The Flight Home

Jacob and I both started the day at midnight, wide awake, he doing something or other on his phone and I typing up the updates for the previous two days, trying to stay awake. Jacob didn't fall asleep until he got to the Stansted Airport (an airport which isn't really in London--it's about an hour's train ride (not underground, train) away) around 5 in the morning. I, on the other hand, decided to sleep for a while, waking up at 9, didn't move for a good hour, and then packed up all my crap into my giant green dufflebag and tiny blue backpack (with only a little difficulty), and then checked out around 10:30. Fortunately, I could leave said giant green 19.5kg (43lb) dufflebag in the Hostel as I got lunch.

I intended on finding out where one of our dormmates was working for the day so that I could go visit. She is an Asain woman (China, I think), about 24 years old, and a very proficient programmer, from what she told us. However, her English isn't very good and as a result companies won't hire her. She decided to move to the UK for a while to attend uni. Today, though, she had her first day of training, learning how to be a barista. Sadly, I never found out where she was working, so she couldn't make me a cup 'o joe.

Our other roommate, however, had nothing doing that whole day, and agreed to get lunch with me. She is 23 and originally from Hong Kong, but is now at San Francisco State University. After a few difficulties getting started (the dorm room door lock broke), we walked through the rain (of course) to the tube and went to Leicester Square for some brunch. We went to a place called Garfunkel's, but sadly they mostly played newer songs and not those of the restaurant's namesake. I got the fish & chips and a latte, knowing I'd have to stay up for over 18 hours, and she got a pasta and soup. We chatted as two people usually do: what do you do, how's life where you live, what're your plans in London, tell me all your secrets, what did you eat for dinner 232 days ago...you know, normal stuff. Her English was almost impeccible; there were a few phrases she found difficult.

Shortly before we departed once more into the 100% humidity, an elderly man sat down at the table next to us. He wore a Yankees' cap and red jacket, though looked quite British (I can tell the difference, you know) and spoke in a London accent. I tried to talk to him, to find out his life experiences, but as with most older gents and ladies, the conversation was slow-going, and I needed to leave for the airport. As we walked out, he wished me safe travels, and I thanked him.

The roommate and I departed at the nearest underground station, leaving with a snapchat message (hers) and a goodbye (both of ours). "The Sound of Silence" played in my head.

I managed to get my bag to Heathrow and myself onto the plane in time. As the plane rumbled off the airstrip, I thought of the walls that Jacob and I saw throughout the UK. In the US, when you want to separate two plots of farm land, you set up a fence, or plant a bush, or us it as a small private road. However, from what we saw, in the UK, you build a stone wall.

These stone walls aren't impersonal; they're only four feet tall, and look quite poorly put together, as though they might fall. Yet they likely stay standing for centuries, as the quantity of moss (or is it a lichen) growing on many of them can attest to. Jacob and I both found them quite asthetically pleasing: they rolled across the countryside, splitting off in all directions at the corners of plots of land and going this way and that, enclosing sheep and cows within their warm, inviting, mossy (licheny?) surfaces.

Whenever I looked at them as we biked, I couldn't help but think, "Somebody, or some group of people at one point decided to gather those thousands, millions, hundreds of millions of stones, move them onto a designated imaginary line that they probably made up, and stack them. These walls likely changed owners over the years, but they still do the same thing now as they did then: separate land and keep in animals. Those people from generations past set the framework for those in the present to work off of and use. And here these walls are today, still intact, barely modified, and overall, quite beautiful."

Day 8: We're Done With This Shit

NOTE: I double-updated today. Day 7 should be below. 

We woke up early today and somehow (I'm still not exactly sure how) we got out of Oxford by 8:30. It was raining (as per yuszche) and actually quite cold, though nothing really happened for the whole morning. Yeah, we took a few wrong turns. Sure, we got lost twice. And while I admit that we were wet, cold, and tired by noon, we were doing fairly well. 

Then, disaster struck (as per yuszche). I got a flat. I probably realized it faster than yesterday since it was the front tire, not the back. Unfortunately, we still didn't have a wrench. Fortunately, I got this flat in a very small town (really just a couple of gardening shops), and there was an antique store where a passerby told my I should be able to find a wrench. I go inside, explain to the owner my horrid situation, and if he has a wrench that I can borrow. He goes through a white door and brings out an open orange tool box with about thirty wrenches inside. "Will this work?" he asks. "I'm sure one of them will fit," I say with a chuckle. I bring the box out into the insistent drizzle, and try a couple; the second one Jacob tries works. Armed with our expertise from watching the bike shop owner from yesterday, we remove the wheel from the bike, pull one side of the tire off of the wheel, pull the inner tube out of the tire, check the inside of the tire for stuff that might re-poke the inner tube, find a piece of rock lodged in there, pump up the wheel, find the hole...and get stuck there. We intended to patch up the old tire that broke yesterday, but never exactly got around to it. Between biking a lot, dinner, and sleep, we didn't exactly have time (although I suppose we could've made time). Anyways, after a little trial and error, we manage to get the patch on, and it seems to hold well enough after pumping it up a little. We reattach the wheel, pump it up as well as possible (it is still quite flat due to our weak hand pump, but seems to hold), and head on our way. For one mile. 

