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.

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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?