Camus among the Heide

Oct. 29, 2016 – Happy birthday!

     Because it is my birthday, and I had a bike tour to start I woke up quickly and got out of bed. I didn't sleep very long last night (by design, I'm tired as hell now writing this and it's 22 o'clock). Tobi's door was open but he wasn't up, which was strange. I made myself birthday pancakes using dad's recipe. I took a birthday poop. I read on reddit that doing something productive in the morning, even making your bed, or cooking (or pooping), can give you more motivation throughout the day. So far I believe that.
     Today was the first day of the second edition of my now Bi-Annual Birthday Bicycle Tour. I had actually planned to leave the day before, however, I was under-prepared (that's a nice way to say it), hoping that I'd get some bike accessories in the mail the next day, and Tobi suggested that if I rode a day later, he could come with me. Leaving today instead was the easy choice.

     Much of my equipment, including tent, iso pad, and front rack/bags I'm borrowing from a man named Alex who I met on ebay when I bought his inflatable camping pad. He's a bike tour nut like me. And a great person, so far as I know. I borrowed some tools from Tobi, and the rest was strung together during my previous biking career.

      

Me, Tobi, and Stafan (right to left) posing in front of the Hamburg skyline, after crossing underneath the Elbe.

   
     Tobi's friend Stefan arrived and we headed out for the tour, first stop: Soltau.

We rode down to the Reeperbahn, through the old Elb Tunnel, through Wilhelmsburg, and into Harburg. There we would get the directions confused for the first time (of many), and we would stop for a smoke break for the first time (of many). I felt like we were the real biker gang.

     The riding itself was slow and uncomfortable. I'm still trying to find a position where I can both sit on my saddle and peddle comfortably at the same time – either the proportions of my skeleton are annoyingly unique, or I was very wrong about the size of this bicycle frame. Plus, even though we were outside the city, there was a bicycle lane separated from the auto road which, while not terrible, was not as well cared for as the surface for the gas guzzlers.  For all the annoyances (so many smoke breaks) it felt good to be riding with only the prospect of more riding for the rest of the day, and the weather stayed dry. As we rode, curving two lane streets lined with trees putting on their best autumn show opened onto sprawling, sun-soaked green and brown fields. The loveliest parts of the richest season were just a head's twist away.

     I saw two birds of prey, and two feathers on the ground.

   

Tobi, me, and Stefan posing in front of the Heide Park carousel before I went inside for a look around.

   
     We made it to Soltau, or just north of Soltau, at the Heide Park amusement park. We turned off of a large street under construction and peddled through a landscape full of shrubbery, which reminded me of Oregon's high desert. A campground appeared on our right. We stopped there, with Tobi muttering about, “just stay here, just use the money we would spend on the train on a bunk here”, except in german. I went in to the office and asked a young girl what it cost for a biker with a tent, and if they had any bunks available for that biker's two friends. The answers (through a thick accent) were 16 euro and nein. So we pushed on, past the entrance to the free-time park and several little paths leading into the woods. The first led to Heide Park's RV parking lot, but the next led to a nice patch of forest, crossed by walker and jogger trails which would sponsor several wild people sightings throughout my stay. I pitched my tent with little hope of the threatening rain peacefully passing over.

     It was now dark. I told Tobi and Stefan I'd ride with them to the Soltau train station, hoping that we'd stop in a bar or something for a birthday toast, not yet ready to be alone. We rode past Heide Park again. We had planned to go in since Tobi had been given some buy one/get one ticket coupons by a co-worker of ours, but neither of them had any interest in it anymore. I went to check what time the park opened, thinking I might just layover one day and take it easy at the amusement park. To my surprise, the park was going to remain open for another 4 hours tonight. So Tobi and Stefan left me there and caught a train back to Hamburg, and I went into the park.

     My favorite amusement park of all time is Busch Gardens. My brothers and I went there with my grandma and grandpa around halloween time when I was 12. Walking into the park tonight, seeing that they had also decorated everything with halloween paraphanalia and established a few haunted houses in dark corners of the park, feeling away from home and on an adventure, made me feel like a 12 year old in rainy new england again.

The line for the observation tower was one of the shortest at the park (according to the information boards), but I still had to wait half an hour.  From the top I looked south east, the direction I'd be riding tomorrow, and surveyed the dark land.

Heide Park was a much bigger and more established amusement park than I had anticipated.  The lake in the middle afforded some great views.  It even had a water and light show which I saw from the top of the observation tower.

