Day 11 - Ainaži, Latvia - Rain got us today

Tony's View

 Our first day in Latvia! We debated when to leave this morning and finally decided to leave at 9:30am. The decision was based on radar even though we already realized it isn't that accurate. We got nearly half way today and it started raining. We rode about 3 to 5 miles in the rain and it slowed down. I then took my raincoat off. 

Before it started to rain, we got to cross this cool bicycle bridge. 👍

At one point, we came across a sign that said moose crossing 400 meters ahead. There was a break in the fence and it seemed to channel all crossing there. The fence along the road is about 7' tall with a guardrail type thing on the top. I assume that makes it harder for moose to cross. It was amazing that they were channelling them like hunters do to get deer to their tree stand. 

I saw this small house the size of a dog house on wheels along side of the road. I wanted a picture because it looks like some of our Airbnbs. Oh well, it seemed like a good idea when riding by. 😊

Knowing with the rain that pictures could be limited, I got a picture of a wood pile. Many houses have wood piles like this for winter heat. Some are enormous in size. 

We were riding along the Baltic Sea today and there was a path to an opening. Joan stayed with the bicycle and I walked to take a picture.

We got into 15km of roadway construction not too far from the end and it was raining. The road was rough but there was still a lot of traffic. You can see the bus for public transportation in front of us. They did slow down to avoid splashing us too much. There were places on this road that were flooded with only a foot wide path in the middle. We got very dirty.

We found a biergarten/restaurant and pulled off. We took a picture to show you how our bicycle looked like. My legs were almost as sandy. 

The placed we stopped had outdoor seating, but it was raining, so the locals were sitting in the garage area drinking beer. We joined them in the garage and at first they were a little hesitant to talk to us, but they warmed up and we had a good conversation. There was also a friendly couple from Munich, Germany that Joan will tell you about. After two beers, the rain slowed down and we decided to go the last 5 miles to our Airbnb to clean the bicycle and me.

As we started to take off we ran into this camper conversation truck. It looks very unique.

Then about 1 mile from our Airbnb we entered Latvia. There was a couple taking pictures when we rode up and they were willing to take our picture.

Then it was off to our final destination for the day and start cleaning everything up. We found some buckets outside and started rinsing off all the grit. Joan was taking things in after the grit was off all the bags. She also kept filling up the water bottles for the final rinsing. I wiped everything down before we brought it in. We are going to let it dry before a final cleaning. After the final cleaning I will do the chain maintenance and oiling. But first, out to dinner.

Joan's Extras

Tony did some research to make sure there was food nearby our Airbnb. When we were ready for dinner, we walked to the nearby restaurant but a worker came out to tell us the food was all gone. A large group affiliated with horses cleaned them out of food. That was a first! A restaurant being totally out of food? He suggested some other options for us that was within walking distance. We ended up walking to Hesburger, a fast food place, about a mile down the road at a pull off from the interstate. It was actually fairly yummy and my dish was almost healthy.

One of our highlights today was the roadside food stand. Uta and Stephan joined us in the "garage." We learned lots from them as well as from the local guys that stopped for a beer. Uta and Stephan our traveling by motorhome. We crossed paths as they are heading into Estonia and just came from Latvia. Uta commented that there are very few roadside restaurants in this area. That makes sense because they are from Munich and after riding on Germany's bike trails, we know how frequent the biergartens are in that area. Tony told them about his plans for the Tour de Octoberfest with ex-friend Dan and Eric Wiechart. Stephan works in the automotive industry with self-driven cars. That was another interesting conversation. We loved our time with them and got a group selfie before we headed in opposite directions. By the way, Uta and Stephan, we missed the cool hop/jump rock path that you showed us, and I was looking for it. 

One more great find today - a vacation house for Eric & Tisha.▽