Last weekend, I discovered a rare tree on my ride to Kim Jong-hee’s home in Yesu — the Lacebark Pine. It’s a beautiful tree, with its light, silvery-white bark, and there are fewer than ten in Korea — most within range of a good long bike ride.
Which I don’t mind.
So today, I set out in the opposite direction of last week’s ride — northeast to Yi-ch’eon (one of my favorite cities, and from which I’ve launched three rides, to include two to the Wonju beast). The Yi-ch’eon area is a great place for trees, and that bears out in that it’s the location of a beautiful Lacebark Pine — much bigger than the one I saw last week. And, what I like about these trees sometimes, far off the beaten path — pretty much in some rural backyard off a beat-up, one-lane road. There it’s stood for the past couple-hundred years, and hopefully, there it’ll be in another few-hundred.
Another interesting thing about Yi-ch’eon — the Lost Story.
It’s been a long time since I’ve visited a new story tree. Early last November, on another ride around Yi-ch’eon, I found two or three. I knew there was at least one more, but when I checked the address, this is all I saw on street-view:
I feared the tree may have died, but today I found out it was only a couple-hundred meters down the road from the address. And it held a fascinating story about a woman who killed some invaders and then turned the knife on herself — but only after cleaning it, because the blood of her enemies was dirty.
The rest of the ride was beautiful, but brutal. It was probably a combination of a few things that made it a bit rough for me. After doing a 20-mile ride yesterday morning, I finished the day with a box of caramel popcorn and a coke for dinner at the movie. I slept well enough, but when I got up around 3:30, I was still half asleep. I’m usually up and ready to go fairly early, but I bet I could have gone back to sleep quite easily this morning.
The first 40 miles was no problem, but then I started to run out of energy, and I’d say for the last 25 miles, I was just plain tired. Still, it was thoroughly enjoyable.