We saw such a "witch crashing into a pole" decoration in a neighbors yard when I was a kid and every Halloween after that my dad would put one together in our yard.  More stuffed witches met their maker crashing into our cherry plum tree than I like to imagine.

     

     The park was swarming with costumed people. I bought a mask and blended in with the crowd.  I reveled in being surrounded by a celebration of all things spooky, and walked around the park, hovering between life and death. I called Sahar and talked to her for a short while, and tried to call my parents, but had to settle for a few text messages sent back and forth.  I was cold, so I kept walking, wanting to generate heat and memories.  And for my ticket price I only went on the observation tower, saw a pirate-themed comedy and acrobatics show, and went in a haunted house, but it was worth it and oh so amazing. As I left I coincidentally ended up following a group, mask down.  They looked back uneasily several times.  I had become a part of the haunt.  It was a special night.

     I know who I am. And I know how old I am! 23!

     p.s. Wow I just realized that the haunted house I visited was called „Sektor 23“! Spooky!

 Oct. 30,  2016

     I woke up several times in the night, each one colder than the last. One time I looked hopefully at the walls of my tent, but it was not yet light. I kept slipping in an out of sleep, and eventually I woke and saw that the day had started. I quickly got out of bed and peed, and then I discovered it was 9 o'clock! Later than I had planned to start out on what I knew was going to be a day of many riding kilometers. I started to get ready in a hurry, but soon slowed. I didn't feel well. I was groggy. It felt like I had a hangover, so I ate a pear, which helped. Yet, I still didn't feel like pushing myself through the necessary tasks to get going.  I thought about how I had gotten started on that second day of my bi-annual birthday bicycle tour 2014. On that morning, after being wet and freezing the whole night before, I asked myself if I wanted to continue forward or go home. I thought about it, weighed both sides of the argument, bartered with myself a little bit, talking up the pluses of continuing (I guess the fact that I chose that side to talk up is a tic in my character, which maybe tells you something about why I felt it was important to tour while it is cold and wet outside in the first place), and ultimately, after I had made the decision, I accepted it completely, put my head down, and continued forward. The reason to go was inside me. I found it, and I let it fill me up. I try to do this now, in my life, if something is really challenging me, and I think it's important for myself to write this: if you want something to happen, you just have to decide to do it, and then do it, knowing that it may be uncomfortable for a time, but knowing that, whatever the goal is that I decided to strive towards in the first place, it will be worth it once I'm there.

     Anyway, I rode 20km into Munster and had a black tea, one pancake, 4 squares of chocolate, and a small biscuit + water at the only open cafe that I found. The town was mostly empty and quiet. Just outside of Munster I found a dead fox in the middle of the bike lane. It looked recent. I took off my glove and dragged it by the tail a few meters into the woods, past several signs indicating that this forest was the property of the BRD military, and that there was a possibility of bodily harm for those how did not stay out. I didn't close the foxes eyes, because that's only to make me feel better, but I dug a hole in the dirt and stuck a large stick into the ground to make me feel better. It was a somber encounter, and it brought me back into the reality of the moment. I continued forward.

     I rode through Faßberg and into Unterfüß, which I found friendly and quaint. And full of sole?

     I saw one feather, one bird of prey, and one bird's nest. I saw a McLaren in Masel.

This was one of the prettiest stretches of road on the whole trip.  No bike lane and few cars meant that I was rolling easily through one Landkreis and into the next, in this case, Landkreis Gifhorn.

     A large rock in Masel proudly proclaimed that it had existed for 700 years. The town, not the rock. I later found out that Masel is home to 94 people.  On bike tours I frequently find myself in the situation where I'm really hungry but I have to make it to the next town to find a place to eat.  They're rallies which are no fun at the time, but afterwards feel like an exhilarating accomplishment.  I was starving when I rode into Hankensbüttel. This was the most dire such situation since my hungry rally into Warm Springs during BABBT 2014. I stopped at the first bakery I saw, which was on a charming corner. I ordered a Laugenstange, a Donut, and a chocolate milk, and ate them with some dried apricots from my bag.  I sat inside, happily masticating, at the window in a alcove of the shop, seeing people inside and outside, coming and going.

     As I was leaving a young, bearded, dark clothed hippy stopped me and asked me where I came from. We talked about cities and languages and accents, and just a little about politics, hopes, and dreams. I was actually eager to get going, but he was so interesting and it felt so good to talk again that I stayed there for close to an hour.  Perhaps I'll see him again sometime.

