July 28, 2022
Day 3: To Ertebølle
I woke up this morning to a very happy young man beside me smiling at me. It had been a good night for all of us with not too much waking up, and it was so nice to lie in the tent together as a family for a bit before starting the day, with such a happy baby again.
It took us a while to pack up and eat breakfast though and Kevin needed a nap in the trailer. Then he was wide awake for the three kilometre cycle into the nearby town of Aars. We try to time the cycling with his naps but it was nice to look over my shoulder and see him awake and looking around with wonder and curiosity in his eyes as I cycled. In Aars we found a lovely park to stop and take our first break in.
We then followed a bike path alongside a road towards Farsø. Kevin was asleep in the back and everything was fine. But although he always naps in the trailer he doesn’t always nap for a long time. It was around 12 kilometres and just before we reached Farsø Kevin started to cry. He had never done that in the trailer before, he always just sits patiently even when he wakes up. So I stopped and immediately he stopped crying. Dea spoke to him and he seemed okay so we carried on, but he was soon wailing again. We really couldn’t keep going with him like that so we stopped on a patch of grass, less than 100 metres from the start of Farsø, and took him out.
After Dea had given him some milk we put him back in the trailer and rode into town. Unfortunately Kevin was soon crying again and we weren’t able to make it to the park we planned to go to, having to stop on another patch of grass instead. It was a fine enough spot under the shade of some trees though. We took a long break here until Kevin was in better spirits, during which there was suddenly some discussion about how feasible cycling to Belgium really was. It just isn’t possible to keep cycling at all with a distressed baby in the back, but what if there was nowhere to stop, what if it was raining, etc? And what if Kevin kept crying like that every time now, we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. We have joked many times about how he is the boss, but in this case he really is. If he doesn’t want to cycle to Belgium then there is no way we can do it.
From Farsø there were no more bike paths the last 15 kilometres to Ertebølle, and no obvious places to stop on the smaller roads we had to take. So there was double worries about cycling in traffic with our baby for the first time, as well as the chance that he might start crying again and we’d be in a difficult spot. But on both counts everything turned out fine. As you may have noticed we are quite visible and with Dea cycling behind the trailer Kevin was quite safe. He was also quite awake after finishing his nap a while before Ertebølle, but he just sat patiently and quietly as he usually had done. It may have just been that he was too hot or something before, but thankfully he seemed to be back on board with the bike trip now.
Ertebølle is a special place for Dea and her family, as she explained at our next stop after we’d constructed some shade from the tent and one of the bikes. Her grandfather had brought her father here when he was young, he in turn had brought Dea, and now she was bringing her own son. And it was clear how this was a special place from the views over Limfjord that she showed to Kevin a short walk from our rest area. Really a beautiful place.
From there it was just a kilometre or so on a bumpy gravel road to the summer house that was our destination for this journey. That was enough to put Kevin to sleep though, and his grand entrance to his uncle and grandparents was put on hold as we left him to sleep in the corner for an hour or so. When he woke up he was the star of the show of course, dazzling everyone with his unbelievable charm and cuteness. It felt good to have made it.
Overall I think the ride here went as well as we could have hoped. The episode with Kevin crying has made us question a few things, but on balance he really does seem happy in the trailer. If anything, it’s good to now know that he will at least let us know if there is something he isn’t happy about, and he knows that we will stop if he wants us to. I really feel like it is so good for him to be spending so much time outside and to be experiencing so many different things, but if he says no, we don’t do it.
Now we have a couple of days off the bike to regroup, enjoy a party, and then it’s time to do it all again as we head back towards home.
Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 81 km (50 miles)
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