The only window in my room faced onto the stairwell. Furthermore, it had nice thick curtains blocking out the light. And still I woke up on the cusp of sunrise. I didn't even go to sleep that early last night!

I persuaded myself to go back to sleep until at least 8am when things would have warmed up enough that breakfast and biking wouldn't be uncomfortable.

When I woke up again, I gazed blearily at phone maps for a bit, and decided I would make it a short day riding only from Dingbian to Yanchi. Then, I pulled the blankets back over my head and went back to sleep.

My family calls it my "Vulcan Healing Trance". I can't just merely want to not get out of bed. I also need to be sick or tired or injured. Any one or all three will do. The most I've managed to sleep through recovery was something like three weeks of not staying awake more than an hour or two at a time. That's unusual though. More often, I'll sleep 14 or 16 hours and, other than finding myself completely off-schedule for my time zone, I'm fine.

I finally got up around noon, went downstairs, paid for another night's hotel, and went out to look for breakfast and some non-bike related clothing that covered my knees. I was also hoping to possibly find a hat as my current pair of sunglasses are awesome and what I initially thought was sunburn on my face is now resolving itself into one of the worst cases of facial tan lines I've ever seen on anyone.

Having bought warm clothing, by the time I walked back to the hotel to get some quality time working, the local temperature promptly went up enough that I'm back to being comfortable wearing shorts outdoors.