Forest, Wilderness, e-bike, Wind Turbines

What amazing times we live in. I can study a map on Internet, switching to satellite view and zoom in to see the smallest house, or to check if there’s a track alongside a stream. Wind turbines can be seen clearly, and their shadows even more so. Where the forest burned 2 summers ago is easily seen. The satellite imagery is from this year, and was taken after the snow had melted so it can’t be more than 2 months old! Having been amazed by this modern technology I can also be amazed that virtually all that information, and more, has always been available to me on maps (for example OS maps in the UK). 
What started me on this theme is the planning for yesterday’s (this is another backblip) cycle trip up to the wind turbines above Furuhult on my e-bike. I’d been trying to cycle up to them for a while now. (A person needs a project!). As the crow flies they are about 9 km from where I live and I could easily get to within 1km of the first turbine. However, after studying Google maps I realised there was no way to cycle up from Furuhult. It seemed to be a choice between a 46 km out and back trip, or a grand circle of 61 km. The second choice took me to many more new places so that was the option for me. About 5 km on tarmac, 25 km on gravel roads, and the remainder on forest roads.
So that was yesterday’s exercise. Including a slight mistake in navigation it ended up as a 70 km trip, 30 more than my previous personal best. By the time I got home again the bike’s battery had only 1 km left, the phone’s battery was down to 10%, and my battery was finished!
However, I did find some lovely places on the way around, meadows filled with flowers, forests where the only sound was an insect buzzing by, a beaver dam  with a beautiful pool, big birds circling in thermals, and all the way around the sky was wonderful with cumulus clouds growing and shrinking again as the day turned to evening.
Lessons for next time…  Set out earlier and give myself more time for the trip. Stop and look at those beautiful places a little more. Take time to rest now and agin.  Take some food to eat in those rest stops.  Take more photos. Avoid the wrong turnings, especially the ones that take you a fair way downhill and necessitate a long pull back.