From the getgo, I wasn't in love with my hotel. In point of fact, after getting my stuff into the room and my clothing into the washing machine, I discovered a number of other places that could have potentially been better. Of course, since I didn't ask their prices or look at their facilities, they also could have been worse.

But, they could have been better.

From the fuss and bother over my wanting to put my bicycle indoors for the night (don't worry, it's just a bike, its not like anyone would steal a bike) to the overly cold air conditioning needed to ensure that my not-as-clean as I'd like laundry was dry by morning, the place just didn't sit right with me.

This was compounded, come morning, by the mother or mother-in-law of the owner playing math games with returning my key deposit in ways that would have resulted in a less savvy traveler getting dinged by a couple of dollars.

When the room itself is only ten bucks, it becomes a not insignificant amount to get an extra two dollar surcharge because an old lady is pretending to be confused by simple addition and subtraction.

It's not that I actively care that much so much as it is a lack of anything else to really remember about the day.

My turns-out-to-be-from-here colleague Bill Liu says that traffic on this particular stretch of National Road used to be hell. However, from the perspective of someone who has been on some truly scary and unpleasant Chinese roads, it's obvious that his recollection is based on a narrower version of this road, that hadn't yet been straightened, in the days before ubiquitous traffic cameras and mobile weigh stations.

I mostly just find it boring.

I have a possible point of divergence at Xinfeng where I thought I'd be going into the mountains but the only bookable online hotel is a rural B&B where I flub my phoned in attempt to get an influencer discount and the only non-bookable-online place to answer their phone costs more than I think appropriate for a place looking like the photo found on Maps.

Since Covid, I'm also unwilling to definitively plan on ending someplace without at least three confirmed options and, if I go that way, the next place down the road is not only too far, it's also another "not bookable online" spot that isn't answering their phone.

Choosing to instead stick with the G105 Beijing/Macao trunk route, I've got scads of daylight left to me when I get to where I think I'm going so I sit, look over my options, fail again at the influencer thing (this time by calling a hotel that is listed on my backend as having special reception options for people like me and getting told "no, we don't"), and—picking the first place inside Nankang City—promptly get into a 20km race with the sunset.

It's listed "mainland Chinese only" on the OTA but, from the Front Desk staff's clear knowledge of a passport and what to do with it, it's obvious that this is yet another example of the OTA assigning a status to a hotel without checking with the hotel.

I will regret not following up on the sign in the lobby about washers (and dryers!) but I'm so tired after getting my clothes off that I crawl into bed and zonk out by 9pm.