Being as I wasn't physically tired the night before, and having not particularly encountered any real check-in issues in Jiangsu, it was a rare evening where I showered and changed into normal people clothing before eating dinner.

Being mentally exhausted meant that I ordered my meal mostly by pointing at the picture menu on the wall¹ and spent the whole meal looking at my phone instead of allowing people to engage with me. This is important because, when—after a very strange² cup of Fourth Wave³ coffee from a local chain⁴—I came back the next day for lunch (accompanied by my bike, dressed in bike clothes, and wearing a bandana on my head), they were super excited over having had two foreign customers in two days, and made a point of letting me know that my Chinese is substantially better than the probably-a-teacher who came in for dinner late the night before.

I often fidget with and adjust my bandana  when I don't have my helmet (and Hat) on, but out of consideration for the possibility that they might be embarrassed if my curls made enough of an appearance for them to realize that they'd just told me I speak better Chinese than me, I decided not to.

Feeling apprehensive about my rear tire despite having found a tire patch guy (who would patch my tubes but wouldn't sell me a patch kit with known good glue or functioning patches), I spent large portions of the day feeling the need to pull over by the side of the road for the sole purpose of squeezing my tire and confirming that it still wasn't leaking. I suspect that part of this is changing from a slightly knobby tire⁵ to an almost slick  one as well as the minor handling differences that happen when you change widths. Of course, with the number of flats I got in Jiangsu, it's just as likely that nothing other than my confidence was the slightest bit out of whack.

Careful investigation of Maps allowed me to get myself all the way to the provincial border without ever having to take the current straight, wide, fast (and possibly littered with more sharp bits of wire from old radial tires) truck road. For much of it the road I was instead on had—as seen by the ghostly detritus of engine repair shops or public security traffic safety checkpoints—once upon a time, been the truck road but was now relegated to local traffic only and was delightfully empty most of the time.

It also had some vague hints of scenery or terrain. Not like actual scenery or actual terrain per se, just that, in comparison to the past two weeks, and until I crossed the border, it very nearly seemed like scenery.

Then, despite being forced onto one of those divided highways but with level crossings and houses that were a popular (and fucking dangerous) method of road upgrading twenty years ago, I crossed into Shandong and I got actual scenery and actual terrain.

I even had to change gears for a reason other than the speed I felt like going.

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¹ I also used my words. But they remembered my using the picture menu.

² Watermelon Juice† Americano

† Tasted like Watermelon Jolly Ranchers

³ On account of it clearly being something completely fucking different than Third Wave Coffee, I've just—in reference to the three generally recognized waves‡ of the popularization of coffee—coined this term to describe the low cost Chinese coffee chains producing highly drinkable coffee-based products that are even less "a cup of coffee" than Starbucks' Frappucinos are.

‡ The Dutch coffeehouses that fueled the Enlightenment, Maxwell House and other prepackaged preground "branded" coffees, and Starbucks.

⁴ Even if there had been a convenient surface in my room upon which to make the coffee, it wasn't a joyful place to spend any unnecessary amount of time 

⁵ I prefer slicks but the best tire is the one that's available for sale where I am when I need a new tire.