Sleepless in Limburg, #2

Drag my sorry butt out of bed. All yesterday's miseries on me: sore muscles, sunburn, discouragement. Discouragement? Yes, because yesterday's difficulties--full of exhaustion, soft tires, nausea, cutting a trip short, the train system--warn me that I may fail in my mission. Mission? Yes, mission...and it's time that I confess the mission that the -->bike map (1.5 MB)<-- has fairly screamed for some weeks now: to circumnavigate the Netherlands by bicycle.

The trick is: I have to do it by the end of June. And there are roughly 800 km to go. So the race is on.

Ten hours of sleep. Bike on the train, and I think I feel asleep leaning on it. I get past Pinkpop, my nose offended only minimally by the "you'll never get through airport security" set, ride through desperately hick Eijgenshoven where I boarded last evening, and on to Kerkrade. Jump on immediately and start north.

Kerkrade is up on a plateau, but after sailing down the long hills I followed the narrow villages lining the tiny Wurm river--really just a creek hidden behind houses--some nice houses and apartments and cafes, as lovely as Kerkrade's were grim. A few minutes on, I skirt a giant gray area on the ANWB map, labelled simply "Julia". Julia turns out to be the US military Eijgenshoven depot. There were dozens of multi-rocket launchers visible between the buildings, but I thought maybe I'd keep the camera put away and continue north.

And in the far eastern corner of Limburg I enter...Rimburg. Now and then dark clouds and wind gusts threatened the crowded outdoor cafes (just beyond this picture), but no one seemed to pay attention, except a few nervous owners of convertibles.
 

A hard turn westward from Rimburg, and along some rather boring stretches on bike paths along featureless N-highways. Past Schinveld a small road "Etzenraderweg" showed to parallel N580; I wheeled right and then left to take it.

Wow, good idea, as nice a road as I've come across. And to think the boring highway run only 100 meters to the left. Germany is 500 meters to the right.
 

Where the road turns to avoid Germany, an impressive church stands over a very quiet village curiously named Jabeek.
 

And in Sittard the mist started, and stopped. And at Susteren's train station, conveniently on the German border, it started again, and for a longer time. Between me and Roermond, the next station along the border, there was 30 km of forest. If it rained on me in there, it would be real trouble. I waited the 30 minutes for the next train north, hoping my Den Haag experience would repeat itself in a miraculous clearing of the skies; instead the rain started in earnest. I sighed and bought a ticket. Plenty of energy and time left, but the biking weather had run out.

On the train, I resolved: to buy plastic sheet, a shower curtain, anything to wait out a (typically brief) rain shower and continue. If I have to wait it out under plastic, so be it. Today's 5 1/2 hours on trains for just 3 hours on the bike must not be repeated.

(Added 5/31): At least Sunday I got far enough north that I didn't have to ride past Landgraaf and Pinkpop again. But Monday evening, there it was, televised. On display at the moment was an American group jumping like kangaroos and throwing hands at the camera, singing very fake reggae from Topeka or something. The tall black, er, singer, wore huge glasses, a weird hat, and a jacket sporting a Czech flag. Czech. OK, then. The other lead, er, singer's main talents were: her pants falling off her substantial hips, her shouting at the audience in a play to hide her tone-deafness, and more finger-throwing attitude than Eminem (except in her case, with less estrogen).