This morning, when I took the bus from Suide to Qingjian, the plan was to stop and spend the day in Qingjian. I'm not entirely sure that there's an entire day worth of interesting in Qingjian but I know, from 2012, that there's a giant temple complex at the top of a very long set of stairs, and I imagine, if I didn't have time constraints, I could spend quite a bit more time exploring than I did six years ago.

When I get to Qingjian, however, it's barely even noon and by the time I've picked my package up from the Shunfeng Courier conveniently located (at most) 35 meters from where I get off the bus, the sun is out in full force and the weather is gorgeous. It takes me another 45 minutes or so to reorganize my luggage to properly accommodate the extra clothes, the cookies, and the cream for my coffee (at 5元 a box plus whatever I'm paying in shipping, imported German UHT heavy whipping cream is actually cheaper than watery boxes of 2% Mengniu brand skim milk). I also have to take the new brake pads I bought in Suide off and switch them around as the wrench—the owner's teenage son—put the L pad on the right and the R pad on the left.

Qingjian to Yangjiayuanze, where I spent the night in 2012, is very gradually uphill but at so gradual a grade that it may as well be flat. I don't remember the road as being very interesting so I figure I'll bash out the 35km and see about finding the hotel where I spent the night and spend the night again. The family that owned the place were super friendly.

The road actually isn't that boring. It's just that six years ago, coming off of the breathtaking beauty of what I'd just done, a mostly straightish, mostly flattish road was relatively uninteresting. Today, I'm coming off of three days of being mostly cooped up indoors and mostly working on work that I'd rather not be doing. Right now, I'd probably even be happy with a truck route.

I find the hotel in Yangjiayuanze no problem. Unfortunately, it looks like it is now owned by someone else. When I stayed six years ago, the Mom was a quilter who made some of the only 'new fabric' door quilts I'd seen since I started seeing door quilts my last day in Hebei. Really nice ones too. Nice enough that I was contemplating, this time around, commissioning her to make one for me. There's no way she would go for the tacky store bought thing I see hanging across the entrance. Also, with 3 hours still to go before sunset, I'm reminded that even though the family was super friendly, the hotel was actually rather grungy and really only comfortable because it wasn't my tent.
I keep going.

My bike pedals so smoothly with this new rear hub, it's practically like having a new bike.

I get into Zichang just ahead of the sunset, with time to do a bit of wandering around the town to look for the best area in terms of "am I likely to find breakfast in the morning" and "will the reasonably priced hotels be comfortable". Only one of the people who stops me to ask to take a photo with me is annoying. Every one else, with the exception of the person who (along with her child) walks into my restaurant and sits down at my table while I am eating dinner to talk at me, is cool. She's not cool. She's just quicker at taking a hint than the person who, I swear, took 25 selfies with me.

The hotel's registration software appears to be the same as the hotel in Suide. Although I offered to help out in Suide, offered to run interference if the police—who had apparently given them verbal instructions of "No Foreigners Allowed"—showed up, I don't think the hotel in Suide actually registered me. They didn't have my passport long enough and this particular copy of the registration software is easily one of the most poorly programmed ones I've come across.