You see, my bike was dying on me. As a result of the tire changes, the brakes were all messed up. (I bet the week straight of biking without a tune-up didn't help.) By that point, my back brake did absolutely nothing, and my front one didn't do much either. We went one mile to Tring, got some lunch, and decided to catch a train to London instead of biking the remaining thirty miles. We biked two miles to the nearest station, bought two (relatively cheap) tickets, got on it, and relaxed as we rode on tracks instead of bikes into the Euston Station.

Now I know what you're thinking: 
CHEATERS.
But calm yourself. In that situation, that was probably the best option we had. By that point, neither of my brakes really worked (it took a good twenty feet of squeezing the brakes completely to stop from going ten miles per hour), so it would have been dangerous to continue as we had been. Additionally, we had to get to London by 19:00 because that's when the bike shop from which we rented our bikes closed. And finally, we were tired. We had already biked forty miles by that point, which is plenty for most people. Additionally, you have to remember that we did bike at least three hundred seventy miles in the past eight weeks. 30/400=7.5% of the total trip that we intended to bike, we took the train instead. 

If you still think we should have continued, I simply don't give a single damn. So get over it. 

Day 7: The OTHER Kind of Bike

Today was an all-around frustrating and difficult day. We got up early, but sat in a Patiserie Valerie (a London-based pastry chain) for breakfast as I typed my two-day post, and left SuA by around 10.

As soon as we got out of the city and onto National Cycle Network 5,  we passed a boxcar, in which there was a little bike shop and cafe. "That's neat," I said, reading the sign that says, "bikes here." No more than two hundred feet later, I noticed that biking and keeping up with Jacob had become quite difficult. In addition, every couple feet, I'd hit a little bump in my back wheel, even when it was smooth. I tried calling out to Jacob, but he was too far away. After another half-mile of weaving in-and-out of people, dogs, and puddles (it was a very popular path, plus it's a holiday), I finally got close enough to Jacob that, when I rang my bell repeatedly, he stopped. "Hey Jacob, I call out as I approach him, "I think something's wrong with my bike." Jacob takes one glance at my back wheel and says, "Oh, you have a flat." "Shit." We put my bike on the ground and take out our bike repair kit that my mom packed, but quickly realized that the first tool we need, a wrench, we don't have. "Why don't we go back to that bike shop," Jacob offers. We agree to do so, and Jacob rides off as I walk my bike, slowly but surely, along the path. When I eventually get there, Jacob and the bike shop owner (sorry, I'm really bad with names, but I forgot yours) were chatting. He fixed the wheel relatively fast, but slowly enough to make sure that we saw exactly what to do. We then talked for a bit about our journey thus far, and while we proclaimed our feat at Kirkstone Pass, he said that he did this other challenge where they bike every pass in the Lake District. "That sounds awful," Jacob says. The guy nodded. "By the time I got to Kirkstone (I went down the part you went up), I couldn't bend my thumbs, so I couldn't use my brakes." He told us a few more of his experiences, and then we were off.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful; the only very interesting thing was that we passed dozens of bikers on road bikes, who were doing a hundred-mile ride¹ to support the fight against cancer. There were apparently about a thousand people doing it. 

The day was uneventful until we were about twenty miles from Oxford. We checked the map, and it told us to go right onto a small country rode. To the left of the entrance to the road, there was a sign that said something about motorcycles, but I didn't really look at it. Opposite the entrance, there was a gated area, which gate looked quite beautiful. We followed the road until it split off to the right and straight, and checked our map again. Google told us to continue straight, on a muddy, unpaved road. We make our way down that and across a river and then have to walk our bikes up a hill that is too steep and muddy to ride on. We get to the top and start pedalling on a road that looks not unlike the towpath from the day prior, except with two paths instead of one, a grass strip separating them, and no danger of falling into very dirty water. To our right we hear a buzzing noise that sounds like either a crapload of angry bees or a bunch of ATVs. "At least it's not raining," I say. "Shush," Jacob responds, "it's probably going to rain now, just because you said that." 

We keep going, eventually getting onto a cement road that's still grassy and partially flooded, which then leads to a fork. We opt to go left, since the right path looked particularly wet and google didn't seem to be of much help at that time. We followed it for a little bit, and then it started to look less like a path or road and more like the space inbetween the cushions after years of not cleaning it: dirty, unsafe to go into, and overgrown (with plants, not mold). Through most of it, we had to walk our bikes to get ourselves through and to better avoid spikes on the ground. To the left was a fence and behind that, sheep; in all other directions, more brush. 

Eventually we got out of the brush and ended up on a more road-like-road. Except now we were in the middle of nowhere. No matter which direction we looked, we could see no defining features or identifiable landmarks. We were just in the middle of a field. Jacob pulled out his phone to use the gps, but his compass wasn't working. I figured out via the sun and time which way was west. To the west is a small airplane landing strip; to the north is what looks like a low ropes course, complete with a wall; to the east are bunch of parking spots for small planes, a couple warehouses and silos; and to the south is the forest from which we came.  Jacob then said that we need to go east, and I followed him. We follow the path a little bit...and find ourselves back at that fork mentioned earlier. 

Jacob examines his phone's map and finds an alternate route that is a half mile longer than the route google gave us. We bike back on the crappy path, past the sound of the motorcycles, and eventually we see this view of the gate.

