D24: Shilou to Gaojiecun 石楼县 → 高杰村镇

September 30, 2018

A merged photo of the government guy who brought me a bottle of local wine in 2012 trying out my bike at the back of the hotel and the current back of the hotel

I am an exceptionally lucky individual. This does not necessarily mean that all my luck is good. It just means that I have a lot of it. Things happen to me. Things that don't happen to other people. Weird things. Statistically unlikely things. Things that I don't think I specifically did anything to cause.

How many people do you know who can say they were in a freak swimming pool explosion?

Believe it or not, I'm not the only person in the whole world to have had that happen to them. I even found reference to an article in the Journal of Toxicology: Clinical Toxicology from four years before my explosion about the explosion risk from swimming pool chlorinators and specifically citing injuries to two patients in something that, at least based on the abstract, sounds rather a lot like what happened to me. We think of all the different ways the world can kill us and never once do we think of things like "exploding swimming pools". It's patently absurd. Who would expect a swimming pool to explode? And for all that, I somehow managed to get out of it with only a broken leg.

Firecrackers lined up along the road for a wedding procession to set off

Then there's more recent things like the Incident. For all the many times I've back talked various Chinese authorities or been utterly horribly rude to the police, the time I manage to get myself arrested isn't one of the time(s) I willfully pretended not to notice I was probably somewhere I shouldn't be, but instead came from picking up my mail. And then, despite my very clearly having taken possession of the contraband that I honestly had no idea was in my mail, the police decided that I was telling the truth. And they let me go.

I'm not sure what part of the situation is more absurdly unlikely: the item which was delivered in my mail or the being believed about having no idea that said item was going to be there. I have all the extra information available of definitively knowing myself to be innocent and even I think my story stretches credulity. Certainly, if I was a police officer, I wouldn't believe me.

A crumbling shop that I had originally identified as early 20th century but which the decorative carvings put as 19th.

I don't think this was originally a shop

That brings me, at last, to today's ride. It turns out that although some of the reduction in truck traffic is in fact related to things like the 48-car coal train I saw this morning, most of it is actually related to roadworks near the Yellow River Bridge. All this glorious scenery and great wide traffic free open roads I've been experiencing is actually because the bridge has been closed for the past ten days. Because I'm lucky. Because lucky things happen to me. That's just the way things are.

Judging by the sheer number of trucks that are already lined up waiting to cross in anticipation of the road re-opening at around 7pm tonight, the whole of this past week should have been a soul-sucking miserable piece of truck hell that either caused me to hop a bus or caused me to completely change my route altogether. Instead, I got something close to perfection.

Looking one of the gorges at the lines of trucks

A county level historical and cultural protection unit from last time that is locked this time

A close up from 2012 really emphasizes how crap my current camera is

Because I rode it twice yesterday and once six years ago, I really didn't want to take the main road from Shilou to the Yellow River Bridge again today. I wanted to take the road that goes via Xiaosuan Town. The road that was the main road before they built this road 10 or 12 years ago. The road that goes up and down and up and down and up and down. Unfortunately, although I have a phone number for the hotel I stayed at in Gaojiecun Town six years ago, no one is answering and no other hotels are showing up on the map. I dare not risk an extra 10 or 15 kilometers of riding when I have no tent, no sleeping bag, and no real idea if there will be any place for me to stay.

Also, speaking of strange luck and having too much of it, that weirdness that showed up yesterday with my freewheel seems to be getting worse, and it seems to be a good idea to stay on roads where maybe I might possibly be able to hitch hike if it turns out to be necessary. It doesn't do it every time I come to a complete stop, maybe only one time in five, but pedaling forward doesn't always make the wheel spin. Sometimes it just makes the cassette spin. If I start the wheel spinning first and then I pedal as fast as I can, I can usually make it work.

The cuts aren't as raw as they were 8 years ago

And just as uncomfortable to ride near as they were 8 years ago

I'm pretty tired by the time I cross into Shaanxi. I think the intermittent walking caused by my bike simply deciding that pedaling was not going to make the wheel move is part of the reason. Not having a mid day rest and a proper lunch is another reason as well. But I'd stopped for lunch in Yidie yesterday and I hadn't been impressed by the options.

The changes that six years have brought to this region is pretty impressive. I'm not exactly what you'd called thrilled by the curved unlit tunnel that I have to pass through on my way to Gaojiecun, but given how tired I was, I probably would have been less impressed with the former uppity down terrain. There's only one place that has rooms-beds really. It's nowhere near as nice as the farmstyle restaurant from six years ago but they still aren't answering their phone and, now that the main road has changed, I can't find where they were or if they even still are.

I get myself a small dinner and, by 8pm, am sound asleep.

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,338 km (831 miles)

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