And we're off!

 Woke up this morning ready to get out and bike in the mountains for the first time in five years! And then...

• The showers weren't open until 6
• It was raining
• Sumi's bike does what Sumi's bike does at the start of every trip

How does she get a flat without actually biking?

The good news is, it's happened so often it only takes a few minutes to change the tube out, a little longer in the rain and with a tiny hand pump. We were on our way by 8, about 2.5 hours later than usual. But we only had 30 miles today. We tried to make it easy on ourselves getting back in the saddle. As it turned out, the day was even easier than we expected. The first 15 miles were all downhill, so in about 90 minutes, including a lot of staring at the map, we were halfway there.

The rain precluded a lot of picture taking, but the scenery out here is absolutely gorgeous. We are in the middle of the Nikko National Park which is hundreds of kilometers of mountains, rivers, and trees. We stopped briefly at the Koana dam, one of the many hydroelectric dams in the region

And by about 11, the rain had mostly dissipated, allowing us to finally take a few pictures of the scenery.

Following the river valley turned out to be a good choice, as the climbs were not steep and the roads were not that busy. This area during tourist season is a zoo. We passed a whole series of huge hotels and onsen resorts that were all ghost towns now, but could house literally thousands of people each.

About two miles from our first stop, Nakamiyori, we pulled over in the parking lot of a closed shop to drink some water and juice. Sumi chose the lot because there was a ice cream flag out front. As luck would have it, the proprietor was just getting to work (the shop was a soba/udon restaurant). He saw us looking rather like drowned rats and told us if we wanted he could get us some ice cream (but nothing else, as he had just gotten there). We eagerly agreed and he invited us into the shop, which had a nice dining room with a large window overlooking the river.

Pure bliss

They usually mix in some wasabi concoction into the ice cream (their specialty), but Sumi asked for plain soft cream, which his what we got. He also brought some iced coffee out, which was all very generous as he was trying to get the shop prepped for lunch. The ice cream was a very good plain cream flavor (not vanilla) and it was a great treat for the end of the ride. 

The name, "Baa-chan no mise" translates to "Granny's Shop"

We rolled into Nakamiyori at about 1:30, a little too early for check in. We had reserved what we thought was a little cabin in a campground bordering some onsens. Turns out it was a little more than a cabin

The "main hall" for the campground

Our "little" cabin, Kaede

Our cabin, named Kaede, is an amazing 2-story building that can house 4 comfortably.

There is a full kitchen around the corner!

The upstairs is a big loft bedroom

With futons

The area is a big onsen resort area, meaning most people come here to soak in hot springs, so the cabins do not have showers or baths. Well, everything is closed right now, since we're in the offseason. We asked the guy at the desk if there was a sentou or something around so we could wash all the road dirt away. There wasn't anything. close by, but they did offer to let us use their showers. Just like the guy that served us ice cream, this was really going out of their way to help, as they needed to turn on their (industrial sized) hot water heater just for us. 

One last thing that happened that I thought was pretty cool, but happened way too fast to get a picture, was when we were leaving for the shower there was a large, white, monkey wandering near the campgrounds. It turned and ran when it saw us, but it is the very first time I've ever seen a Macaque in the wild. They are bigger than one would expect, about the size of a medium-sized dog, and are found all over this area of the country. 

Not my picture, but this is a Japanese Macaque

We're both a little sore and a lot tired after today. We'll see how well everything dries out overnight and hopefully get an earlier start to tomorrow's trip up the river.