When I made the last entry I thought we were stopping in Ratvik for the day (I had put a small chicken in my stomach) but Oracle Jen had other plans.....
....she was motivated and so we set off into the rain and gusting winds on rt 80east. Then her motivation spread to me and we managed 145k on the day. We made a quick camp and when I woke up the next day there were hundreds of ants under and around my tent. Fortunately not climbing into my stuff. Further investigation led to a huge 1m high anthill 3m from Jen's tent! But she had no ants. We packed up quick and with the help of a tailwind rode another 145k's. We found a nicer camp and I suggested to Jen that she check for ants. Of course she didn't and managed to pitch her tent 3m from an anthill for the second day in a row!!! This time the anthill wasn't so huge.
Today we woke up and had a pleasant morning on quite country roads as we approached Stokholm. The scenery changed to open farmland, with some horses. And, believe it or not, the sun came out! When we ran out of water a nice organic tomato/cuke/lamb farmer and her Nigerian volenteer let us fill up and fed us great tomatoes. The Nigerian guy almost fell over the BOB trailer laughing when I showed him my (arctic) tanline. Of course this is Sweden so by afternoon it was raining again, but not for too long.
We eventually located our youth hostel for the night. I had been wearing the same warm weather wool kit for all of Sweden (5 days) and it was nice to clean up our stuff. Everything is drying out in the room. I changed my chain and to my surprise it only streched the length of one chainpin width in 3300km of riding, mostly loaded km's. Maybe the full wrap around the chainring and cog keep the wear down.
So it was 2600km from Nordkapp to Stokholm in 24 days and now we are looking for the cheapest ferry to Tallin.....plus a couple well deserved rest days. Its been getting dark at night which is weird after being in the Arctic. And Family guy is on, this definately a cool youth hostel.
My mom just told me that sometimes Jen's pictures are better than mine......it might be because a lot of mine were taken while riding at 20kph, sometimes more, because I didn't feel like stopping. Also one day was kinda boring so I took a bunch of cow pictures showing them on grass, the album isn't edited. And, just so you know, there are lots of signs in Sweden that say "infart" and "utfart" which must mean enter and exit, its kinda funny.
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