Vainden to Luxembourg

Packed, finished getting the bike computer set up, and then rode into town to get a baguette and... OH NO. The bike computer isn't working. One of the buttons is pushed in and won't come out. I fiddled with it for ages but no luck. Sigh. I gave up. I fiddled with it for the rest of the day, but no luck.

I had my breakfast and only got about 2 K's before it started raining. Sigh. I stopped under a very dense group of trees for a while until it died down. Then I set off south. It spitted on and off throughout the day but never really rained that hard and when it got close to it I just stopped under some more trees.

It was another day of excellent cycling today, aside from the obvious computer issue and the obvious rain issue. I used a few bike paths and lots of quiet white and green roads. At one point I had to stop to let some cows through. I don't know why, they weren't completely blocking the road, but the farmer wanted me to wait. I headed south in the direction of Luxembourg as there are more towns along the way and several Youth Hostels so maybe there is a chance of getting access to the internet and finding out what to do about the bike computer.

But, alas not as it turned out. Sigh. I stopped at several nice towns along the way. But they either didn't have camping, or the Internet was hideously expensive (10 Euros) or there was a Youth Hostel, but it wasn't open until 5 pm, or the YHA was open but it didn't have any internet cards left. Most annoying. I was getting close to Luxembourg when I decided to make one last try for a camping ground. The route to get to it was closed but I thought I'd try it out and there was no problem. I don't know if the road workers just weren't working today or what. Anyway there was, of course, a problem with the camping ground. It was at the top of a monstrous climb, had to be close to 20%, I had to ride from side to side and stopped twice. Of course they didn't have any food and they were no where near town. Sigh.

So in the end I rode into Luxembourg, it was just easier. Amazingly I had no trouble finding the YHA and they even had room. I booked in, got a 24 hour Internet card, and yes it cost 10 Euro's. Rang VDO, the bike computer company, and arranged to send the receiver to them. They will send the replacement to Paris. I think I will buy a cheap bike computer until then.

I had dinner at the YHA, mediocre, but only 9 Euros. The salad bar was actually better than the main. The main was a duck thing, sort of like a pie, but the duck was very dry. I had to have 2 Fanta's to get it down. The salad bar included soup, looked odd but tasted good, dry bread, but okay when dunked in the soup, and several salads. One of the salads was cauliflower with meat, some of the meat seemed to be steak. Left overs I guess, but very tasty.

Tomorrow I'll send the bike computer in for replacement and, finally, head into France. At last.

At least, that is the plan.