{"id":3701,"date":"2024-05-24T01:40:29","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T05:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/?p=3701"},"modified":"2024-06-17T18:48:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T22:48:02","slug":"240524-ive-seen-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/240524-ive-seen-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"240524-I’ve seen Hell"},"content":{"rendered":"

I work Friday morning to the sound of rain on the tent. Still half awake, I got up for a run to the bathroom and to put a plastic cover over my bicycle seat, then snuggled back into bed.<\/p>\n

Then woke up. The rain was light, but the weather forecast showed more rain inbound. I prefer packing up when everything isn’t wet. I scrambled to pack. By the time the rain began in ernest I was tucked under the shelter at the campground, eating breakfast and charging my phone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I spent a while intently peering at the weather forecast and weather radar. By my best calculation, a gap in the weather would occur at, unsurprisingly, 10:00 a.m. Destiny.<\/p>\n

I started out on dedicated bicycle path, but with the weather as it was, I took a shortcut onto a heavy highway. Too heavy. When I passed a ” bicycles are not permitted here ” sign I detoured off to a smaller road.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That worked great until it didn’t.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A little bushwacking later I found myself back on the road, and finally on Eurovelo 14.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thursday I ended up at a beach without Linda. Friday I saw a camel (and a llama) without Linda as I passed by a circus. I don’t do these things on purpose, but she’ll be sad she missed them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I stopped for lunch at noon in a shelter with signage suggesting bathrooms, water, and a shower. All locked, but an active charging station let me top off my phone — not a complete loss. By the time I had finished lunch a storm had rolled in. So I waited. Then the weather radar showed thunder storms and hail. I finally rolled out about 2:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, more storm cells were moving south to north south of me. By my best estimate I could move west fast enough to cross in front of the next one. That worked.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For the NEXT storm cell, I think I’d have to call it a tie. But, moving hard and fast I managed to mostly stay ahead of the rain. Same for the next one.<\/p>\n

At one point I passed a German cycle tourist headed the other way. You shouted something to me, and I stopped. So he stopped. His question was effectively, what’s the weather ahead of me. We were both racing against the rain!<\/p>\n

I crossed over the hills to Lake Balaton in sunshine, a gentle ride along the southern edge of the lake. I passed by my originally intended campground to add an additional 15 km my planned day (and 15 km fewer tomorrow).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Arriving at the next campground in Zamardi, I could see what would have happened if I had been caught by one of those storm cells. Tree limbs had fallen across multiple campsites. Heavy rain had left puddles of water everywhere, although they pointed out a dry spot for my tent. All told, it’s a dinky little campground, on a lot in a residential neighborhood with only about eight sites. The bath house has only one shower, which is jury-rigged off of a sink!<\/p>\n

They had lost power, and they informed me in broken English I wouldn’t have hot water for 3 hours. Skeptical, I set up before heading out to grab a bite to eat.<\/p>\n

When I came back, jury-rigged or not, I had a hot shower. After they rebooted the Wi-Fi I had internet. All good!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I work Friday morning to the sound of rain on the tent. Still half awake, I got up for a run to the bathroom and to put a plastic cover over my bicycle seat, then snuggled back into bed. Then woke up. The rain was light, but the weather forecast showed more rain inbound. I … Continue reading “240524-I’ve seen Hell”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3733,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions\/3733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}