Start: Muhlhausen
Finish: Worbis
Distance: 16
Total: 1541
Today was a straightforward 16 miles across more farmland. The weather was a little warmer than it has been for the last few days. Even though it stayed overcast, I was comfortable walking in a short sleeve shirt.
The day got started with a very good breakfast at my hotel in Muhlhausen. I was out the door at 8:15 and walked for about two miles before I was out of town and in the countryside. I spent most of the day walking on what we would call a Farm-to-Market road at home. There was some car traffic but no trucks. They were over on the main highway. I had about a 1000’ climb early on. The hills here tend to be large, rolling hills so I might be climbing or descending a hill for a couple of miles, but the grade is not that steep.
I noticed today these strange wood boxes on little skids along the side of the road. They’re about the size of a large dog house and have some type of granular coming out the bottom front. (See picture). I saw them every quarter mile or so all day. I hadn’t a clue what these things were for. When I got to my hotel, I showed the picture to the gentleman at the reception desk and he said the granular substance is gravel and is hand-spread by a work crew on the roads when they get icy. A truck comes along and refills the box when it gets low on gravel. Makes sense.
My hotel here in Worbis is on the edge of town so for dinner I had to walk a ways down the street to a steakhouse. That’s the first real beef I’ve had in over a month.
The weather is forecast to start warming up over the next few days, but not the heat wave Europe had a couple of weeks ago. I’m about 51 degrees north latitude here; about the same as Calgary, Alberta, so the normal high should be about 70F. Being this far north also explains why it gets daylight here around 4:30 AM and doesn’t get dark until 10:00 PM. That will only get worse when I get to Sweden and Norway.
That’s all I have to report today. Because my hotel is located just as I came into town, I didn’t see the bear sanctuary I mentioned yesterday. Maybe I’ll see it tomorrow as I walk through and out of town. JB
