The big lake

Beautiful roads in the wilderness - this sums up the first part of the day, large, tall trees, more eagles, no cards, felt a bit like in Alaska 10 years prior to that. Just short of Joenkopping, I found a nice smaller lake and washed the sweat of the night before - that was my morning shower. Close to the large town, they kept a small Shell gas station like it was 50 years ago - just for the heck of it. According to a sign, the price of a liter in 1951 was 0.56 Krones, in 2012, the last data it was showing, was 14.53 Krones. Well, even the Swedes are complaining about prices...

Joenkoeping was again a bit of 'culture shock' for me. In the last coupe of days, I was out there in the wilderness, with hardly any traffic and there was this rather large town, which, on top, was partially closed down due to a big sports event, they organized a half Iron Man. The town itself was OK, except the road into the city, which went through some depressing industrial area. I had a somewhat hard time finding information, the young girls in the tourist info did not understand why someone would want to ride away from the lake and not around it, but that was my plan, to head further north. I found a good Asian kitchen, ate at the shore of the lake and was scanning the clouds overhead, which kept getting darker and darker. Some people, as it turned out, were really glad to see some rain coming (don't count me in), as mentioned before, it was one of the hottest summers in decades. The clouds came from the south, the lightning was in the north, oh well, I guess I could have taken a rest, but no, I went for it.

Soon I was climbing up a steep hill and then came the obligatory 'blessing' from above, but that happens when you go biking. I was soaking wet where I reached Habo, with a unique painted church from 1680 or so. Next to it was a cake shop run by volunteers from a church; I think this was the only place in Scandinavia which was kind to my wallet. In Mullsjo, I was tempted to stay at a hotel, it had stopped raining, but I was still soaking wet, but it would have been way too early. Then came one of the funniest road signs, showing a crooked old lady with her cat in a red triangle, I am not sure if it was an 'official' Swedish road sign or if someone wanted was having a bit of fun.

Later I found myself riding the road 26, somewhat more traffic, but still pretty nice, with quite a few place. It was in Tidaholm that I found a hotel, the owners had to drive from another place to greet me, it was a lady, who spoke English, German and French (next to Swedish and a couple of other Scandinavian languages). It wasn't cheap, but being the only hotel I found, I was not in the position to negotiate. I was glad to have fit in the bathroom, it was so tiny. Due to the longer-than-planned rest in Joenkoeping plus the rain I had covered only some 120 kilometers - but that did not stop me from sleeping like a baby.