At this point I was riding as fast as I could eastward, trying to find a camping spot outside of Wittingen, but the sunset was so pretty I had to stop, turn around, and take a few photos.

     Then it was late, and I managed only to bust my ass through Wittingen and set up my tent in a spit of trees between two fields, some 30km short of my goal. It appeared that my tent was standing just to the side of a deer path, but I didn't see any deer. I saw a few rabbits in the bushes. I knew that the sun would be gone very soon, so I went to the western edge of the forested spit. There was a raised one room cabin at the edge of the trees, a common sight on the edges of fields around here, though I don't know what they are used for. It was raised three meters off of the ground on skinny wooden legs. I climbed the ladder carefully, thinking that if a step snapped and I twisted or broke a bone I would be in a lot of trouble. I opened the door and peaked in. The floor sagged.  A thin bench and a thin scratched plexiglass window wrapped there way around the walls. I had considered sitting inside and writing, but the mood coming out of the little door was unfriendly.  I went carefully back down, and sat at the base of an adjacent tree.

     I sat still and watched the sky darken above the fields. I smoked and did jumping jacks to keep warm. I became as much a part of the wild as I could. Like and animal, tired from the day, resting at its home with nothing to do for a while, making entertainment out of being quiet and seeing.  Allowing as much light as possible to enter my eyes.  For a while I hid behind trees when I saw car headlights flashing across the land. Later I just stood or sat very still, imagining being a person in one of the cars, seeing nothing. The strange thought came to me that if I was going to be murdered at some point in my life, it would be by an authority figure. Once it was completely dark, and I was starting to get cold in a more permanent way, I walked through the thin belt of forest to the eastern side. I ate a sausage and some dried apricots + water and looked at the stars. They were beautiful. I was a stone cold piece of nature, blinded by many stars and weighed down by food. I walked back to my camp carefully, cutting the darkness with my cold flashlight beam.

     Then I froze my ass off writing this long piece of garbage. Goodnight and goodluck!

A tree in my field outside of Wittingen

Oct. 31, 2016 HALLOWEEN!

     I woke up in a better mood than yesterday morning. It could have been because of the realization that the rain drops which I had heard pitter-pattering on my tent roof were just drops being pushed off of overhead branches by the wind. It was 8:30.  I had woken up several times again in the night, but from intestinal cramps this time. Tobi was right, it was dumb to go camping in the woods and not bring any toilet paper along. But I did sleep better overall, and I was warm the whole night.  I broke camp quickly, put on my mask from Heide Park, and headed back out onto the road. 

Riding out from my camping spot on this misty Halloween morning.  My face always looks like this before the first 10km.

     I planned on riding to Diesdorf before finding some breakfast. However, Diesdorf was small, devoid of restaurants, and a ghost town. That is how part one of today goes. I rode through small valleys quilted with farm and forest, always pre and proceded by small hills. The towns looked medieval. Everything was hung with mist. No town was large enough to support a breakfast eatery, but they were coming very quickly one after the other, so my hope remained. I would ride past signs which told me simultaneously that I was riding out of one small town of breakfast discouragement, but I only had 6km to the next. Nowhere in the small towns was even a hint of a crumb any kind of nourishment at all! My hope waned. However I kept getting closer to what I thought had to be my salvation, Salzwedel.

     I was trying to push that last so odd number of km through the hunger and leg-weakness, when I saw an abandoned building on my side of the road. I skidded to a halt. It was a very large house which was completely smashed to shit. From the outside I could see piles of refuse in every corner and a half-collapsed stairway. It was scary. I lowered the mask from my forehead back onto my face to become scary too, and entered the building. It is Halloween, after all, it is my own personal haunted house. I didn't see anybody, but I did see the tracks of somebody(s), including chemically printed photographs of a mother and child, a refrigerator positioned perfectly as a step into a sunken room which looked like it had hosted a banging party, and an absurd number of tires stacked in the Innenhof. I felt some tingles on the back of my neck then, as I do now writing about it, but neither then nor now did I have any paranormal encounters. But my hunger eventually outweighed my curiosity, and I pushed my bike back out onto the road. I left my mask over my face.

My haunted house.

I searched for interesting or useful things (especially toilet paper) that I could take with me, but ended up leaving it all behind, not wanting to disturb the house.

Close to where I took this picture a large section of the floor was torn out, leaving a black hole.  This creepy text reads: "Foreigners - please don't leave us alone with these Germans!"  Exactly the opposite sentiment as I had expected, being in a rural, xenophobic area.

The sunken room.  Must have been a great party.

