Have you driven a fjord lately?

I haven’t, but I’ve biked one.

Oh my gods, so cold. So wet so raining.

Yesterday, we got to flensburg, which, although in germany, is a fjord. I didn’t know it at the time. The rain was unrelenting, so we sat at a cafe for a loooong time. I sewed velcro to my bag. And we sat some more.

Then we biked to denmark. Oh my goodness, so exciting.  The landscape difference between northern germany and denmark is striking. Different trees, different land shapes wow. That bjork film ‘dancer in the dark’ was filmed in denmark, i think. It was reminding me of that with grey skies. Kind of put a bit of a downer on my i-can’t-believe-how-far-i’ve-biked high.

And then our route went directly through the best preserved nazi concentration camp. All the buildings and gaurd towers are still standing.  Happy blahblahblahing went to silence and trying npt to cry. We went to the amnesty international exhibit. This shit isn’t over. People are still being killed for their religion, their political beliefs, their gender, their gender expression, being queer, etc etc. As we left it started to rain again.

Our royte npw takes down a lot of dirt roads. Denmark has a whole heck of a lot of them. Uphill in wet sand is teh suck.  Harder packed sand is ok. I didn’t know i would need mountain bile tires for this trip. I keep getting stuck and having to push my way free.

So far, the dirt roads have talen us over two out of three famous stone bridges. They’re old. At least one of them has no cement at all.

Last night, we went to stay in a kro. This is some sort of danish hostel. Alas, the kro on our route closed years ago. At 7:00, the former kro owner directed us to a bed and breakfast some 3km east. It staryed pouring down rain on the way. While the sun brightly shown. It was practically tropical. The double rainbow made a complete circle, ending at my bike tire (alas, no pot of gold). It was amazing. The fields were SO golden. The rain felt warm from the effort of pedalling uphill. It was amazing.

When i got to the b&b, i was cmpletely soaked, down to my skin. They wouldn’t take dogs.  We rode a few k south, looking for a campground on the map. Spent an hour going up a loose wet sand road. No camping. Got out my car map. Went 7k east looking for a marked hotel. No hotel.  It was then 22:00. Dark. Cold.

We went to a farmers field and pitched a tent there. In the dark. It was so cold. We were still wet. Xena was shivering. She insisted on sleeping in our sleeping bag with us.  She was wet and dirty, but it was so cold out, that we let her, just so she could help keep us warm.

We woke up realy eary this morning and paked up. It would suck to get run over by a corn tractor thing, although not too much danger of that, really.

Today has been cold and raining. I bought a fleece b;anket for xena so she will stop shivering. We went all on dirt roads today, until we got to aabenraa, another fjord.

I am wearing leg warmers, arm warmers, the liner from my rain jacket and the jacket over my bike shorts and slightly thicker jersey.  I am so cold. I am not leaving this cafe ever. It’s warmish in here. I hardly notice how wet my feet are.

Xena is shivering. This is august! I feel like mark twain in san francisco. I heard it’s supposed to be better tomorrow.  I hope. I hope. Brrr.