Before we take a right onto the road, I look back at the sign to the left of the road from which we just came. It said:

New Motorcross Course!

Bring Your Bike!

Questions? Call 0123456789

We are not responsible for any injuries.

The whole loop took about an hour and a half.

Dammit, Google Maps.

Eventually, somehow, someway, we arrived in Oxford, biked around a bit, saw this,

ate dinner, got to our airbnb host's house, planned out the next day's route, crashed, and showered (not necessarily in that order).






¹ While a hundred miles may seem like a lot, you have to remember a few differences between our journeys: first, they are on roadbikes, we are on hybrids; second, we are each carrying at least thirty pounds on our bikes (i.e. all our stuff) while they just have a bar and some water; third, theirs is a one-day ordeal, whereas ours is a week-long ordeal.<sup>2

2</sup> Yes, this is an excuse.

Days 5 & 6: Of Rubbish and Rubble

NOTE: I made a slight addition to the second part of yesterday's post, currently marked in red. I'll change the coloring once I'm done with the trip, but for now, it stays.

On Friday, we tried to take advantage of our off day. We got up at 8:30 and walked around an empty Ambleside for a little bit, then went into a Costa for a couple lattes. At 9, as per a local couple's suggestion, we went to Daisy's Cafe for breakfast just as it opened. While there, the male co-owner/manager/husband pointed out places to go in the Northern Windermere area, including a waterfall, a Roman fort, and a bridge house as we ate a delicious egg breakfast. 

We headed back to the hostel and packed everything up as quickly as possible and managed to check out by ten, allowing us to not pay a fee. Jacob went down to the lobby first, and by the time I got there, he was talking to an American man who sounded like he was from the northern midwest. He was bald (or at least shaved), had wrinkly but weathered hands, and talked with an air of authority, or perhaps more likely arrogance. He was one of those guys where you can't exactly tell whether or not he is being sarcastic or sardonic, or is just talking like he normally does. 

I figured out quite quickly that he is an experienced cyclist based on his conversation with Jacob. "Do you know about warm showers?" he asks at some point. We shake our heads "no." "OK, come with me to the self-serve dining area. You can leave your shit here, nobody's going to take it," he says, referring to our panniers. "Our passports are in here," I say to Jacob; we take them with us. He sits us down at a table, opens up his small acer netbook, and opens up warmshowers.com. "This is a website that lets you stay with other bikers for free. You can look at where your going, call them, and stay for a night or two. The hosts and bikers get rated, so you can see who you're staying with." "Like couchsurfing?" I ask. "Yeah, like couchsurfing, only with this you stay with other bikers and you're not sleeping on a couch." We leave with all our shit, including our passports, to check out the sites in Ambleside.

The Roman Fort wasn't much to see; it was only raised rectangular ground with stone markings where different parts of the fort were. We couldn't go far, since cattle gates surrounding the fort prevented us from biking through it and had to leave our bikes outside. I did learn that the corners of the fort were curved and had watch towers on them, so that a watchman can easily survey the area and the inside wall of the fort. However, the people who occupied this spot were often killed in action. The waterfall wasn't very impressive, despite being difficult to get to, especially on bikes. Imagine the Euclid Creek, only on a slightly steeper slope. The last place we visited in Ambleside before leaving for Windermere to catch a train was the Bridge House, a cute two-story house that is right on top of the river that runs through Ambleside. We didn't get a chance to go inside, since there was a tour going on, but I took a picture anyway.

Once we got to Birmingham (no puke!) we rode with the aid of a local to our destination... and very quickly got lost. I eventually had to take wifi from a restaurant and message the host. 
The area that we were in seemed very sketchy, with trash on the ground and worn-down storefronts. That, in addition to the constant rain that seemed to plague us, made us all-the-more want to get inside. When we finally found the place, our host Manu opened the door, helped us get our bikes in, and took us upstairs. 

Manu is about six foot three, is skinny, has a curly black short beard and hair, and has fairly pale skin. He speaks with an accent that was a mix between proper English, Eastern-European, and Middle-Eastern. 

As he takes upstairs, he apologizes for the condition of the building: whenever he complains about something, the landlord doesn't bother to fix it for a month. For that reason, Manu is painting one of the rooms himself. We go up two flights of stairs and enter a floor that seems more like a bad college dorm than an apartment building. Manu shows us our room: a relatively large (about hotel-sized) single room with two beds in it, a large tweety poster hanging on one wall, and a more abstract painting hanging on the wall opposite. He shows us how to lock and unlock the door to our room, as it is a little fidgety and hard to operate, and recommends that we try it out a little while the door is open so we don't lock ourselves in. He then hands me a keychain with one typical, modern key (for the street door) and one old-fashion key (for the room door), saying not to go to hard on the old key, as it is prone to breaking. He tells us that the toilets are down the hallway, and to take a shower, we have to push a button to turn on a pump. 

We decide to walk around the city center to find dinner, and eventually find a Carribbean place that looks, sounds, and smells quite delicious. The ask for identification at the door, making me glad that I'm eighteen and have my license with me. Jacob later explains upon my asking that they probably assume anybody who comes in is going to drink, and they don't want to have the waiters do it. I could see the bartenders, and they did look both skilled and busy. We decided to stick to water and forgo the alcoholic options. The food was spicy and delicious, and we both left quite happy and full. 

