The wind started howling last night as I went to bed, and it only got worse during the night. When I woke up I could hear the rain clattering against the window. At the time I was still considering cycling 60 kilometers in the rain to the next town, but when I went downstairs to check the weather report, and fully saw the storm outside in the big windows, I gave up. I'm staying at expensive onsen hotel one more night. Fun fact: the hotel costs as much as my previous hotel plus the camp site combined. Not crazy expensive, but not good either since I wasn't planning on staying here two nights.
I asked the shuttle bus driver if I could hitch a ride with him to the station and back so I could pick up some supplies, because there's no way in hell that I'm climbing the ridiculously steep slope to the hotel twice. The driver told me there were no other guests coming or going by bus, so he just drove me to the conbini instead. I feel mildly awkward about staying in an expensive hotel, extending my stay, declining the expensive dinner twice, and then getting a bus driver to drive me to pick up cheap food, but that's the way things always seem to be going for me. People here are kind, posh hotels aren't that expensive to stay in but expensive to eat at, and I am limited in mobility by the weather, so that's how it goes.
These kind of trips are not cheap, and despite having rationalized it many, many times, I still don't feel like I've reached the end of the thought train on this. I calculated that I spent the same amount of money on my car as I would do on two to three cycling trips. Given that I only had my car one and a half years, I could do a one-month cycling trip three times during that timespan. (Not that I actually would do that, since I have a job to consider, but it's nice to know that I'm time-saturated and not money-saturated when it comes to hobbies).
Those numbers boggle my mind. I have wasted a lot of money in my life, at least for my own standards. When I'm spending the money I never know if it's worth it, but at the end of each cycling trip I always feel incredibly satisfied and want to do one again. At the end of selling my car I was just happy I got some money out of it. Cars are a shit thing to spend money on. They don't bring any fulfillment at all and have higher happiness cost than cycling trips.
So here I am, wasting time on the internet in an onsen hotel. It's 10:00AM and still raining heavily outside. If it keeps raining until noon-ish I'll know that I was justified in staying here one more day, since I'd have had serious trouble reaching my destination before dark in that case. I've had this kind of weather-break days several times on previous cycling trips. I was never quite comfortable with them. Even though I've weighed the pros and cons many times, even though I know cycling in the rain is not happy, even though I know I am in no hurry, even though I know I am able to entertain myself here with all kinds of stuff today, even though the weather report clearly validates my choice, it still feels... uncomfortable. It's not rational, but then cycling trips are not rational either.
I am trading fulfillment for happiness by not cycling today. If I am uncomfortable with this during cycling trips, I will be uncomfortable with this in life.