better about the unknown tasks that were quickly approaching with the arrival of our boats the next day.

I began working out the details of picking up the boats in NYC. As if the previous 2 hours weren’t taxing enough, my phone calls were less than successful. The post office at the JFK airport hung up on me…bitches; the airline said they’d “get back to me”; two paddling clubs said that we couldn’t ship to their address and they weren’t interested in helping; the shipping company said they couldn’t ship anywhere but a business; after 3 or 4 kayak shops, I finally found one that was willing to help us out. Gabrielle at Empire Kayaks in Long beach was extremely accommodating and genuinely kind to boot. I worked out the shipping details to get the boats to Empire Kayaks as well as arranged a ride for our boats to JFK International Airport (at which point we were just going to wing it)and, with an uncomfortable, punched-in-the-stomach-over-adrenalined-nothing-is-working-out feeling I quit for the day . I had accomplished all that I could for the time being. The feeling of urgency didn’t leave me when I quit, nor would it for many days after, because there was no telling what the next punch would be or where it was going to come from.

A few uneasy days passed, punctuated by calls from the third member of our trip, Anya, who had concerns about this or that – always inspiring a new wave of panic. I didn’t sleep. Ingesting food, while comforting for a few minutes, was always followed by several hours of acid-reflux. I had never before felt stress like this. I had never before been left feeling so unprepared for something so big – and I fancy myself a master procrastinator. A cloud of impending doom hung over me, growing ever heavier. The first showers of our storm had passed, but I was still afraid of what might follow.

The next few days were boring bordering on idyllic. We rested, played with the dog and enjoyed visiting my parents. The only remaining detail of the trip was the exact shipping details for our boats. P&H sea kayaks was donating boats and shipping them to Baikal for us. We set it up months ago and all we needed was confirmation that they were shipped and would be there when we arrived. On Wednesday morning Hannah and I went for a walk with the dog while my parents were at work. Along the way I got a call from Kelly at P&H confirming everything was all set. I felt great. We walked home joking about how we were pulling off a trip that two years ago seemed impossible. When we got back I checked my email and found a new message from Kelly. Thinking it was some sort of confirmation I casually opened it and started reading. All of the sudden I felt like my world was collapsing. Instead of a confirmation it was an apology. Apparently, after months of sitting on our request, when P&H looked into shipping to Russia they found they were “Locked Out”. The email basically said “you’re on your own. Good luck”. I nearly shit.

I was lost. I didn’t know what to do. Everything fell apart in an instant. After a few exasperated phone calls I was able to find out that we could still get boats, just not in Russia. We had all of our travel plans set and paid for. We couldn’t afford to re-plan the trip. We were leaving in four business days. Jesus. I was in a tailspin.

The next three days were a blur of sleepless nights, wild internet searches, reasonable plans, angry unreasonable ideas, cursing, arguments, heartfelt apologies and general confusion. When the dust finally started to settle we had a rough, fly by the seat of our pants type of plan in place. It was shaky at best and left a lot of room for failure but it was the best we could do.

We packed up and said good bye to our chickens, who were staying with parents for the summer. They didn’t have a thought in their tiny little brains about the whole ordeal. We said our goodbyes to my parents, kissed my tearful mother and headed back out onto the highway toward Hannah’s parent’s house in Rochester, MI. Every mile brought us closer to adventure and did nothing to settle the panic that had taken hold of my life.

May 20th: Leave Michigan’s beautiful Keweenaw Peninsula and head south towards civilization. We will spend most of a week with each of our parents to unload our chickens and dog to their summertime babysitters and do a little visiting (A-C on map).

May 30th: Fly out of Detroit to New York City (it makes the tickets to Moscow way cheaper, plus we’ve never been) where we will meet up with Anya, the third member of our Baikal team, and spend a couple days seeing what NYC has to offer (D and E on Map).

June 2nd: Fly to Moscow. Spend 3-6 days getting our visas registered and checking out Moscow, as well as visiting with Anya’s grandmother who lives in the city (F on map).

June 8th: Board the train for a 6 day journey to Irkutsk, then spend 6 days looking out the window. Hopefully Matt can master his motion sickness.

June 13th: Arrive in Irkutsk (city on the south-western corner of Lake Baikal). Here we will pick up our sea kayaks which the Great Baikal Trail Association will be storing for us and complete some last minute tasks (like grocery shopping) before setting out on our kayak trip (G on map).

June 15th: Let the paddling begin! Our goal is to be on the water by June 15th. We will then paddle for 50-70 days.

August 5th – August 25th: Complete our circumnavigation of Lake Baikal, landing back in Irkutsk (G on map). We will then get our affairs in order and board a train headed East towards the Mongolian border (about 1.5 days from Lake Baikal). Our visas will expire August 30th, so that’s our deadline for getting out of Russia.

August 30th – September 25th: This is where our plan gets pretty loose. Depending on time and money we want to do a little traveling in China and Vietnam. No matter what we will be traveling to Beijing (H on map) because one of our goals for the trip is to complete a West to East trip across Northern Asia via the Tans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian rail roads. If we have run out of time or money we will just spend a few days in Beijing and then depart (via airplane) and head home. However, if we have not yet encountered limitations we will continue south through China, mostly by rail to Vietnam. If, upon reaching Hanoi, we have run low on funds or time, we will spend a couple days in Hanoi (I on map) and then fly home. If not, we will still spend some time in Hanoi then travel south, maybe get in a little paddling, gain a lot of new experiences, eat copious amounts of delicious food, and end up in Ho Chi Minh City (J on map). At this point we will be traveling home no matter what (at least that’s the plan).

If you want to see a weird little animation Matt made of our travel plans it’s in our Kickstarter video. You can watch it at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/44957095/lake-baikal-skimming-the-surface-a-kayak-documenta