On our way back, we decided to get a taxi even though it was a twenty minute walk, just because the neighborhood in which we were staying worried us a little. On our way, the cabbie said that we were staying in the rubbish part of town. "To the left of this road, it's nice and fancy, but expensive, but to the right, it's rubbish. Drugs, prostitution, you know." With that culture shock, we run inside and get up to our room. As I make a couple necessary skype calls, Jacob looks up the area and finds some interesting information, including the fact that, of all the crime in Birmingham, 10% of it takes place in that area, and that about a week ago, somebody was murdered in a nearby park. 

That said, Manu was a great host and was very nice and did his best to accomodate us, but that area did have us a little worried. We made it out safely and completely intact, and even had a pleasant large breakfast the following morning a nearby cafe run by a Hungarian woman that Manu recommended (still in the "rubbish" part of town). As we left, I compared it to Glendale, and Jacob said "sure." We agreed that, if anything, it was an experience.




I suppose that today was just a day full of experiences, because it rained. A lot. I'm pretty sure that if you took a parking lot and examined the amount of rain that falls onto it, and then compared the weights of the fallen rain and the asphalt in said lot, you would find that the values were about the same. I.E. it literally rained the equivalent of a lot. According to Manu, the last week was beautiful and gorgeous and sunny, but this week has been horrible. I suppose that I picked the wrong week to follow my ancestors' bike treads (and stop sniffing glue, etc.) 

In addition to this insistent precipitation, we rode on what I can easily say is the worst possible road to bike on. Ok, the word "road" is generous. We rode on a towpath. 

The bridge we took to get onto that accursed towpath

When you here towpath, you might think of the one along the Cuyahoga River. Whether you imagine how it used to be--overgrown and underfinanced, and covered with weeds--or how I believe it is now--suitable for walking, biking, walking your mule, and overall paved--neither is what we experienced. The best way I can describe this towpath is such: there came several points in time along our 8-mile journey that we were unsure where the towpath ended and the canal started. At first, we attempted to avoid these tiny reservoirs, but our shoes quickly soaked and so we came to give so little of a shit whether or not we hit a puddle, you would not want to divide any number by the amount of shit we gave (you cannot divide by zero). At many points inbetween the lakes on the canal, it was so muddy that I'd have to get off my bike and walk it through, just so my weight doesn't push the bike down even further. 

At one point along the way, we approached a bridge (from the underside, of course) and saw a mutt and a pair of legs. Not wanting to run into any trouble and wishing one of us had taken Mr. Breisch's "Homelessness" class, we opt to go up the path and onto the road instead of under the bridge. We then try to rejoin the canal by following it from above, and eventually get to a small church that stands right next the canal. We go through a part of the graveyard and see a man in a blue jacket, jeans, and a hat, carrying a small bag. For some reason or another, we explain why we didn't go under the bridge, and the man says, "Well he won't do anything to you. Just go past him!" He then explains that we can probably rejoin the towpath by going through the graveyard. Two things occur to me as we pass through this graveyard: that man might have been homeless himself; and this church must be really old, because the building didn't look that large, but there were more than a thousand gravestones there.

As we stumbled along, every so often we'd come to a gate. I'm not exactly sure why they decided it would be a good idea to put gates along the path since I can't imagine anybody ever wanting to use it (we passed no more than 15 people along the way, all walkers), but when they were closed, they were quite a nuiscence. There was always a path for walkers (always flooded), but the place for bikes, strollers, and golf carts was often blocked by a locked steel gate. When we came across those locked, cursed gates, Jacob would get on the far side, I on the near, and together we'd lift up the bikes about 4 feet and place them down on the other side, making sure they didn't fall into the canal. And here we thought there were no portages in cycling.

Overall, those eight miles took about 3 hours. 

By the time got to Stratford-upon-Avon (SuA), we had missed Henry IV part 1, but were in time for Henry IV part 2. Though the characters and plot were a little confusing, and the accents were especially hard to understand (I'm convinced that even some of the Brits couldn't understand many of the phrases), we enjoyed the play quite a bit. (SPOILER ALERT: Henry IV is succeeded by his son, Henry V.) 

Day 4: Climb Any Mountain...

Sorry about the late post. The hostel we stayed at last night was horrible, and one of the reasons we thought so was because they asked for money for wifi on top of their already high prices. I'll attach a link to Jacob's scathing review of the place later.

But I digress.

We started off yesterday quite early for us: we got up at 8 to look for a place to eat so we could hit the road. We walked around for a while, and eventually ran into a little storefront with one guy in it, and we both got egg sandwiches. They were great, but our only complaint is that the yolks were hard, not soft (they don't seem to have over-easy here). Then we got some coffee, knowing it would be a hard day. We said farewell to Julie, noting how crazy most of the local restaurant and cafe hours are--at best, 9:00-21:00--and how inconvenient that is. At the very least, we got our food. 

The morning ride was typical, just a little up-and-down on our way towards the lake district. All there is to say is that we found ourselves back on the National Bicycle Network route 7 again, and then later on NBN route 71. 71, however, was called the C2C road, as we soon found out.

