I’ve always liked Gongju. It’s a nice little city on the Gumgang about an hour south of here…at 4am. If I’d tried to get there today around noon, it would’ve been a couple of hours easy. Holiday traffic I guess. Passed a lot of it coming home. Gongju is a historic city — lots of Baekjae Kingdom stuff. Museums. Decent food. They have a place that makes fantastic Chestnut “Pies” — which are more just a flakey pastry ball around a delicious sweet paste wrapped around a single chestnut. Always have to stop by for that…
So, yeah. 4 am. Bike up on top of the car. Dark the whole way. Dark when I started. But of course, I’ve already written plenty about Korean mornings and their sunrises, and honestly, a lot of my pictures are of sunrises. Not today though.
Even without the spectacular sunrise, there’s the whole thing about no cars on the road at 5. As a matter of fact, my route was such that, outside of the cities, I didn’t see many cars at all today. The entire ride was quite pleasant, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. The perfect day, really. The heat of the past few weeks took a break (it was only in the 80s today), combined with clouds for most of the ride. No wind, but a few sprinkles here and there. Energy levels stayed high too (thanks to those clouds).
Rode solo today. An excellent 70 miles.