     I finally, finally got to Salzwedel. To my great pleasure there was a Micky D's on the front edge of the town. I pulled in, walked up to the counter, and ordered breakfast. A green tea and 2 mcmuffins later and I was feeling good! Micky D always has free wi-fi so I hooked up and surfed some we-chats. I received birthday wishes from many of my good friends. They warmed me up more than the food. I visited the facilities, checked out, and got back on Thunder and Lightning.

The cold weather and short daylight hours are worth it to bike through Fall Colors like these.

     I had been riding on the car road for most of the morning and now was no exception, but now it was quite a bit dicier. LKVs and overpasses made things tight, and it had started to rain. Or heavy fog, at least. Either way I was soon soaked.  These conditions continued for a little over an hour.

     I saw 4 herons, 4 birds of prey, and one feather.

     Eventually there was a bike lane again, and the moisture dissipated. It was smooth sailing. A side route cost me 3 extra km, but took me through tiny old neighborhoods, past a pig pen, and through quiet old farm roads. It was the highlight of today's ride.

     This scenic road took me straight into Dannenberg. I still wasn't sure if I was going to stay the night here or move on in the hope of shaving off some of the daunting 110km + which now lie between me and my zuhause. A quick look at my map told me that there were no reasonably sized towns 20 +/- 10 km away (an important criteria for me, today being Halloween and all), plus I found Dannenberg charming. I asked an italian man at a café in the main square where the campingplatz was.

The café and plaza where I spent quite a few hours in Dannenberg.

     Even though I'm staying at a designated campground, I haven't seen anyone. A few sites are occupied by what look like permanent mobile homes. I tried calling the numbers posted for an/abmeldung, but got no reply, so I ended up ducking the fence and setting up my tent unregistered. The campground is nice, besides the fact that everything outside of a chemical toilet is locked.

     I set up my camp, and called Swarupa.  It was nice to hear a friendly voice, and nicer to hear that she was actually interested in how the trip was going and worried that I was staying safe.  Feeling more supported than ever, I went back to the café, and had a piece of apple cake and an italian hot chocolate. I read some of Howard Mark's biography. Two groups of children came into the cafe and solicited süßes oder saures in costume. To my pleasure, the cafe man gave each kid an ice cream cone. I've had good luck with cafe workers.  But now it was getting dark. I left, eager to see some trick or treating in the most vicarious way possible. I'd been wearing my mask over forehead or face all day and now I once again lowered it.

     A young boy did a wheelie on his Mt. Bike and stopped just in front of me. He started asking me questions. He became my guide, mostly through his own initiative, and led me to his Jungendzentrum where he offered me treats and declined a game of kicker. Then he led me back into, and around, the town center. He wanted to know my instagram handle. I gave it to him and he gave me directions to the Bahnhof, where he supposed there would be good trick-or-treating taking place. Then he rode past me at high speed while sticking out his hand and yelling “klatsch mal!” It was a cool moment.

My guide, Jado, dabbing behind his Jungendzentrums impressive collection of Jack-o-lanterns.

     I walked towards the Bahnhof, on the way admiring the town and buying The Lobster and Ghostbusters 1+2 on DVD from a very nice and well stocked Videothek. I saw maybe 7-8 groups of kids and the same amount of 1 or 2 offs, all costumed, and some very nicely at that. But I walked through some really prime neighborhoods with most of the lights turned off, which was a shame in my opinion. I also realized that it's hard for an older guy to walk around on Halloween with dirty biking gear and a skull mask on and not scare some adults and make others laugh. Nice duality. Ce la vie.

     There was a dancing lesson being held at the Bahnhof.  I watched the young adults, awkward in their steps.  A party by the living for the dead.

Dannenberg is a pretty little town, but one which seems to not yet have accepted Halloween.

I had hoped to see a shadow puppet performance in the tower behind this building, but there were no shows today.  Instead I went to the Einstein's restaurant pictured in the front.

     I walked back towards my bike, my legs tired. I was looking for a bar, trying to add more parallels between this BABBT and BABBT 2014, during which I had gone to a bar with my gracious couch surfing hosts on the last evening of the tour, drinking illegally for the first half of the night and legally the second. But for the moment, I simply sat in the town center, outside of the same cafe (which was now closed) and ate ¾ of an avocado and most of my second sausage. For some reason it made me a little nauseous. I went to an Einstein's I had passed earlier and ate half of a cheesy pizza dough and drank a Weißbier, both of which did me good, one of which was a surprise and one of which wasn't. I read more from Howard Marks.