Around 1, in Greystoke, we ran into a place that literally could not be more perfect. As we approached a three-way intersection, we slowed down; to our right, on the grass, we saw what looked like a disfigured corpse-like cyclist. Upon closer inspection, we saw that this "biker" was actually made of wire, and was an ornament advertising for the Greystoke Cycle Cafe Tea Garden, aka Annie's. We biked up the gravel driveway and parked our bikes in the shed labelled "Keep you bikes dry here!" It wasn't raining at the time, but we left our pannier rain covers on anyways. 

We heard men's laughter from behind the house, so I approached it and found 7 men dressed in road bike gear sitting around a table under a tin roof on wooden poles, which in turn was in what I assumed was the large "Garden" portion of Annie's title. I introduced myself, and they asked if we were doing the "C2C" trail. I asked what that was, and they responded that it is a trail that goes from the coast to coast of England, including through the lake district. I responded no, we were going from north to south: Glasgow to London. One of them commented that that's a real trip. 

The men were the only people there, though there were a few other tables and a couple canvas water-resisting structures. The house itself where the owner presumably lived was in the shape of an wide L, with the outer corner on the road and the Garden filling that L out into a parallelagram. From the garden, you could see a castle in the distance that we found out is Greystoke Castle (sadly no visitors, though they do weddings...). A single waitress walked out of the inner corner of the house carrying a tray with 7 glasses a clear green liquid with mint leaves on the top. After placing the glasses in front of each biker, she turned to us and said that we could sit under the canvas tent since it looks like it might rain soon. 

We sit down, and she brings us our menus, and after we say that we have a few questions for her, she says, "Go easy on me. Today's my first day here." She tells us that the soup of the day is nettle and the drink special is sage and mint. We immediately order the drinks, and then look over the menu again. "The pasta looks good," I say. "Wait. Shit. How much money do we have?" Jacob looks in his pockets, then goes out to the bikes and gets his wallet. "15 quid," he says. "Did you really just use British slang?" "I've been watching a lot of British Television. Weeds, The Inbetweeners, you know." "Anyways, I have two. That should be enough." We order the pasta with pesto and the soup in addition to two forks and two spoons as the other cyclists head off. While we wait, Jacob checks his bag again and finds a few more pounds. While he was gone, the waitress came out with two piping hot bowls; the pasta filled past the brim and the soup almost. "Careful, they're very hot. I don't feel the heat because I have [insert disease here], but I assure you they're quite hot." The soup is green and reminds me of my dad's leeky potato (leek and potato) soup in colour, but not scent. The pasta is off-white, and has some yellow peppers and leafy spices on it, the pesto giving it a distinct, yet subtle smell. I carefully move the bowl towards me and take a bite of the pasta. "mmm! That's delish!" I say as Jacob sits next to me. He takes a bite of the soup, and after I ask him about it, he too praises its flavour. We gobble down half of each dish, then switch, repeating our praises for the new taste. Shortly after, we count up the money we have and the money we've spent, and decide we have enough to get dessert. We walk into the house and ask about the desserts they have, and they look around and find a peach crumble, and offer to heat it up for us. We accept and sit down.

A few minutes later, they bring it out in a large bowl; they added custard on top "to make it a proper English dish." Again, we gobble it up, and agree that it was the best lunch we'd had in the UK, and probably the most appropriate and perfect one in a long while, if not ever. Jacob refused to compare it to the Thin White Duke, as that was dinner and this was lunch. "Are you sure this isn't dinner and that wasn't supper?" I joked.

We left happy and full as it started to drizzle.

One side of the L

The other side of the L, and part of the garden

The view of the Greystoke Castle from the garden

Let's see...what else did we do that day...
Well, we went down to visit Ullswater Lake, a lake which two guidebooks have called the most beautiful lakes in the lake district. Then again, this morning at Daisy's Cafe, the co-owner pointed out a valley that many call the most beautiful in the Lake District; however the people there would say theirs is the best and those in that valley claim superiority, so we could likely just go anywhere and enjoy it. During the ride down into it, I squeezed both handbrakes so much my arms and hands got tired from having to hold up my weight and fight gravity. 

And we saw this really dangerous-looking wire setup that was kinda like a poorly designed spider web.

Huh. I'm really at a loss as to what else we did. I mean, it's been a whole day and my legs feel quite sore still. Oh, that's right. I can't believe I almost forgot this. As we were biking along Ullswater, my chain came off. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of the road, on the middle of a hill. I walked it up to the nearest flat spot, and with plenty of Jacob's help, managed to reattatch it. It was very strange, as I was simply switching from 1-2 to 1-3.

I feel like I'm missing something. Wait. Fuck. Right. We biked up that.

See those hazy mountains in the center of the picture? We biked on the left side of that. Kirkstone pass is what it's called. The sign at the bottom said that it's three miles long and has a 1,500 foot change in altitude. 

