The breakfast menu at the truck stop was not unlike dinner. I was still happy not to patronize the restaurant at our hotel. The blond witch from the evening before managed to give me one more \"how dare you spend your money here\" look before we left. Before I knew it we were on the road again. I found myself still tired from our journey two days before. That combined with the straight road and forest left Andrew to comment that he felt that he was on a stationary bike. Still, through the coastal forest we caught glimpses of ocean. Some thirty kilometers down the pike we made the town we intended to lunch in.
As we approached there were three bike riders and their cycles stopped on the roadside. The three were huddled around one of the bikes looking frustrated. We stopped and offered our assistance, which was readily accepted. They'd just gotten off the train a few kilometers down the road with the intent of traveling 40k north to camp. The least experienced of the threesome had collided into Natasha, sending her into the bushes and scraping her lip. The other casualty was the inexperienced one's bike (we don't know her name so we'll call her Anna). Anna had the worst bent rim I'd seen.
Andy pulled out his truing tool and went to work while I attended to Natasha's lip. He gave up at one point and we sat and stared at the wounded bike until I came up with the idea of loosening all the spokes and then trying to true the wheel. Andy applied the idea and got the bike to the point that it was operable. They were happy to have had the help and gave us half a loaf of the best rye bread I'd ever tasted. The dude with the two girls took the bike for a test drive and pronounced it \"excellent\".
They said they'd be pressing on with their journey, but I suspect they rode back to the station retreating to Riga where they began. We stopped at a beach side parking lot and food stand for lunch and watched Latvians and Russians frolic in the surf while munching salmon sandwiches. The toilets here were hilarious. They were simply four holes in the floor of a room. After lunch our pace really picked up. The wind whipped us along the highway to Riga while the road became more trafficked. One stroke of luck was that the road was closed and traffic was re-routed to Riga.
We remained on the highway which was empty except for a few highway workers sealing the joints of the road with tar. We got a little splattered with tar along the way but the dirt was well worth the car-free travel. The road signs gave us very confusing directions, but before long we were in the city and making our way to the center. I stopped in a Trek bike shop in order to have some help with my crank that seemed to be making more and more noise. It turned out that the peddle was the culprit, not the crank.
My Ritchey clipless peddles had corroded and needed replacement. I didn't like the replacements they offered there and convinced the tech there to help me get the peddles in working order somehow. He sprayed, tightened and fiddled until he got them to work without squeaking, advising me to get new ones in Poland where they will be \"cheap\". I'd forgotten about Andy who was waiting patiently outside and was near the end of his rope and bladder capacity. We set out together to find a place to rest for a few days, finding a charming new hotel in the very center of the old town.
As we traversed the historic center we came upon a dude with a crutch seeking hand-outs carrying what I thought was a lemur on his shoulder. Later walking about we saw him and his mate, a babushka with a dog, walking around muttering to themselves near our hotel. It turned out I'd hallucinated the lemur, which was actually a common house cat. We ascended the massive tower of the church near our hotel in order to survey the capital of Latvia. We rode up in the elevator with the operator who was at least seventy years old and appeared to be made out of wax.
Andy asked if the phone in the elevator was connected to the outside world and he replied \"yes\" and smiled. Later on the way down we asked him a silly question like \"is the elevator internet enabled?\" He answered \"yes\" and smiled, leading me to believe he only spoke the few words of English he recited as we mounted the tower. The evening in Riga was a little frustrating. First we tried to find a vegetarian restaurant run by the Hari Krishnas only to find it closed. We then wandered looking for somewhere else to eat, finally returning to the tourist center to eat in a \"Mexican\"
one. Then we went on a wild goose chase trying to find the Spartacus Guide's recommendation for a queer bar in Riga. None of the three seemed to exist, so, again, we retreated to the historic center to find a bar for a nightcap. Andy was being a little too picky about choosing a bar and grudgingly agreed to have a beer at the Irish (ugh!) Bar in the same building as our Hotel. It was boring and nasty so we retired to our hotel room for an early evening.