     I suddenly felt very drowsy. I quickly paid, took a Halloween candy from the bowl, and left under a spray of lights. I unlocked my bike from in front of the police station, across from the cafe, which was now host to a group of prowling, half costumed young adults, lowered my mask again, and road, buzzed, dulled, back to camp. I sat on a bench under a light bulb in the campground. I smoked and wrote. Halloween buzzed in my head, a great dark ocean.

     Now time for bed. I guess it was a very merry Halloween indeed.

     p.s. After concluding this journal entry an event occurred which I think must be noted, but after which I did not feel like noting. The event is as follows: I was climbing into my tent, everything was ready for the night. I put my weight on one end of the air mattress. I lay back. I heard a scuffling near my head. I wondered if the noise came from inside or out. I heard some more scuffling. It sounded like an animal in my tent. Oh god, I thought, what if it’s a mouse or something, and I’m trapped in here with it. What if it goes crazy and attacks. I have nothing to capture it with. Ah, it’s probably just an insect or arachnid, I thought, before a mouse stuck its head up from behind my mattress. We both jumped backwards. Then I sat motionless, not sure what to do. I looked around, but I had nothing that I could viably catch a mouse with. Then I realized that the tent door could open across almost the entire length of the tent at the bottom, meaning that if the mouse was as interested in getting away from me as I was of getting away from it, it would make a dash for the tent door, which I was now slowly opening. I tried to disturb the air mattress as little as possible, and stay quite. If the mouse looked like it was approaching or trying to get into a tight corner I used my flash light to freeze it and even coax it a little in the correct direction. It was light brown with a grey stripe down the middle of its back. It didn’t seem to notice the open door. I lifted one corner of the mattress, hoping that once its shelter was gone it would make a run for it.  All it did was head deeper under the mattress. I made some threatening sounds on the side of the tent across from the door. This worked. The mouse poked it’s head out from behind the mattress near the door, seemed to notice the open world beckoning, and carefully jumped out. My hand zipped to the zipper and I zipped it shut. Then I lifted up my mattress and shone my light over every cm of tent, looking for a little mouse door. There were none. The sneaky bastard must have gotten in during one of the short periods that I had the tent open. Must have snuck in right under my nose. Anyway, I’m glad we didn’t spend the night together.

Nov. 1^st, 2016

     This is it. The last day. The most important day. When the story comes to an end. This is what I thought when I woke up.

     I had slept very well. The night was as warm as the last, and, thanks to leaving behind almost as much as I had taken from the McD’s the afternoon before, I had no intestinal cramps. I woke up at 7:30, but lying in bed was so nice that I fell back asleep. I woke up again at 8:30. I heard drops on my tent. A quick pee outside told me that this time it was actual rain from clouds, not just from trees. I was in no hurry to start packing up in the rain, so I ate most of the rest of my pizza bread from the night before while sitting in my sleeping bag. It was nice.

     It was just a light drizzle that soon gave up, so I started to break camp, carrying my tent over to the campgrounds office where I could wrap everything up on the dry ground. I was feeling fine, but lazy. Then I started to feel a little depressed. The tour was ending today, and I was both happy and sad. My tent was wet, my packs were starting to get chaotic, and my clothes were stinky and dirty, but I was not looking forward to sitting in my bedroom again tonight, looking at screens. I felt like there was no way I could continue a tour like this for even a month, which is, of course, my rough plan for this summer. I wanted to watch Mr. Robot and the World Series on my screens. I reminded myself that a summer tour would be warm, dry, and with daylight which lasted past 5pm, but my state after only three days on the road was not encouraging. I realized that I wasn’t going to get any answers at the moment, so I finished packing, finished my pizza bread, and headed out. It was now 10, and I knew I had a long road ahead of me.

Hitzacker was the first town I came to which lay on the lovely Elbe.  From here I could have saved some time if I traded my bike for a boat...

     I rode past the café again, hoping the two café workers would be there and wave to me as I left. It was closed, but I waved at it anyway. It took me a minute to figure out the correct way out of Dannenberg, but soon I was cruising empty farm roads like yesterday. I rode up onto a dike and the Elbe appeared before me: a wide brown ribbon, flanked on both sides by rich green wetlands. I rode through these Naturschutzgebiete for around half the day, and thanks to that I saw around 20 egrets, a handful of herons, 3 birds of prey, including two which were very small, a baby deer, flocks and flocks of geese, and some ducks, plus one domesticated cat.

