Our cycling adventure today bankrupt the established will of the cycling gods and made us ‘fly like a bird’ throughout most of the trip. Our route hugged the coast for most of the day and occasionally looped back on itself 180 degrees providing a strong headwind, lest we forget the wind really is in charge and just chose today to be stroking our backs throughout most of the day. You know you are pleasing the wind gods when the wind turbines face the opposite way you are traveling.

Guess the direction of the predominant winds here.

Wind and solar farms provided an interesting contrast to yesterday’s nuclear plant.

Our trail today was a mix of interesting paved trails through farmer’s pastures, quiet country roads and a sprinkle of busy roads with narrow shoulders and busy vehicles. It wasn’t clear if the golf balls could be flying at us because of the wind as nobody was swinging clubs on the course. I love examining farmer’s gates to see the myriad of inventive solutions to closures and self-closing mechanisms.

Just at the appropriate moment of ‘hypocaffeineaemia’ we happened upon a cozy café with a full menu and even a real coffee machine. The full English breakfast of a scant few hours previously prevented the fulfillment of our desire to try a Turkey Dinosaur. Our experience has been that the UK has had a good dose of espresso machines to give the ‘proper cuppa’ a run for it’s money.

As we happened upon this lovely little town with cobblestone streets I was reminded of my flat tire the day before, a portend that proved true when 5 miles later I was struggling to keep up to Cathy. Now, I know, this in reality is just part of my regular life but throughout the day I had been doing fine. As I was shifting into lower and lower gears I thought I should check my tire and sure enough I had a flat.

Kids entertaining themselves with a bag of bread and a frenzy of gulls provided a smile.

The canola fields seemed incongruently advanced in relation to the rest of the spring growth. One person told us that they were mainly used for biofuel in the UK.

For some distance we had noticed an unusual array of very tall towers strung together and anchored to the ground with a tangle of cables. Conversing with a local farmer revealed that this was the famous Anthorn Radio Station, featuring the atomic clock for Britain and a vast communication network for locating submarines and other military operations as part of NATO.

We arrived at Bowness on Solway, settled into our B&B with a fabulous view of the ocean and Scotland off the shore. I explored the beach and town to capture the newness of spring with singing birds, flowering plants and the reason for the pervasive smell of farmer’s cleaning what needs to be cleaned.