Guest Blog: Bike-packing across Scandinavia at 64 (Days 11 and 12)

Day 11: Korsor, Denmark (31 miles, 315 total miles)

17 June 2024: Monday

Denmark and Sweden are like the US on its best behavior: Courteous drivers; polite cashiers and clerks; reserved, but patient customers and pedestrians; health conscious riding bicycles, walking, and exercising; thin and healthy; frugal use of natural resources; ardent recyclers; and so on.

My alarm woke me at 5 am. I was happy to get my day started. I am on vacation, after all. I plan to make the most of it. 

Down in the dining area, I drank four tiny cups of strong coffee from their machine, racking up a bill of 1 Euro each time. I took one back to the room and worked on transferring photos.

Although yesterday, the forecasts called for warm, sunny weather all day, today’s forecasts called for a 10% chance of rain at 9 am. All the more reason to leave later today. 

I went back to the dining area and ordered breakfast. Like all the other women who manage this place, these two were very, very friendly. When I went to pay, I told her to add the 5 cups of coffee I had earlier, but that I wouldn’t have anymore. She said, “I will not charge you for those because coffee is included in the breakfast and since you are not having any more… They are little cups too.”

Breakfast was excellent: Warm dark, whole wheat buns; two types of sliced meat; two types of cheese; grapes, cherry tomatoes, and sliced cucumbers. I had two small glasses of orange juice. I noticed rain clouds around 9:30.

Upstairs I packed everything into the saddle bags and ushered Heidi down the winding stairs. I turned in my dirty sheets and towel, and dropped of my key. I told the final lady that this was a really nice experience. It was!

Then I peddled out into the street, realized I was going the wrong way, and turned around. I made good time although the wind was mostly in my face and the hills were nearly constant. I found that my legs are just a little stronger than before. I didn’t tire quite as easily. I probably met 20 hills, and I made it up all of them except one in the town of Slagelse. I had to push that one.

During the last 45 minutes, it started to sprinkle and kept it up until I found house 12 in Korsor. I had covered 30 miles in exactly three hours (10 mph), which was darn good for me. And it was a fun day, except for the rain.

The caretaker couple was sitting in a shed in the backyard. The husband responded to my greeting, but only the wife came out. She spoke English, but he didn’t. They were likely migrants.

I parked Heidi in another shed and carried my bags up the very narrow stairs to the room. I was immediately disappointed. The kitchenette and bedroom were nice enough. But somehow, I had misread the description of the room. I had to share a bathroom.

One thing I don’t like about European accommodations are the showers. Typically in lower rent hotels, the shower is just a corner space in the bathroom with a tiny wraparound curtain on the remaining two sides. This means that water is leaking all over the bathroom and, in my case, the wet shower curtain clings to my body. There is no room to turn avoid a clingy shower curtain. When you are done, you are supposed to scrape the entire bathroom floor dry (or semi dry) with a squeegee. Not my idea of a luxurious bathing experience. 

But then again, I lived in El Salvador for my first year of marriage pouring hot water over myself from a bucket in an abandoned room in a mud hut on a dirt floor, and I lived off and on with my grandparents for years, where every bath was a sponge bath. 

After a shower, I walked down to the supermarket and bought some sausages for lunch and supper. I walked back and started cooking them when the Dutch cyclists came up the stairs. One was 67 years or older and the other was younger. They had just ridden 43 miles and were boarding the train tomorrow, like me. I helped them book their train tickets, so that is how I know their approximate ages. 

By the way, I think I was wrong about Scandinavians keeping the hot water at a lower temperature than we do in the US. I think I just didn’t understand how to operate the two knobs on the shower valve.  

I dozed off about 8pm, totally exhausted. I woke up after the sun went down, 11 pm or so, and the couple was still awake talking. I went back to sleep.

Korsor Room ($74/night)

12 Mathiesensvej, Korsør, Denmark, 4220

Day 12: Train to Vejle, Denmark (3 miles, 318)

18 June 2024: Tuesday

I remember Darren playing on the hill in the yard of my grandparents’ house. We played in the summer outside. You could barely get us inside to eat. I played with trucks in the dirt under the cedar tree. We would walk the hill, down the long lane, into the woods, down around the garbage pile near the pond, where my uncle would gig frogs. 

Darren was only one year older than our younger brother, while I was three years older. So naturally, they played together, and fought, the most. I was a bit of a loner in many ways (still am). I liked to stay around my grama, bake a pie crust cookie (but I never ate it all because it was too bland), pump water into the plastic gallon bucket and carry it in, or just ask her questions. I also liked to walk down the hill and cross the road to play with my cousin Bobby, when he was around. I liked playing with my other cousin, Kevin, too, when he was around. Both were three years older than me, and when we got together, they made fun of me and picked on me. Once grama scolded Kevin for the way they picked on me. I suspect I picked on my younger brothers the same way.

In fact, once when I was angry at the two little stinkers for something of mine they had taken or broken, she told me, “Count to ten before you do anything… That will calm you down.”

No, that never worked. 

In the house in front of the Bluebird tavern in Vallonia, Darren used crutches to take the weight off his hip due to lack of blood flow to the head of the femur from Perthes Disease. His leg was bound up in a leather brace to prevent him from using it. Once, when he didn’t come home right after me, I went back outside to retrace my steps and find him.

There he was in front of the little store on the ground, crying and swinging his crutch hysterically at two or three boys who had been picking on him. I was furious. I ran off the other boys and helped Darren to his feet. I felt so horrible that this was all happening to him. That he was suffering from the disease. That I didn’t protect him better. That kids were picking on him. I promised myself that I would always take care of him. But, of course, I couldn’t.