     I was soon in Hitzacker, a small, pretty fishing town, where I was supposed to take a ferry to the other side of the river. However, upon finding the ferry port, I quickly realized that this boat was not going to be carrying me today. This was not a season of high demand and the ferry was packed up.  I was stuck in Süddeutschland for a few km more. I found a group of signs to various towns in the area, and identified Bleckede as a good goal for lunch. It was 25km away, and they would be some of the hardest of the trip.

     There were car signs to Bleckede, and bike signs. I decided to take the bike route, even though I was already unsure if I would be able to ride the whole distance, but I remembered what Tobi had said on the first day, that the bike routes were, after all, specially made for bikes. This was not always the case. The bike route I took led me down a hiking trail along the river, and then over a muddy forest service path. I rode right next to the river now, with a steep forested hill to my left. It felt intimate. However, though the trail conditions were good for human feets, they were rather poor for bicycle wheels. Eventually I popped happily back up onto the pavement. It was now hilly, something I had hoped against at first, but later welcomed.  I enjoyed the challenge of climbing and the effortless coasting.

This is where the ferry would have picked me up in Hitzacker, had it still been running at this point in the season.  I touched the water here, wondering if that water or myself would reach Hamburg first.

     There was another sign for a bicycle detour. I took it. This one led me through a little neighborhood, and then into a thick, mixed deciduous forest. It was a bumpy, muddy, leafy, rocky, logging road, and it headed steeply upwards. I struggled, standing on my pedals, tires slipping out beneath me, but I got to the top. It looked like the PNW. There was a sign warning of wild boar. I took a leak. I rode down and through rolling hills stacked between tilted fields, waving at farm vehicles which were my only companions here. It was gorgeous.

     Eventually I took a hard left hand turn and found myself on the Elbuferstraße. This is where things started to break down. The neighborhoods were not pretty, the road was hilly but monotonous, the weather was gray, my mood darkened. I had no motivation any more. The day already felt so long, and I knew that I had only managed a small fraction of the total distance. It felt like something was holding me back, like my wheels were not spinning smoothly. I tested them both, they were fine. I was caught on frustration. On my first bike tour I came up with a mind trick to help me get through the long painful stretches. It is this: I think about where I just was, I realize that I got past that section, that I don’t have to do it again, that each section I simply push through will soon be a memory which hurts no more. That allows me to continue, turning each painful crank of the peddles into harmless memories. I hadn’t had to use this trick much on my tour thus far, but I did now. I let my mind go blank, and let the kilometers fade into memory.

     I was getting close to Bleckede now.  There was another sign for a bike detour. It was over a kilometer farther than the car route, but I decided to take it anyway. I guessed that the road would be more interesting, and thus seem to go by quicker, even if it actually took longer. I was mostly correct. I was led onto a dirt and stone path through one of the wide wetlands by the river. The going was slow, but it was peaceful and easy. It started to rain. I couldn't see any other people in any direction. I felt like a real adventurer.

     I met asphalt again and cruised by some campgrounds into Bleckede. It looked like the Alterland near Hamburg: tall houses divided by flood barriers with little walkways and roads stacked on top. I found the main street and stopped at a bakery. I ate two small sandwiches and a milchkaffee. I sat next to a heating element on the wall, put my gloves and hat on top, and pressed my legs against it. It had stopped raining, so I paid 50 cents for a water bottle refill and I left. As I stood at a corner looking at the street signs, a man pulled up in his car, rolled down the window, and asked where I was heading. I told him Lauenburg, and he corrected my pronunciation. Then he told me to ride past the Schloss, onto the dike, and then keep going straight until I saw the bridge. I thanked him. I took a quick look at Schloss Bleckende, and headed out onto the dike, singing and talking to myself – now in a much better mood.

A panorama of the Elbradweg.  The nicest bicycle path on the whole trip.

     I have no doubt that my ride along the Elbradweg was neither the quickest nor most direct route, but it was one of the best 25km of the whole trip. The bike lane was mostly on the south side of the dike, so that I couldn’t see the river except for the occasional small hill over intersecting dikes, but the great houses I was passing kept the scenery interesting. Their bargeboards crossed at the peaks and continued out in carved horses heads or other artful designs. The road was smooth and flat. I felt like a brave traveler in the land of Rohan. I sang and quoted everything I knew out of Lord of the Rings for the next hour. When I finally saw the bridge crossing the Elbe into Lauenburg, I even ad libed a line as if I was Galadriel talking to the weary wanderers. I carried my laden bike up 44 steps, and rode it across the bridge.