Near the base, it wasn't so bad. I'd say the average grade for the first half mile was about 5%. I kept telling myself for that first part, "Ok, this is the easy part." Looking up the pass, Everclear's version of "She's So High" played in my head. However, that stopped soon after I decided it would be a good idea to go into gears 1-1 and stay there for a good 1200 vertical feet. From there, we could only bike up streches of about 100 feet before having to stop. Each time we'd stop, we'd switch off between drinking water for hydration, eating chocolate for motivation, or just breathing for respiration. In every case, we looked ahead to see where we might srop next. Usually we could go around two bends in the road, but when it got especially steep we only went around one. As I rode and cars passed, I could almost hear the conversation that we'd have were our positions swapped: "Oh my god, are they biking up this hill?" "Yeah, it looks like it." "What do you think the grade is?" "Well, this sign coming up says 13%, but I imagine it's a bit more at parts." "Crazies." "Agreed." 
ADDITION: Near the top, when it got really steep (likely up to 25%), Jacob and I could feel our respective centers of weight shift to near the axle of our back wheels. Jacob mentioned this, and using our reasoning and knowledge of how torque works, I work out and say, "If you feel the front wheel coming up, don't brake or pedal forward." "I know." I take a deep breath. "Shall we, then?" I ask. "Yeah." "Lezgo."

 Once we finally reached the peak, we couldn't help ourselves: we finished the chocolate bar I had and took a crapload of pictures. Here are just a couple.

In case you're wondering, "Why the fuck did they go through Kirkstone Pass when there is a less steep, easier, and a little longer path that let's them not go through torture and seem insane?" I do have an answer for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw&sns=em.

You see, Mary and George supposedly biked this very same path on their way to Windermere. Granted, they probably weren't lugging 30-40 extra pounds of stuff on their bags, but still. We biked a quarter mile of vertical. At least the view coming out was amazing. 

Day 3: A Lost Cause

Today, we got lost. Many times. A ride that was supposed to be 40 miles was more like 50. For the most part, it was alright; the roads weren't too hilly; we didn't get too tired; and the weather was perfect. Plus, Carlisle is a wonderful town.

The first time we got lost, we went straight on B725 instead of turning left at some point. After a few miles, we happened upon a little lookout point, and decided to check it out. It turned out to be a part of the Caerlaverock Nature Reserve. Bordering the small gravel parking lot were vines with yellow flowers, and beyond those was a large sandy beach which, in turn bordered the River Nith. In the distance, we could see a mountain that could easily have been called a hill, the top of which was covered by low, white clouds. After we took a couple pictures, a red minivan drove up, and the person inside waived to me. I waived back. She got out, and I saw that she was an older woman, likely about 70 years old. She rested arms on the wooden fence that separated the road from the lot, and said, "Do either of you boys know where the Animal Rescue Center is?" I responded no, and she said, "Alright. Where are you heading?" I said Carlisle, and briefly explained our trip, and she responded, "I hope the weather stays nice like this. I don't recommend you go out onto that sand, though. A few years back, some people--Chinese, I think--went out onto the sand, looking for cockles [a food like mussels], and the tide came in and they got stranded out there. Twenty of them died, I think, and only one survived." "Oh my god," I responded, "Well, fortunately we'll be sticking to paved roads, and stay away from the beaches. Best of luck in finding the animal shelter!" I said as I bid her fairwell. She hopped into her car, buckled her seatbelt, and was off. 

The second time we got lost was even less bad than the first time. We simply missed a turn, and went an extra few hundred feet on our way into Annan. When we got to Annan, we decided to sit down and have some lunch at a little cafe called The Lounge. We both decided to treat ourselves to sundaes: Jacob got Rocky Road, and I got Chocolate Heaven. It was delicious, the waiters were fantastic, and overall, Annan was a good experience. 

The third time we got lost was on the way from Gretna to Carlisle, the last stretch of our ride today. We made some poor decisions, made plenty of wrong turns, and Jacob was convinced that Google Maps was trying to take us on the full-fledged highway M6. (I looked up later; in fact, we would've gone on a frontage road.) I wanted to just get there, and do whatever it took, but he insisted that we circumvent M6 and take the alternative route: go up to Longtown, and then down to Carlisle. I agreed just because I didn't feel like arguing with him, and we took the Longtown route. (Again, I looked it up, and that added 4 miles to our ride.) At this point, I just wanted to get there, so I hunkered down and got to work, pedalling about as hard as I could, within reason. I didn't notice the road leading to the right. I didn't notice Jacob stopping behind me. I didn't notice if Jacob yelled at me to stop. By the time I got to the next road, A7, I turned around and saw Jacob a long ways away. When he reached me, he said, "Micah! There was a road that you missed a half-mile back." I responded, "I didn't see any road..." "Well you should've looked behind you to see I wasn't there." I said, "Well, we're here now. Let's just take this road and get going." The road was horrible; just like the A713 from yesterday, only less hilly. Fortunately, it took us right into Carlisle, where we managed to get lost one more time looking for the hostel. We finally settled in around 5.


In Carlisle, I decided to take my dad's advice and look for old people with whom I could talk. I walked around for a bit, seaching for wrinkly faces. The first one I found was this woman with white hair and baggy cheeks, and she was waiting in a store front with a grocery bag and a cain. "Excuse me," I said, "I don't mean to be forward or rude, but were you alive in 1939?" She replied in a Scottish accent after turning on her hearing aid and I repeated myself, "Yes, the war." A man got into a cab on the road next to us. "Can you tell me about it? Before and during the war?" "I don't remember anything at all from before the war, and only little bits from after it started." Dismayed, I thanked her and started to leave, but she said, "Where are you from?" "America." "I got that much." "The Great Lakes region. It's in the middle." "Is that near Seattle?" "No, it's east of there." "My son works in Seattle, as a ski instructor." "Oh really?" [this is genuine interest, not sarcasm] "Yeah, he goes up to Vancouver to teach there. I've gone up to visit him there. Canada's a beautiful place. Haven't been to America myself, though." We talk a little bit more, and then I leave. 
The next person I find is a bald man in a motorized wheelchair. "Excuse me," I say, "I don't mean to be forward or rude, but were you alive in 1939?" "No," he replies with a smile in a drawled english accent, "I was born in 1953." I thanked him and left. 

