D30: 新密 → 大谷

July 5, 2022

Despite my inability to understand much more than one word in five, this old couple seemed to enjoy my being in their shop

My missed dinner is very apparent in how hungry I am at breakfast. Fortunately, although the vast majority of the provided food items are either pretty low grade¹ or—in the case of the western items—approaching stale, I'm able to find things I'm willing to eat² even after I've taken a first bite. Also, there's a yoghurt dispenser from which I get myself at least 5 or 6 bowls.

Then, there's the Cheerios which are both low grade *and* stale

In an astroturf covered shipping container across the street from the courthouse, an office with the sign "We Write Legal Complaints For You"

Back at the room, I'm sorely tempted to take another bath just for the enjoyment of it but I know if I do, I'll want to go back to sleep and that's a no from me. I do, however, take a nice long shower where I intentionally alternate between high pressure that's just slightly too hot and frigid blasts of cold.

Incorrectly assuming that the grey outside is polluted haze, I'll be pleased to find that it's actually a cool mizzle. Stopping for lunch almost immediately after I've started because my stomach is literally growling and the maps aren't looking super promising for intermediate stops, I've got to grind out 20 or 30 kilometers of former main road where every potentially interesting thing I come across is buttoned up tight before I eventually start turning off on smaller and smaller roads with all kinds of things to fill my senses.

Very impressive gate for a tomb and museum complex

No longer in Hebei, but bed wetting cures are still a thing

Things like oxbowed roads chewed by mining trucks, inflatable wedding decorations, old buildings, stone faced bridges with seal script names, and a steady pouring rain.

After yesterday's heat, heck, after the bit of today that was sunny, I'm actually rather liking the wet. All my important stuff is either natively waterproof or properly wrapped up and, even if it means photographs are extremely difficult to take, I quite like the wreathes of mist and the smell of petrichor.

Definitely a wedding rather than a funeral

The GPS really really really did not want me to take this road

If I had had any kind of motor other than my legs, the GPS would have been right

However, I think I would have been up there if I hadn't

I've called ahead to tonight's promising potential end point and I'm glad I did as I wasn't expecting the mountain pass to be quite so steep or the paving on the descent to require quite so much in the way of technical skills and, with the help of my GPS, I arrive at an unsignposted location on the cusp of full dark.

Handing me a towel, they are remarkably unfazed by my turning out to be a foreigner, and more interested in the fact that I've biked here from as far away as I did. Even just the city where I started the day is an unimaginable distance to do in one day and on a bicycle!

A good life requires a smaller population

Practicing birth control is all of society's responsibility to the future

Cherish your wife, practice scientific birth control

Older hand painted birth control policy cartoons

During the sitting and chatting and drip drying part of my check in, I knee jerk respond to the polite "have you eaten yet" with "I have" even though I haven't and then, once I've been shown the room, and I've changed into something dry, it's late enough that the town has practically rolled up their sidewalks and I'm too chickenshit to admit that I haven't actually eaten³.

As a result, I'll end up dining on dried banana chips and raisins washed down with a couple delicate sips of sesame oil.

According to this gate, I've officially entered southern China

---

¹ Even for a buffet, it was a pretty dire selection of not particularly high end products

² I'm a touring cyclist who missed dinner. Properly cooked cardboard would be attractive to me right now.

³ Yes, I am aware of what an idiot I am for skipping dinner two days in a row.

Is there anyone who knows Jake who is surprised that he tried to get me to drink the water from this water heater?

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 1,795 km (1,115 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0