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73 km – 16-18° C
We got up pretty late today. Although I was awake quite early, I wasn’t in the mood of getting up. The water was nearly empty and I wasn’t sure if it’ll last for coffee and porridge. Mood was low as no nice and easy solutions to our problems presented themselves after yesterday’s web search. The only fortunate thing was, that a thermarest certified shop was rather close by, the only one in about 350 km. As we drove into the city of Sälen, we found many outdoor shops, of which most only had clothing. Quite a lot people were around as this place seemed to be a ski area in the winter and a mountain bike paradise in the summer. At one shop, next to a lift and a mountainbike funpark I couldn’t resist to buy a new merino tshirt and a merino longsleeve. My current one, which I had since our first motorcycling tour, really starts to wear and everything was on big sale.
The store we found on the internet offered a nice choice of cookers (mainly Primus), but not the one in favor (MSR Whisperlite). Torn in the choice, we discovered the rest of the store, which also was a Yamaha skidoo and jetski resellser. As we constantly run out of water, we found a perfect water storage bag.
Taking care of the main problem, the isomatress, we found they did not have the same modes and a direct exchange became more and more unrealistic. The salesman seemed somewhat insecure and could not help us either and tried to sell us a repair kit. We did not find a leak and did not expect so either, as the air needed the whole night to escape, so a repair kit would not help. Puzzled we continues to strive the goods. The skidoo gear in the back was a nice choice for motorcycling in the winter. As Niklas was quite unhappy with his helmet on unpaved roads (without a sunvisor and no ability to use goggles) we found an ultra light helmet with a perfect fit. As the struggle continued of spending more money than expected for unsatisfactory solutions, we also became hungry and decided to decide nothing and left without buying anything.
Having a diminishing mood we looked for a restaurant but half of the city was closed in the summer season. There was a pizzeria, but I put in a veto for pizza, as we just had one the other day. Saving our wallets from a proper restaurant, we opted for Burger King inside a gas station. Replenished, we discovered the gas station shop was quite big and included many tools, electronics and accessories. Niklas found a suitable power bank to replace his old one. It decided to stop charging. And a switch which we thought could come in handy to revive the option for turning of the ABS at Niklas motorcycle. Meanwhile I checked the options to save us from the predicted rain and found a cosy and affordable room not far. We booked it through booking.com for two nights, so we could enjoy our rest day dry, with a shower and wifi. Postponing all other, decisions we drove to the place and called it a day.
Arriving there, we were greeted by two rather big dogs running directly to us. Barking all the time we needed to hit the brakes, as they did not keep any distance to our motorcycles. The owner had to call them off, so we could park properly. The place itself was a big house with two levels and we got a room with two bunk beds right in front of the communal shower. So everything as we wished and cheaper than a housing on a camping site. With a neat mechanism to hold the kitchen towels
We took a shower, did research about cookers and implemented gps-tracks of out journey into the blog.