The UP of Europe

Riga – Tuja, Latvia

There is something about campfires that I love. Especially when said campfire is next to the beach. 

I love collecting the wood. 

I love starting the fire.

I love the puzzle each new campfire provides for us – how to cook without burning everything or having half of our dinner fall into the fire. (Tonight we were lucky enough to find a little wire contraption that we used to hold the food. It was broken but we managed to Munger it up and it worked fine…)

And I love jumping in the water after dinner. I never sleep better than I do after a little swim. Love that tingly feeling.

And the whole experience is made even better on a day like today. Rainy and cold pretty much the whole time we were biking.

But as soon as we pulled into our campsite the clouds parted and the sun came out. There’s something about a little misery that makes the post-misery that much sweeter. I mean, I don’t want to make it sound terrible, but I wouldn’t say that this was our best day of biking. Kind of rainy. Pretty flat. Just bad enough that dinner was going to be excellent even if we had ramen . . .

Nor is this just any old beach. Our first time on the Baltic. I can see why people love it here. It’s cold like Lake Superior – but not AS cold. And it’s a little salty – but it’s nothing like the ocean – with only one-fifth the salt content of the open seas. 

I guess it’s less salty because it’s fed by rivers and streams, and the Baltic only has a small connection to the North Sea – which provides a little saltiness, but not nearly enough to make it like the ocean. This makes it officially a brackish sea. 

The word brackish makes it sound kind of dirty. Like it’s a swamp or something. It’s not a swamp – but I guess years of pollution have had a negative effect. Especially because it’s a relatively shallow body of water. Fortunately, most of the countries that sit on the Baltic are part of the EU and there is a growing concern for the sea. The upshot is that there has been a concerted effort to keep it clean. 

(I should mention that my parents serve on the board of Save Lake Superior – a non profit that works to keep our favorite fresh water sea clean. Really appreciate their willingness to spend their efforts fighting for important causes like this one!)

The one exception? Yep. You guessed it. Russia. St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad both sit on the Baltic, and, according to our Riga tour guide, they are not so good about controlling their pollution . . .

Which brings me to Lionel. Like Lionel Richie. Only this Lionel is a French cyclist – and I don’t think he can sing. 

We met Lionel today. He was having lunch under an awning outside of a gas station. 

Don’t laugh.

Just twenty minutes before we had lunch in a bus shelter along the side of the road. It was fine at first – no one was there. But then about six people showed up. Kind of embarrassing to be sitting there in our tattered raincoats cooking leftover curry on our campstove in front of a small crowd of old Latvians. Especially because we were sitting and they were standing – trying to find a little space under the awning to stay out of the rain. It kind of violates the Boy Scouts code of honor to sit there comfortably eating leftover curry while Latvian babushkas are standing in the rain. 

Lionel didn’t have any such problem. He was all by himself. 

We compared notes. Lionel came through Poland and he’s heading toward Helsinki. Same basic plan that we’re on. 

The big difference? Lionel thought it would be a good idea to cut through Kaliningrad on his way. 

It wasn’t. A good idea, that is.

First of all, he told us that the Russians in Kaliningrad are extremely paranoid. They were all worried that Lionel was a spy or something – and it doesn’t sound like they were real nice about it. (To be fair, I think the Pink Panther was a spy, and both Lionel and the Panther have the kind of French accent that is very suspicious – like they are just there to surreptitiously steal your best borscht recipes.)

Then he said they have military bases all over the place there. Doesn’t sound like it was real pretty. 

Finally, he told us that the rules seem to change every day. As he was preparing to bike out of Kaliningrad toward Latvia he figured out that the border crossing he was headed for had been closed. He ended up having to backtrack, and then he had to take a train to another border. 

Sounds like an all around terrible experience.

Of course, now it might seem like we’re pretty down on Russia and Russians. And I guess we kind of are. Really, other than those conspiracy theory Austrians that we met earlier in the trip, the only person in the Western World that I can think of who isn’t totally down on the Russians for their invasion of Ukraine is our president. 

But the thing is that most blanket statements about people are wrong. We’re all just a big mix of good and bad I guess . . .

Just this afternoon at the campground we met this whole big extended Russian speaking family. The kids are frolicking in the ocean, playing soccer, and giggling on the swings. The family is having dinner, sitting by the campfire, and just generally loving being together. As I sit in the tent writing this blog I can hear the kids out singing.

These are not evil people. 

It’s just a shame that Russia has pretty terrible leadership right now. Well, really, it’s a shame that the world has some pretty terrible leadership right now. 

Okay, sorry. Straying into stuff that has very little to do with our trip or this blog. 

Let’s get back to meat and potatoes type issues. Like what we had for dinner. Two big sausages, cheesy potatoes au gratin, Diana’s cabbage in cream sauce, salad, and a Radler Mojito. Overlooking the Sea. With a beautiful sunset. Pretty good what we can come up with based on an extremely limited selection; we ended up buying our groceries at this little village store and this was the best we could do . . .

Tomorrow we cross into Estonia. I’m excited. Estonia is home to the Tartu Ski Marathon – a World Loppet event. Any country that hosts a World Loppet has to be pretty good . . .

And I guess Estonia has these cool free campsites – called RMK. Not sure who made them, but they almost sound like a Baltic version of CCC projects; they sound great. They have toilets, and a fire pit, and a picnic table or two. A couple we met in Poland – bikers from the Canary Islands in Spain – told us about them. It probably won’t work to stay at an RMK site tomorrow night – but the next evening should be good. We’ll see. 

One last thing . . . The further north we go the more wilderness there seems to be. It’s just so nice to have trees and forests around. If winter is the price we pay to have a little nature I’ll take it every time. 

And this is how we arrive at the UP of Europe. Maybe the Lake Michigan part … Rain and wind. The Great Lake equivalent – even about the same temperature. Lots of logging. Blueberries. Everything but pasties…

Let us know if you have Tallin or Helsinki thoughts. We’re almost there . . .