There was a great view of Lauenberg from this slippery, noisey river crossing.

     Lauenburg was bumpy. So very very bumpy. I rode directly through the center of the old town and directly over roads of old cobblestone: unquestionably aesthetically pleasing, but also the biggest literal pain in the ass of all time. I was reduced to a crawl through the city, hoping that the cliffs and valleys of Lauenburg’s streets would not shake apart my poor bicycle. The route signs dropped me back down by the river and then, annoyingly, not one kilometre later told me to go up a very steep hill that had been once paved and since forgotten. After bouncing around, my rear wheel consistently slipping out, and almost having a spill, I said fuck this hill and walked my bike the few remaining meters to the top. I came out at a strange coincidence. The Jugendherberge where I had driven with the Michaliks to drop Niloy off for an exchange year orientation in what must have been one of my first weeks living in Germany. I thought, as I had on several occasions so far on this trip, sometimes that’s how life goes. Or, minus a few syllables, so it goes.

     Shortly thereafter I got frustrated with riding on crappy bumpy roads, especially since I had just realized that I had only ridden around 50km on a day which required a minimum of 90. So, at the first chance I got, I ditched the bike detour and hit the good old auto asphalt again. I turned off my brain, put my head down and my heart up, and hit the metaphorical gas.

     I rode through heavily forested areas which ensured that the air was very cold and wet, and which reminded me again of the PNW. I was on the left side of the road, as was the case with almost all of the bicycle lanes I had thus far experienced, and the non-stop traffic going in the opposite direction started to annoy me. Coldness, wetness, and annoying traffic were the themes of much of the rest of my ride, not to mention, eventually, darkness. At this point the singing had stopped. I would guess as well that my blood sugar was low.

     Finally, I made it to Geesthacht and pulled into an Edeka which had a small bakery attached. It was too late in the day for sandwiches, so instead I had a Mandelhörnchen and half of a sweet pumpkin roll + green tea. It was not really a nice place to hang around, with the beep of checkout stands bouncing between hung ceiling and poured floor, but the treats were tasty, and it gave me an opportunity to look at my map and decide if I was going to catch the S21 home from Bergedorf or if I was going to push through and finish the loop on my own two wheels. I used some of the last few percentage points of my cellphone battery to get an estimate on how many km of road I had left between me and my beddy-by. The answer: 30. Google estimated that it would take me 45 minutes to Bergedorf, and 110 minutes to Harkortstraße 164. At this point the sun was definitely out of my slice of sky and dusk was encroaching.  The temptation to do something extreme was strong. However, I reasoned with myself and decided that I would put on an extra layer of clothes, light up my bike lights, make the ride home. I already had two wool socks on each foot, but I put my Superman socks over top anyway. I hit the road again.

     I got through Geesthacht quickly (which was, as far as I could tell, one continuous strip mall servicing Hamburg), and happily all of the car traffic (and there was a lot) got diverted onto a freeway, while the bike lane continued along the highway through quiet neighborhoods. By now it was almost completely dark, and I was warm and happy again. I had less than two hours remaining at the very most. It was dry. I had been peddling all day, and I could live with peddling some more. I sang at the top of my lungs. “The Bear Necessities” above all. I talked to myself and my bike. I felt, in a small way, that I was going mad. Mad in the best way. I was cruising and nothing could stop me.

Finally back in the beautiful, but large, city of Hamubrg.  I still had over an hour of riding to go from this point at the edge of the city to my apartment near the middle.

     I entered Hamburg and kissed the sign on the way by. There were no traces of forest anymore. Shortly before I entered Bergedorf I realized that I was in the city again. What a pain in the ass it is to bike on city streets when you’re used to open country. Things were tight, slippery, bumpy, and with lots of traffic, foot, rad, and auto. I made it to Bergedorf and knew that I wasn’t going to stop there. However, the town looked festive (it was the most people I’d seen in the same place for 4 days) and it seemed a shame to just breeze by, so I sat on a bench, ate the other half of the sweet pumpkin roll, and drank some water. I watched the people, thinking how strange and free life could be.  I didn't stay long. I was itching to have done with, so I took off again. I flipped off the train station as I rode by.

This is a re-creation of one of my favorite self-portraits from my BABBT 2014 from the summit sign at the top of Santiam Pass, Oregon.

