Two nasty hotel fights in two days, it's almost like being back during Covid times.

Although I'm still on the National Road, the scenery has improved as much as the weather has degraded. I had the option to take a smaller road that would almost certainly be far more enjoyable but it left me with few choices in terms of lodging and put me in some potentially complicated terrain over the next few days. The clincher in my decision, however, was the pain in my right thumb joint radiating up my arm to a huge bundle of tension in my shoulder  Although often worse at the end of the day, it doesn't seem to be biking related, and I've bought a thumb brace to be delivered a few days ahead of my current location.

Although that location is due north of the non-trunk route option, the only really feasible way to get to it involves my taking the truck route option. I tell myself that a close look at the new and old roads as drawn on the regular map and topo map indicate that I'll be pushing myself harder for no particular gain but it's a lie and I know it.

Starting the day with some really nice people in a convenience store offering to buy me breakfast (before discovering that everything on the street was shut for Dragonboat Festival) and a wonderful random lunch that I remember nothing of but tasting good, I end up weighing the rain and the level of throb in my thumb and taking a codeine.

It reduces the pain to where it's no longer distracting but it has the side effect of making me a nervous Nellie with regards to speed or potentially not perfectly safe side roads¹. From the next day's fatigue levels, I suspect that I also power my way up hills in higher gear than I would have done if I wasn't medicated.

Almost immediately after passing through the city I was almost but not quite in the night before, I come to a pair of stone bridges across the Wenxi River. I swear that my actual interests lie in ephemera and bad art but I have to admit, I've kind of gotten to the point where I know enough about bridges and bridge architecture that I find myself seeking out more bridges and bridge knowledge.

Not wanting to find my way down to their respective approaches in the rain, I guess from my vantage point on the modern bridge (2003) that the farthest downstream and partially collapsed bridge was built in 1980 and the bridge in the middle was built no later than 1880. I base this on a lack of decorative elements on either bridge (lions or dragonheads for the older bridge, Revolutionary Slogans on the newer), the visible construction materials in the partially collapsed bridge, the concrete safety railings on that one, the narrow cobblestone road on the other one, and the shape of the abutments on the upstream side where the pylons might get hit by debris during a flood.

According to the person who shows up in my comments section five or six hours after I post, the older bridge was built in 1756, mostly washed out in 1797, and rebuilt during the reign of the Daoguang Emperor (1820-1850), while the newer bridge was built in 1961, washed out in 1969, and rebuilt in 1972.

I'm actually kind of suprised by the 1972 date on account of the total lack of any visible Maoist anythings, and although I'm not actually keeping score, refrain from awarding myself any points in the ongoing game of "Can I Figure Out How Old This Is Without Being Told" but I figure my distant vantage point (in the rain no less!) means I totally get points for the historic bridge.

After the bridges, it's some pretty but uninteresting road all the way to the first tunnel. Built, like the modern bridge, in 2003, I'm pretty sure I have figured out where the original road was and pretty sure it would have been better but, as previously mentioned, the knowledge that I'm on codeine makes me skittish.

Even as someone whose extreme hatred of tunnels has only been slightly lessened by the advent of electric lighting in almost all of them, said tunnel is barely worth noticing. The one after it, however, is 1,310m long.

I can't say for certain what decision I would have made if I hadn't had the codeine in me, but the knowledge that I tend to be a lot more reckless on certain painkillers (well, at least Tramadol²) and those "don't operate heavy machinery" warnings have me going out of my way to account for potential impairment on my part and I walk the whole thing.

Underground for 20 minutes as I'm a slow walker who must have her back pressed against the wall for the duration of any passing vehicle, the closer I get to the light at the end the prouder I am that I did the whole thing without hyperventilating even once. Then, I get to the end and discover that the low traffic level may have been because it's pissing down rain outside.

At least it's all downhill at National Road grades from here to a destination town with three marked hotels, none of which have online booking, but with one already called and confirmed open despite the holiday.

I don't like the look of that one as I pass it in search of food, but—while I'm eating at the only open place I could find—the second one, which I do like the look of, also answers their phone and tells me they've got vacancies.

Until, that is, I show up and look ethnic at them. Then, so sorry, it was such a long time since you called (25 minutes), didn't think you were coming, we sold out, go somewhere else with just enough being nice about it that there's plausible deniability regarding whether or not I'm actually being apologized to or being told to go fuck myself.

So, arriving at number three (conveniently located between two and one), I call again to confirm that they've got rooms, and then call a third time from the lobby rather than just wait for the adult to come back from the kid running to go find her.

It's a hard "no foreigners" no way, no how, with a sky forty minutes past sunset throwing down buckets of rain. 

"Go to the county seat (40km away). We can't/won't take you," she says. And, then, she makes a shooing motion at me with her hand.

"So, actually, the way this thing goes is that your choices are between selling me a room for tonight or my sleeping on this couch in your lobby" I say as I sit down, kick off my shoes, and—starting with my dripping wet socks and muddy compression stockings—begin to make a point of getting undressed.

There's some raised voices from both sides. And, because she knows she's being a twat, in combination with my unenviable position of not having a reservation³, I have to be particularly horrible before I succeed at getting the police called on me. By which point I have—in addition to attempting to register myself (failed when she turned off the computer)—taken all the keycards, found an empty room, let myself in, taken my luggage to that room, and scanned the QR to pay for it.

The police are not exactly what you would call happy with me and I make them unhappier still by taking photos that I not only refuse orders to delete but also openly make a point of being seen sharing over WeChat. 

However, because I've done this far more times than I want to think about, I've left them very little wiggle room to do anything other than figure out how to register me on the computer.

Which (because admitting that I know how to use their system when they don't is a point of stiff-necked pride) is a painful half hour of them asking someone questions over the phone, my giving them the answers, and them telling me all the reasons my answers are wrong before eventually being told the same answers by the person on the phone.

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¹ Considering the state of my brake pads when I get them replaced two days later, this might not have been a bad thing.

² After regularly catching myself doing "not smart" things and occasionally catching myself doing "potentially dangerous" things when using Tramadol as a painkiller, the straw that broke the camel's back and had me telling my doctor to never give it to me again was the time I decided it wasn't working quickly enough, took three, realized I was high, decided I liked being high, added my last four codeine, and went biking ....... on a truck route.

³ If I'd had a reservation, I could have called the police on her.