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What better thing to do on a clear brisk Sunday than take a meandering tour through Miyagi? While I was too busy riding most of the time to take photos, I did stop at a couple points.

I don't do dirt, but I noticed this little track running off perpendicular to one of my regular nearby roads into an alpine meadow. This particular stretch is usually completely devoid of cars, and although it contains several blind corners, it's generally wide enough that I don't feel pressured to slow to a crawl.

From Naruko I kept riding east, following a rough route I had charted out before leaving. At a small town by a river, old men and father-son pairs alike were fishing. Not a bad way to spend a free day.

Soon enough, I had arrived at the ocean, greeted by an incredible view-- small rocky islands with tufts of pine trees growing like moss, fishing villages tucked into coves, and even a large beach or two. What I originally thought was a short seaside road bloomed into 60 kilometers of Pacific coast goodness. I was too much into the groove of riding to stop, but after a particularly torturous gauntlet of twisties I pulled over to take a break and a swig of soda. Apparently I was just north of Onagawa, near Ishinomaki. To the south lay Cobaltline, an extremely popular twisty bike road, but since my bike had been giving me some odd trouble (some engine sputter, trouble starting, and the engine actually flat out dying once) I decided to leave it for another day. I pulled into Ishinomaki and had dinner with my friends Michael and Sherry.

It was a good thing I skipped too, because as I left town in the evening my bike finally gave up and coughed out five minutes out of town. Some sporadic electrical connection kept the bike from starting back up. As it was 9:30pm by that point, the neighboring gas station had closed (!) and I phoned in to the bike dealership just 10 minutes before the poor guy was supposed to go home. He drove the company truck an hour out to where I was stranded while Mike and Sherry rode out on bicycles to keep me company. Yay for nice people. You guys rock.

So I hitched a ride back with the Red Baron guy, and we chatted about touring. That was my Sunday.