October 21, 2024
Day 26: Nojiri to Tajimi
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Today was boring, if you don't count the stuff that made it interesting. Now that we're out of the mountains, we've brung this chapter of the tour to a close. I guess the next chapter should probably start at Lake Biwa, but that won't be for at least another two days. Rather than think of this as another repositioning cruise, I'd like to see what we can get out of this fairly urban territory. To do that will require some research and good navigation.
I failed as a navigator today. We were never lost, but I broke the number one rule of touring: don't be mesmerized by signs pointing to your destination. There's always more than one way to get there. More on that later.
Yes, it was cold last night. We bundled up and preserved our warmth pretty well. My fingers were stiff but not numb by the time we packed the last of our gear. We were hoping that our tent would be bone dry, but it picked up a lot of condensation. The sun was starting to rise above the mountains, but we didn't have time to wait around for it. Poor tent. It's been through a lot.
We stuck with National Road 19, as we mostly did yesterday. Komoot had other ideas, which we ignored. It wanted us on the other side of the river, where there was a much less-traveled, but probably bumpier and hillier road. Instead, we steeled ourselves for the truckers and the motorcycles and the other nerve-racking sights and sounds of a busy highway. We took the sidewalk at times, but it was always at our peril. What looked like a great surface almost always deteriorated soon after.
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We passed three michi no eki today, but only stopped off at the first one for a hot coffee. An older road biker stopped and chatted with us for a few minutes. It was nice to make a connection with him. He snapped our photo, but we forgot to take one of him.
As the morning progressed, things became more chaotic. Nakatsugawa was the turning point. National Road 19 became more like an expressway, which was crazy, because Expressway E19 ran right next to it! There was a sidewalk, which we often utilized, but it would do dumb things like bomb down to an underpass while the road crossed above it. One time it locked us in to a sidewalk that ended in a pedestrian overpass like this one:
An old man riding a mobility scooter found himself in the same situation. He tried to warn me about the stairs, but I didn't understand him. We all turned around, found an opening in the guard rail, and rode on the highway. We were all cheering one another on as the cars whizzed by. You're my hero, old man!
At other times, the sidewalk felt like a cool bike path as it separated itself from the road with both elevation and distance.
We needed to manufacture a short-term goal in order to keep us motivated through all this chaos. Lunch is always a winner. I picked a Yoshinoya a few kilometers down the road. When we got within sight of its big sign, we looked down from the bridge we were on and saw an expansive park next to a river. We quickly changed plans, stopping instead at the nearby Family Mart for some konbini fare. Why did we do this? Well, for one, we love to picnic at nice parks, especially when the weather had become so nice. Secondly, it gives us the chance to do a Very Smart Thing™, i.e. dry out our camping gear. Yay!
Determined to get away from National Road 19, I let Komoot work its routing magic, only to find that it kept us on this highway for quite some time anyway. However, this strategy eventually paid off when it put us on some lovely country roads, including long stretches next to the Tokigawa, the river that 19 and E19 roughly follow as well.
Strangely, and somewhat worryingly, we found ourselves on an isolated narrow lane next to the river, just a few kilometers from our destination of Tajimi, a decent-size city. It turns out that we were approaching Tajimi from above. We turned a sharp corner, looked downhill, and saw the city spread before us.
The last hotel we stayed at was tiny. This one is pretty big. Both hotels are owned by the same company. Their business model appears to be to buy old hotels in distress, fix them up a little bit, bring in some good staff, and undercharge the competitors. It works for us! This place was obviously modeled after a typical American motel.
We visited a few different restaurants, all of them either closed, booked up, too expensive, or very meat-oriented. Frustrated, we made a beeline for the nearest konbini, and feasted on soba, rice, and beer. Not haute cuisine, but it solved our hunger problem quite nicely.
We're also getting our stay in the Osaka area firmed up. A storm is predicted for Wednesday, so that will likely spice things up. It was going to be our Lake Biwa camping day, but now we'll have to figure out an alternative. We also have a Warmshowers host to stay with for the weekend, which is always a lot of fun. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First we have to find a not-boring way through the urban sprawl of greater Nagoya.
Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 1,657 km (1,029 miles)
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