{"id":5001,"date":"2025-08-25T12:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T16:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/?p=5001"},"modified":"2025-08-28T12:33:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T16:33:54","slug":"the-long-road-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/the-long-road-home\/","title":{"rendered":"The long road home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I accomplished getting dinner.<\/p>\n

This morning I packed up. With intermittent rain, I left early to ride during a dry period, even thought it left me to wait at the far less comfortable than the hostel train station.<\/p>\n

Despite the usual concerns of “am I on the right train”, I boarded successfully. I spent the train ride next to a very garrulous intoxicated Frenchman. There’s a tautology there somewhere.<\/p>\n

I had hoped to head home without ever getting caught by the rain. I disembarked into the rain in Mockava. To nothing. A small train station and fields. A check of the GPS showed the train station is several kilometers from the small town of Mockava where I had planned to arrive. Even better, the OPPOSITE side of where my B&B was. Where the only remotely direct route was across an unplanned for 4 km of dirt track. Sigh.<\/p>\n

I spent some time in the small shelter at the train station looking for a gap in the weather on the radar. I could wait 3 to 4 hours for the rain to end, or ride in a roughly 1 hour window relatively soon. The problem with waiting several hours was potentially running out of daylight. In Lithuania. On dirt track. I headed out into the break. I didn’t miss the rain.<\/p>\n

The hostess for my booking waited in the yard for me. I have to give her credit. A bedraggled wet cyclist shows up, and she tried to upsell me on a larger room. I suspect this place is usually used for large crowds and weddings. Tonight it’s only me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Given that my train tomorrow isn’t until 3:45 pm, I plan a very slow start.<\/p>\n

I heard back from a second bike shop that will have a box for me on Wednesday. Good to have a backup box!<\/p>\n

In other news, Linda flew home today from Oslo. Her flight out of Oslo was delayed long enough that she missed her connecting flight in Paris. She’s currently spending the night in a Paris hotel courtesy of Air France. Her updated flight is at 6:00 am tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I accomplished getting dinner. This morning I packed up. With intermittent rain, I left early to ride during a dry period, even thought it left me to wait at the far less comfortable than the hostel train station. Despite the usual concerns of “am I on the right train”, I boarded successfully. I spent … Continue reading “The long road home”<\/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-5001","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\/5001","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=5001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5025,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions\/5025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}