By that time, it was almost 6, and I couldn't exactly find any more old people to talk to, so I found Jacob outside the Carlisle Cathedral. "I tried going to the Castle, but they were closed already. You'd better go into the Cathedral now; it's closing in a couple minutes." I walk inside and hear the service going on at the time through the speaker system. There was a chapel dedicated to those who died while guarding the border. Which border, I'm not so sure; but there was a plaque of some sort with the names of everybody who died doing their duty. It reminded me of Park Synagogue, where we have the names next to the lit wall, only this seemed more extravagent. The service sounded kind of like the silent part of the Amida, only instead of asking God or ourselves to perform miracles, the priest asked Jesus: that the lord Jesus Christ bring health to the sick, joy to the poor, guard over the happy, etc. There was even a stained-glass window that looked like the star of David. I left the Cathedral after the service ended, noting both that all the attendees were tourists and that the gift shop right next to the entrance was closed. 
As Jacob and I walked back to the hostel, I jokingly said, "Do you think that the Carlisle Cathedral gift shop existed when Mary and George were here?" He replied, "No, they've learned to exploit history much more efficiently over the past 70 years." Moments later, he added, "Yeah, the castle closed quite early, but it costs five pounds to get in." "Talk about exploiting history." "Nah," he said, "I get it. Upkeeping a castle costs a lot of money. Think about how hard it is to maintain a house. A castle is so much larger than a house, you'll need more than donations." Later, when we walked around the castle on a seemingly illegal path that was probably fine (we hid from policemen on a lower street), we tried to figure out which parts of the outer wall were new, which were old, and which were part of the original. His guess was as good as mine. 

When Mary and George came to Carlisle, Mary and her friend Marge apparently went up to the front door of either the castle or the cathedral after visiting hours and knocked. First, the maid answered, who called down the Duke that was living there at the time. The Duke's son arrived first, and was apparently very rude. Then the Duke himself showed up and turned out to be quite kind, and decided to give them a private tour. 
We didn't quite match that story, but in celebration of it, we went to see a different Duke. A skinny one, who was very pale. Alright, it was a restaurant called "The Thin White Duke," which turned out to be the right choice, seeing as it was the best meal either of us had had in all of the UK ever. 
Full and happy, we then got a little dessert at a nearby restaurant, and went back to the hostel. 
In our dorm room, we found a girl named Julie, who happened to be visiting Carlisle for a couple days. She is taking a gap year to travel throughout Europe. She asked what there is to do here, and we say to visit the cathedral and castle, but she replies, "Oh, I've seen plenty of those for a lifetime."

Day 2: Baaaaaaaa...

Addendum to yesterday's post:
Bad thing: the left hand brake controls the back wheel, and the right hand brake controls the front wheel (usually it's the other way around).
Good thing: there's so much weight on our back wheels due to the panniers that we don't have to worry about flipping over the front unless we're going on a really steep downhill.
Bad thing: it was so late by the time we got to Ayr, we didn't get to do anything that I planned.
Good thing: my butt's not too sore, my legs aren't too sore, and I'm not overwhelmingly tired.

________________________________________________


Today, I will dub "The Day of the Sheep." We saw thousands. Big sheep. Small sheep. Lambs and Rams. Sheep with a white body and black heads. A single black sheep (yes, only one!) Plain White Sheep (♪"My head is stuck in their fluff/ Their horns make them look so tough/ Bleats "baaaaa, ba ba baaa, ba ba baa."/ I told them, "I'm just passing on through"/ They turn their tails right on cue/ And I watch the things that make you sleep/ As we bike to the rhythm of sheep"♪ [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/plainwhitets/rhythmoflove.html]). 

Whenever we approached a flock or just a small group of sheep, they'd look up from their grassy meals and cud-chewing, and stare straight at us with their large eyes and oval-shaped pupils. A couple might bleat at us, and on occasion we'd bleat back. They are much more agile than you might imagine, and when they ran away from us, we saw the coats on their butts swayed left and right. Most of the sheep with coats were spraypainted orange, red or blue. I figured it was either to identify the sheep as a specific owner's or to say when they need to be sheared. 

Sheep!

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeep!

We were a little worried about the ride for today, since it is 60 miles, and quite hilly (not the 70 miles I advertised, but still a lot! Especially with the hills). While we were on route A713, we certainly had reason to worry. It was essentially a 2-lane highway with a typical speed limit between 30 and 60 mph. Fortunately, it was a fairly wide-open road, so the cars could see us from far away and plan accordingly. So many cars passed us (likely >1000) in the 15 miles we spent on A713 that by the end of it, Jacob and I could easily tell how far away a car was behind us just by the sound it made. Additionally, the hardest part was on that road; for the last 10 miles before the first town, it was all uphill, only uphill. I stayed between gears 1-1 and 2-2 (L→R) for the first 5 of those miles. The whole time, I breathed heavily, hugging the left edge of the road to let the cars pass, just focusing on getting past the next visible crest. From the bottom of that series of gargantuan hills to the top, We took about 1 hour 40 minutes. For some perspective, we've mostly averaged 10 miles per hour, not 6.

