A History Lesson, and some rambling

Ben mentioned in his last post that we are traveling along the Hærvejen, but I think that deserves elaboration. The Hærvejen, which literally means "Army Road" in Danish, is the traditional route running north-south more or less down the middle of the Danish peninsula (known as "Jutland"). It was made up of a hodgepodge of different local roads in such a way as to avoid as many river crossings and other obstacles as possible. This made it the easiest way to travel, and the obvious choice for the military's use whenever they needed to move troops, hence the name. Over the years, it has been improved from sunken cart tracks into its current state of about 70% pavedness and 30% packed dirt-ness (by my estimation).
It is also significant because it was the road by which pilgrims to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago, Spain would walk (yes, walk) from Scandinavia. Interestingly and unrelatedly, a friend that I met this last semester at Santa Barbara City College is doing a walking pilgrimage to Santiago as we speak, but along a much shorter route that starts somewhere on the France-Spain border. Because of its long and rich history, the Hærvejen has achieved a culturally important status, and it is well-known among the Danes even though its traffic has been largely displaced to the modern highways (somewhat similar to Route 66 back in 'Merica).
The Hærvejen would probably be much harder to follow if it were not used as a large part of Euro-Velo route #3. For those of you who don't know, the Euro-Velo system is an awesome, Europe-wide network of bike routes going to all sorts of interesting places on dedicated bike routes or low-traffic roads. When these routes were being developed, they made use wherever possible of existing routes, as in the case of the Hærvejen and Euro-Velo 3. This is great for us, since there is (generally) great signage leading us along the way. These little blue signs have become our guide, our steadfast companion, and, I daresay, our friend along this great voyage.

Of course, the signs are sometimes faded, or overgrown, or knocked askew by a stray lawnmower, and we have had several instances where several kilometers of backtracking was necessary in order to find our little blue friend again. Being the exemplary citizens that we are, we do some minor sign maintenance to keep others from making our same mistakes. I think Ben has a picture of this on his last post. 
So we have made it to the city of Vejen along this route, and are now holed up in the library looking glumly out at the pouring rain. The weather was gorgeous this morning, and we started off at a great pace with high hopes of making it to Germany by tonight. Yet the rain and hunger made us take shelter in the local Kebab Hus, and thence to the library in hopes of waiting out the storm while we computerize a bit. However, the forecast only calls for more rain this afternoon, so we will probably resume our sodden way in a little while and camp sadly short of our goal of the German border. 
But my spirits, at least, are raised a bit since I just went to the local bike shop and bought a new tire. You would think that would be for a simple reason, but you'd be wrong! The story actually starts before we left, when I bought a sort of expensive, Kevlar-lined tire for my rear wheel in hopes of getting some serious miles out of it. However, only a few days after we flew into Oslo, I saw with dismay that I had already worn through the outer layer of rubber. I resolved to buy a new tire and carry it so that I could tire out (heh, heh, get it?) my current one to shreds without worrying about being stranded somewhere. It was not until 3 days ago that our encountering a roadside cycle shop and me remembering my resolution to buy a tire coincided, but then I had one. No problems. Just kidding! Almost immediately after that, Keegan broke a spoke, forcing us to cut our day short and spend the night in what turned out to be an awesome town. The next morning he bought a new wheel for his bike, which came with a free tire. Three flats in quick succession later, we decided this free tire was vastly inadequate, so we put my new spare on Keegan's bike. This solved his problems, but left me constantly fretting that my tire would reach the end of its days with nothing but Keegan's discarded free one to replace it (which would work in a pinch (haha, more tire humor), but since I weigh more than Keegan, I would probably get flats left and right until a replacement could be found). Anyway, to end this substantial narrative of trivial content, now I have a nice, new, burly tire and am no longer worried. About anything. Ever.