I was born at sea level, grew up at sea level, went to college at sea level, and have spent the last 14 years of my life living at sea level so it's little surprise that I don't handle higher altitudes very well.

Not that the 1400 meters I'm currently at is what anyone would call "high altitude". However, it has 12% less oxygen than I'm used to breathing and, maybe because I'm paying careful attention to exactly how high I am and how high I will be so that I can start my altitude sickness medicine at just the right time, but I am definitely feeling the effects of that 12%. 

Hills are harder than they should be.
Secondhand cigarette smoke is more abrasive.
Annoying people are more annoying.

Come to think of it, this is kind of like being an hour low on sleep or getting cranky cause I've been doing interesting things all day and forgot to eat.

Today's ride was uneventful and generally uninteresting. Considering that it's mostly plains which are mostly brown from Autumn, I figured it was going to be a podcast sort of day instead of music. However, I'm just high enough that everything is soft around the edges and I'm just low enough that I'm aware of this so I don't feel like I have the ability to both pay attention to the sorts of podcasts I like to listen to while also making sure that I don't do something stupid or dangerous while riding.

Per the instructions of the Xidesheng in Yanchi, I take the S302 (which is in the process of being upgraded to a G road) west from Yanchi as I'd originally planned. When I get to the township of Wanglejing (Wangle's Well) I turn south for the next 20 kilometers until I reach a road which is marked on my paper maps (and Google) as a county road but which has since been upgraded to become the G244 which, when it's finished, will run from near the Gobi Desert to Chongqing. I take that road twenty some odd kilometers more to reach Fengjigou Township but the commercial area of Fengjigou is long past dead and gone and I've got another 6km south to go to reach a cluster of restaurants and trucker motels.

I picked the nicest of the trucker motels. The one that had a name other than 停车住宿 (Park and Sleep). It was still only 30 yuan (a little more than $4). Public shower with a broken mixer valve so that the only options were freezing cold and scorching hot. Squat latrine 50 feet away that wasn't even a long drop but just some bricks to stand on and a shovel to show that the solid waste was being taken for farming. However, it had walls, a ceiling, blankets, and an electric mattress pad to keep me warm. Which is really all I want.

It also had registration software which—just like in Yanchi or that place in Zhejiang last year—had had the foreigner registration disabled. And local cops whose response to "hi, I have a foreign guest" was "oh no, she can't stay here". 

I slept through some of the initial stages of the drama cause it was cold in the lobby and warm in my bed so I'd left my passport with the hotel owner and gone back to my room. He woke me up to give me my money back and tell me the police were on their way.

There were four of them. All with body cams. Crowding into the hallway. I never found out what they intended for me to do or where they intended for me to go cause I flat out refused to listen. I barely even let them make their case.

They started to tell me something about "Foreigner Approved Hotels" and how this wasn't one and I interrupted to lecture over them about "Foreigner Approved Hotels" not existing nor having existed at any time in the last 15 years.

They started on something about the hotel not having the computer system to register foreigners and I interrupted to tell them that not only did the hotel rather clearly have the software but it just as clearly been disabled with a software lock done by the Public Security Bureau and, in this case, the police station could register me same as would have been done before the computer system existed. 

Then they tried to tell me their police station didn't have the software. "You seriously mean to tell me you don't have access to the Public Security Intranet?" I mocked. "In that case, the paper form is called the 外国人临时住宿表, you can Baidu it, download it, and fill it out by hand."

Between instances of my getting out of bed again, turning the light on again, and coming out into the hallway (only sometimes wrapped in my blanket) to glare balefully at them again, they kept regrouping to the lobby area or maybe outside (but if outside then to their car cause outside was both cold and windy) to make phone calls to higher ups and ask what to do. Then they'd come back and knock on my door again and I'd send them away again.

Eventually, they asked me for my mobile phone number, gave me my passport back and left. Then I gave the hotel owner his money back and crawled back under the blankets and more or less slept more or less until dawn.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to shortcut the whole thing and not even bother with finding a hotel before I go to the police station.