We stopped in this small town called Carpshairn around 1, where we ate our lunch--chedar cheese wrapped in a slice of turkey, with the turkey being the wrapping agent--and got some tea and pastries at a little tea house. It seemed like an old village--not necessarily the place itself, but mostly that the residents were old. Jacob looked out up once we stopped, and the net vertical climb between Ayr and Carpshairn was 2000 feet. Total, we probably went up and down much more than that.

We got onto road B729, the road which we would take most of the rest of the way to Dumfries, and were completely relieved to be on it. B729 followed a river going downstream, not up like A713, and was nice and curvy, making it more fun to ride on. It was well forested, protecting us from the wind, and every so often we'd run into a bunch of flowers like these: 

We even saw a whole hillside of them later on:

I commented that they were probably weeds, and a nuisance to the farmers and shepherds there. Jacob shrugged. 
We followed the beauty that was route B729 for about 35 miles, all the while passing so few cars I could count them on one hand (in binary). The total was, actually, 10101₂. 

Many people have not ridden more than 50 miles at a time^{[citation needed]}, so here's a description of what it's like: 
Breath in, breath out. Keep breathing. Not too shallow, not too deep. Look around. It's so damn beautiful here. Legs burn a little, but I'm on a roll and if I continue, they will continue to mostly not hurt. If I stop, I know that I'd lose my momentum and, overall, expend more energy to get myself and this 40-pound load on my back tire moving. I spot spot something interesting and try to yell up to Jacob, "Look right!" but he's too far away and we're going to fast and the wind that I suddenly notice is billowing in my ear, so I look behind me to make sure no cars are coming and pedal up next to him and say once more, "look right!" He easily hears me this time, and says between breaths, "cool." We approach sharp downhill spot and I twist my hands to switch into 2-6, and then let myself fly down the hill, gaining tons of speed (25mph tops, perhaps?). As we approach the bottom of the hill, now in single file with me in front, I start pedalling as hard as I can to get up the next hill. Whenever I feel too much resistance, I go down a gear. 2-5. 2-4. My breathing gets heavier. 2-3. I hear a car approaching from behind me, and stop in a driveway ahead of me so as to let the guy pass; it's essentially a 1-lane road that goes in two directions, and this was the safest way to let them past. I started up just after the car went by, shifting down to 2-2 to get some speed. We got to the top of the hill, breathed a little shallower, and looked around. Damn, this is so beautiful.

We got into Dumfries just as it started raining, and managed to get to the Langsdale B and B without getting soaked. The woman who runs the place let us take our bikes to the basement, and showed us our rooms. I had to concentrate to understand what she said, due to her rich Scottish accent, but in general I'm getting used to it. The room is quite beautiful, with a purple theme: a purple bathroom, pruple squares surrounding the lights, purple bed covers, a painting of three roses: one pink, one purple, and one light blue, on a white background. Like the painting, anything that wasn't purple was white. We plopped our panniers down, changed into dry clothes, and laid down on the beds. We accidentally fall asleep.

I wake up, look at my phone, and say, "Jacob, it's 8:00. Let's go eat." He says, "Ok," sees me not move, and goes back to sleep. I wake up, look at my phone, and say, "Jacob, it's 9:30." and he says, "Oh shit. Why did we sleep so long?" I think, "Probably because we just biked 60 miles," but don't say that. We walk outside, and it's still raining quite hard. Absolutely nothing was open except a few bars which weren't serving food. We eventually find the local fast-food place pictured below, and nervously walk inside the only lit building for blocks on a rainy night. There was a midbuilt man with a shaved head and a heaviset woman behind the coutner. We ask if there's any food to be had there, and the man responds in a very deep accent, "Sure, what would have?" We get two orders of fish and chips, as well as a spicy chicken burger. As the man prepares the food, we chat a little bit. "So, are you Mormons?" he asks. We say no, we're cyclists, and he responds, "Ah, well typically when there are two americans in town, they be Mormons." Jacob asks how often he sees Mormons here, and the woman responds, "Not too often," but the man interjects, saying, "Ya, very often." Jacob pays the woman for the food, but she needed a little help with the cash register. A car pulled up, a guy got out, and picked up a box, and left. I assumed that had something to do with the "order online" advertisements plastered all over the shop. After 15 minutes, we pick up our food thank the lone food-serving shop, and head out. As we walk, I hear the rain pound on the hood of my raincoat, and feel the heat of the box of fish and chips warm my hands. When we walk by buildings, I hug the wall so as to get just a little bit less wet. Whenever lightning struck and thunder, um, thundered, a new verse of Live's "Lightning Crashes" played in my head. The deserted town made me think that this must be what the fictional village Night Town must be like. I haven't actually read Ullyses, but based on the restaurant on Cedar Fairmount, Dumfries in the rain seems about right. 

The shop where we got a late dinner

Besides the traffic light, does this seem like Night Town?