Day 11: Flight of the Mosquitos

July 24, 2024

Strasbourg, FR to Phillipsburg, DE

I left bright and early at 0815 from my hotel after a hearty breakfast and too many pastries. My legs rested it was time for a big day, relatively flat too. The original plan was about 100km but I ended up doing closer to 135.

But first! A visit to the EU parliament on the way out of Strasbourg.

I continued along the river northeast bound. It was pretty pleasant for most of the morning. Lots of good river views and cute small towns.

Sharing the trail with some horse riders

85 km passed before I remembered to eat lunch. I stopped at a roadside cafe and ordered the Strasbourg salad as that seemed unique. Didn’t know what it was. Imagine my amusement when it showed up and was something straight out of the Midwest (I felt right at home as a Chicago native). It’s mostly sausage and cheese, the word salad is used pretty loosely here. It was good to get at least a few veggies in though, something I mostly get from restaurants instead of carrying around in my bag of goodies.

The afternoon also started out with some really nice views. I was playing leapfrog with a couple other bike tourists and even a 20-man strong e biking group ride, as we traded taking breaks up ahead a few km of each other.

Surprisingly most cycle tourists I found have been taking the EV15 the other way - it was rare I saw anyone going the same way as me for any long distance.

The day wore on and the trouble came around 1700. My Komoot app was bugging out and I was no longer following the EV15 to get to my campsite so I was using Google Maps to navigate. It suggested a few roads that didn’t really exist, so I got lost a few times in the woods. Every time I stopped to figure out manually a better route, the mosquitos ate a chunk of my blood. Oof! Not great

This was at least maybe conceivably a real route as there were fresh enough tire tracks

This was not a real route. I doubled back and found a long way around to get to camp

Finally at a pretty late 1845, I got to my campsite where they found me an improvised place to pitch my tent. The site was mostly camper vans but there ended up being one other cycle touring couple who arrived shortly after me. They kindly let me use some of their mosquito spray. Turns out in this area the mosquitos were worse this year than usual because they didn’t treat the lake area with the same treatment they normally use. I’m lost on the finer details but I basically rushed through my chores and tent set up (and donned long sleeves).

Had a quick meal from my bag of goodies, then took a walk to the nearby convenience stores to buy repellent. It’s interesting in Europe many of the campsites are so close to towns or shops. Many even have restaurants.

Sadly, no luck. The only thing to do was get in my tent way before sundown and read my book.

Let’s laugh at the mosquitos who could no longer get me.

Good night! Thanks for reading.

Today's ride: 131 km (81 miles)
Total: 880 km (546 miles)

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