A couple months ago, at Darren’s memorial at the fire department in Vallonia, right next door to the Bluebird, I sat outside with my youngest brother on the steps of that very house. The house is gone, but the steps are still there. And the memories still haunt. Sometimes in my dreams.  

I looked over at the spot where Darren was sprawled in the dirt swinging his crutch. I thought about that little boy. In fact, any time I ever thought about Darren, it was with the tenderness of that moment. That of an older brother for a younger, more vulnerable sibling. The Vallonia steps also brought back other, more horrible memories of that house. It was not a very happy childhood. 

He and I shared that background. 

Although we had our moments. Particularly, going to grama’s house. Playing basketball in our back yard with a red, white, and blue ABA basketball. Mom once got us tickets once to the Harlem Globe Trotters game in Seymour. Another time to Championship Wrestling in Seymour, where we saw Bobby Heenan and Dick the Bruiser. 

I woke up at 4:10 am. I had slept well.

I wanted to get into the shared bathroom before anyone else got up. Unfortunately, the old man (a little older than me, but much fitter) has the same frequent urination problem that I do. He jiggled the handle just a couple minutes after I entered. So, I hurried and announced that the bathroom was free to share and started making coffee.  He came out in his black underwear with a smile and wished me a good morning. 

I tried to keep the noise down to a minimum while I drank coffee and ate a chocolate muffin, cinnamon roll, banana, and some strawberries. Good morning, yet sprinkled with the anxiety of being in urgent need of urination and the bathroom not available for sharing. 

Prostate cancer and frequent urination go hand in hand (wrong metaphor, I  know), so when the urge strikes, I don’t have a lot of physical resistance. 

The Dutch couple finally got up around 7 am and started moving around. I had washed all of my dishes and left them in the drainer. The wife not only washed her dishes (maybe his too), but dried them and put them back in the drawers. Over and above, in my opinion. 

At 8:15 am, the couple bid me farewell and went to the train station, where they will board the train for Nybord, which crosses the Great Belt Strait, some 11 miles. There is a bridge, but cyclists are forbidden. Their tickets were for 9:34 am. 

I had to do the same, but I went ahead and purchased a ticket to Vejle, which is 66 miles west across the island of Fyn and then northwest. In order to keep my trip to about 9 or 10 days in Denmark and allow a week or so in both Norway and Finland, I have to use trains in each country. I hoped to get my train leg out of the way, so I tacked on a few extra miles on this trip. After that, I hope to make the 175 mile journey to Hirtshals in five days.

I started getting myself organized after the Dutch couple left. I carried my bags down to the tool shed and retrieved Heidi, attached the seat bag and headed for the train station, 2.1 miles away. My ticket was for 10:34 am, so I could really enjoy the morning.

The station was on the outskirts of Korsor. I passed two McDonalds and several other spots where I could have scored some coffee, but the train station should sell something, right? Plus, my anxiety drives me to get to the platform plenty early and just wait.

So, once I got there, it was clear that there were no attendants and no hot beverages for sale. Not even a vending machine. Where are their capitalist impulses?

Well over an hour early, I could have ridden back to an earlier shop for coffee, but the anxiety would not permit it. Instead, I took the elevator down to Platform 3.

The Dutch couple was there along with two other Dutch couples. They explained that they didn’t know each other, but had just met. One couple,, who were probably in their 70s, were riding electric bikes. 

Their 9:34 came about 9:40 or so. And they disappeared into the belly of the beast. I sat down on a bench, quite satisfied that I had time to wait. It was about 60 degrees, but the breeze chilled my bare legs and even my arms, which were covered, so I dug out my thin sweat pants and hoodie. I began reading a Danish detective novel (what better way to learn a nation’s culture!)

When the train came, Heidi and I boarded. The female conductor who was in her 40s joined me on Car 72. The first 12 feet or so was filled with luggage, two bikes, and a rather large woman who had set down side seats and was taking up valuable bicycle space. The conductor asked her to move to a permanent seat like everyone else. She did, but didn’t like it very much.

The conductor helped me attached Heidi by way of a seatbelt. Then she explained to me that although I had a bike and a seat reservation (total $7), I needed to buy a seat ticket (with was about $40). I did so by the app online with her help, paid for it in her presence, was awarded a QR code, which she promptly scanned. 

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Heidi and I disembarked at Vejle and rode about half a mile to the Cabinn Hotel. I told Eva that I had stayed in Cabinn Apartment (part of the chain) in Copenhagen, but she seemed unimpressed. Go figure.

Eva was very friendly, and like the young lady in Copenhagen, she told me that my room wasn’t ready. She gave me the code for the door to the luggage storage room down a flight of stairs, naturally, and I took Heidi down and locked her up. 

Don’t misunderstand. I lock Heidi up for her own protection. Not for any unresolved, childhood misogynists reasons. There are plenty of those; I just process those in very different ways.

After about half hour in the lobby unwinding after that arduous 3-mile bike ride, I walked the streets of Vejle, pronounced something like “Vayla” or “Voyla.” It is a splendid European city with paved stone streets, old churches, outdoor dining, and shops plying their wares on the streets. 

I landed at Kokken’s Polsevogn (sausage car), a highly acclaimed sausage wagon on the Vejle River, and bought a sausage with a normal size bun. At a stand up table (Europeans really like to eat standing up); I added hot mustard, catsup, and relish; opened the fresh, hot bun with my fingers; and ate this delightful lunch. When I had finished, I realized that at 2 pm, it was time for supper. So I bought another. They hit the spot. 

After a stop at 365 Discount, I walked back along the river to the hotel. Eva now had a room, so I got in about 30 minutes early and didn’t have to pay the 100 DDK (or $15) for an early check in. 

For some unknown reason, I couldn’t stay awake much past 6 pm. 

Vejle Cabinn ($65/night)

Dæmningen 6, Vejle, 7100 Denmark