August 12

I thought this time I would put up a map of what is considered Far Eastern Russia.Where Abe started in Chita is about where you see the red and gray lines intersecting half way between Lake Baikal and the "hump" of China that intrudes into Russia. Abe is on the other side of the "hump" still north of Blagoveschensk. I talked to him yesterday and he was near Shimanovsk, this is about 500 miles from Khabarovsk. He hoped to travel to Belogorsk by tomorrow evening because it is a sizeable city.From yesterday he figured it would take him a maximum of 8 days travel to get to Khabarovsk, then he will be dropping south to Vladivostok which should be a bit under 500 miles. He had made contact with a student of his from 1994 and was staying at their apartment over night. He had had a lot of rain again which is miserable traveling on a bicycle. But he will most likely rest both Saturday and Sunday before continuing on again. Otherwise he sounded in good spirits.