Camping

16-18 July 2024: A casually planned three-day ride to a popular hot spring resort. Surprises included: an unridable hiking trail; a flat tire repair challenge in a rainstorm on a mountain road after dark; a midnight map reading failure; and the kindness of strangers.

A loaded cargo bike parked on a field of close-dropped dried grass, with an A-frame house on a wooded hill in the background.

A small jar of sweet-and-sour carrot and radish salad, a small jar sweet black beans, a coffee cup and small plate of soy sauce on a plastic cutting board, resting on the ground. Beyond the cutting board a pot of water is boiling on a small gasoline camp stove.

A white, lifesize statue of a cow, but with the hindquarters in the shape of a box of milk with milk pouring from its spout.

Shingle-roofed cabins embedded in cedar forest.

1-2 January 2024: A two-day trip starting on New Year’s Day to a free campsite within easy riding distance from Nagoya; but the mountainous route chosen for this first ride to the site was full of surprises.

12-13 October 2023: A two-day trip to a mountain campground in Shiga Prefecture, in the direction of Biwa Lake and Kyoto east of Nagoya. Good conversations and rural scenery reminiscent of California coastal forests in days of youth.

26-28 September 2023: The first long ride in Japan, the first flat-tire experience on the cargo bike, the first experience of a Japanese campground. So many firsts.