Atami Trip - Part 2 (Atsugi to Odawara)

 I woke up around 5am today, but since it's Winter, the sun hadn't come up yet.  When the sun did come up a bit before 7am, I headed out.  My idea was to head to Odawara, arriving there around 10am, rest for 2-3 hours, and then head for Mishima around 1pm.  Logically, this plan should work since even if I left at 1pm, I should arrive in Mishima in 3-4 hours, so it would either still be light, or just getting dark near the end of my trip.  

But I didn't arrive at Odawara at 10am, more like 11:30.  I also stopped to eat, which took some time.  More than that, the route from Navitime was "Interesting", to say the least.  I was directed through small trails, farmland, through the forest, and other places where you couldn't take a car and wouldn't want to take an ordinary bike. 

 That's fine, I have a mountain bike for a reason - but it also directed me to some corporate owned roads with "No Trespassing" signs.  I managed to work my way around those, but then I hit a dead end after a particularly gnarly trip through the woods up a mountain.  I ended up having to backtrack quite a bit, which ate up a lot of time.  

After switching to Google Maps I managed to get back to civilization and finally to Odawara, but I was tired and hungry.  By the time I finished eating and settling in, it was already late enough that I decided to cancel the rest of the trip for today.  

(Leomo Nav Data)

I don't really mind, as it's all part of the adventure, but the detour did use a lot of time and energy, so I've had enough for one day.  

For tomorrow, I wanted to go all the way to Mishima, but looking at the route options, the short ones are basically highways that run through the middle of the mountains.  (There are some back roads, but some fairly long portions merge into the highways).  I don't like the idea of traveling in a narrow windy road in the mountains with cars around me going at 60kph or more.  (I was going about 40 in a 40 zone today and cars kept passing me, so there are people speeding in some places!)

There is a longer, more scenic way, along the ocean with bike paths and all, but it is close to 80km!  I don't really want to try to cycle 80km in one day.  I just cycled about 48km and I am already a bit sore (mainly from she shaking in the forest, mind you - but still).  My posterior can only take so much abuse in one day!

So I want to take the 77km route, but I want to stop somewhere in between.  There is no Kaikatsu Club, but there are plenty of other places I am sure.  

Looking at the map, I found that Atami is nearby (about 28km if I take the scenic route).  Atami has nice hotels with Onsens (Hot Springs), so I may go there and stay at a nice hot spring for a day as a contract to Net Cafe life.  

17:45

Despite saying above that I can only handle so much in one day, I feel rested now and wouldn't mind putting in another 15-20km - if only it weren't dark.  

Actually, even with it being dark - I also found some hotels near the station that are around 4,000 JPY.  That's not so much more than staying at a net cafe for a long time, so I would have considered staying there instead.  (And the station is in the right direction, about 4km from where I am now in the direction of Atami).  For such a short distance I wouldn't mind moving at night - but since I am already checked in here and have been here for several hours, it would be 4,000 on top of what I am already paying here.... maybe on the way back I will stop there instead.    

I'll also found an nice restaurant nearby, so I will head there later before they close. 

7:30

It's been light out for a while now, and I will head out to Atami soon.  The only real problem is that while I have booked a hotel there, the check-in time is not until 17:00. 

Even with cutting out some of the dead ends, stop lights, etc., this is easily my longest YouTube Video yet.  I piece of mud ended up getting stuck to the lens of my front camera for most of the way, but I covered it up with the rear view from my Cyclic Fly 6 (rear camera).  

I can check out the area around Odawara station to kill some time, but I'll still arrive very early.  I could stay here in the net cafe, but that seems like a waste - after all, I could do that in Tokyo (and it's not very interesting anyway).  

I will wait for about an hour for it to warm up outside, but since it will be too early to check in when I arrive in Atami, I'll just park and have a tour of the area.  I explored ahead of time a little using Street View.  While at first it seemed like there wasn't much there, upon closer inspection there is a shopping arcade, which I am sure has some interesting stuff inside.  

Return to Atami Trip - Part 1 (Suginami to Machida, Atsugi, and Fujisawa)

Proceed to Atami Trip - Part 3 (Odawara to Atami)