     Outside of Bergedorf I climbed a large hill, now with 4 lanes of traffic whizzing by my ear. After I made it to the top the bike lane cut across the traffic and into a neighborhood. Here it was very dark, but I was rewarded for the long up by a gentle grade down for the next km or 2. I was 13 away from HH-Centrum. From there I kept dropping and rode into another Naturschutzgebiet. It started out nice, following some train tracks, and it quickly got sketchy. I rode through dark and empty industry lots which were squeezed between a highway and a park. The path crossed under the highway and popped me back up onto the side walk. I felt a few twinges in my right knee which immediately turned on warning lights in my head. I stopped and moved my knee support-wrap from left leg (where it had been all day) to right leg (where it normally lives), and tentatively pushed off again. I was now getting deep into the city. I would stay on the shitty shitty, un-cared for bike lanes on the side walks of Hamburg for the rest of the way, which, after four days of mostly very nice, sometimes only moderately nice, biking surfaces, pissed me off very quickly. I was so close to home, but riding was now a chore. There was no pretty nature to look at, I was smelling cigarettes and constantly stopping at traffic lights. Dodging pedestrians, parked cars, and pits, cracks, and ridges in the side walk. I ran over glass several times, and came as close as ever to eating it when I had to dodge another bike which appeared out of nowhere going the wrong way. I started to yell at the street. Mostly when nobody was there who I might scare, but occasionally not. I was swearing at the bike lanes of Hamburg. I hate them so much. People ask me if there are thing that I don’t like about Germany – this is article number 1.

     At the top of a hill I caught a glimpse of the Fernsehturm. I saw signs saying that I was in Horn, and then in Hamm. And then finally I saw something I recognized. The Burgstraße U Bahn station. I passed quickly by, and then quickly by the Berliner Tor Bahn station. Suddenly I was at the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. I’d done the ride from here to my home many times. I sent Tobi a text message “Ich bin in zehn Minuten nach Hause. Mach mal mein Bad fertig Schätzie.“ 
     Biking through downtown Hamburg during commuter times is never fun, and this was certainly no exception. I was grumpy at all the other bikers who rushed past me with unloaded bikes and fresh legs. If they only knew, I thought. Then I looked quickly up and saw a shooting star. A reminder, I told myself, to stay positive. I tried to stay positive riding down Mönckebergstraße, up the last big hill and by St. Michael’s, past the Dom (currently being set up), Sternschanze and the Neue Flora. I was hungry and tired, my legs were weak and the traffic was annoying. Maybe I should have taken the train from Bergedorf, but it didn’t matter now. Then I was one block away.  I saw my building.  I was on my corner!  
      I suddenly realized that I had not learned the lesson, or had the epiphany, or seen the signs that I was hoping to on this trip. This was, after all, supposed to be a reseting point after almost a month of on again off again depression and anxiety. Or maybe I had learned the lesson after all. I'd struggled in ways that I had not anticipated. I'd experienced moments of silent beauty. I'd made human connections. At this point, I’m still not sure, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever be sure. If anything, I at least got another perspective on how much excess there is in my life. Yet this moment felt like an anti-climactic way to end the tour.

Instead of moping, I decided to push all the mumbo-jumbo mind juggling out my ear and celebrate what mattered. I had complete my second, Bi-Annual Birthday Bicycle Tour, through rain and cold, hills and bad directions, sore legs, arms, neck, hands, knees, and ass, it was done.  And in one day I had ridden 110+ kilometers on my trusty steed, Thunder and Lightning. In this spirit I let out two high pitched howls and I cruised with style to my doorstep.

     The rest of the day went as follows: I carried my bags up the 4 flights to my door, then came back for TL. My legs barely made it. I stripped down, put on just a light pair of PJ pants, and collapsed on the couch. Tobi, bless him, had made some dinner and was heating it up for me. I ate and drank water, and told him a few tales. He smoked and started carving his pumpkin. I separated the seeds from the innards goop and put them in a little bowl, to bake them later like my mom used to do for my birthday. Then I took a long hot shower. It felt amazing. The first time in 4 days that I’d been naked. I unpacked half of my gear, and hung the tent’s rain fly on our clothes rack to dry. Tobi and I talked a little bit more. Sahar called. She wanted me to give her some ideas for a Halloween costume for the party this Saturday, and I was happy to help. I baked some rolls, smoked, ate the rolls, and tried not to get enamored by my screens. Things were going to be different now, after all. I am trying to make things different now. But that will come as it comes, and sometimes that’s just how life is. So it goes.

     It was a good day.

     I don’t remember falling asleep, but it was pretty instantaneous. I needed it, brain, body, and soul.