Day 10: Today was a four letter word

...and that word is "slog."

I am again doing this on my phone, so no pics. Also, the one outlet in my room doesn't work, so I am sitting in this bizarre common area while my numerous devices charge up.

Let's start with the positives:
1. No rain today
2. I enjoyed the bit along the river - about 10 miles worth
3. I got to ride on a ferry across the river
4. Uh, that's about it

There were multiple sections of gravel roads, some looser and more harrowing than others. I went through maybe 5 (I lost count) and there were at least a couple miles each. It was not fun at all.

This is not because I took a shortcut again. These were the only roads through these areas that were not highways. I thought to myself on multiple occasions "pave your damn roads, Lithuania!"

I also happened to ride through one area that they actually were repaving, meaning there was a detour on to a...wait for it...gravel road!

The roads that were paved were pretty good, with none of the Polish road terrible patch jobs.

Since there are very few bridges to cross the Neman River, I elected to use the car ferry. The trip across took 5 minutes and cost 60 Euro cents. Well worth it to avoid riding 20 miles out of the way!

I had a fairly strong wind in my face for about 75% of the day. That almost cancelled out the decent paving.

I was totally beat when I got to my hotel, and none of the people on duty spoke English. The owner called her son, who acted as an interpreter via phone. I asked if the restaurant was open (since there were no customers) and they told me they would make me dinner. The lady said 5 minutes, so I ran to my room to get out of my cycling clothes and head to the restaurant. Then there was a knock at the door and they delivered my dinner! That was awesome.

Today's ride was 11 hours(!) and 173km/111mi. I will probably sleep well tonight.

Tomorrow, it is on to Latvia.