I went out on a leisurely photo-expedition drive the other day with Paul Barr and Anastasiya Bulkavets, whom Paul and I met a couple of years ago in a story I've been meaning to tell, during this outing when she happen to recognize Damien and his red hat from having seen them on my blog. We all occasionally get together since.

I've lived in this area for more than a decade and have driven in the mountains many times over the years, but until I started cycling through them last year, I didn't really have a sense for locations and connecting roads... all the places in the mountains were just “in the mountains”, and I relied on my having geoencoded photos to be able to recall where something was or how to get there.

But now that I cycle through these mountains all the time, I'm intimate with the roads and what they connect, and the world is a much smaller place.

It was interesting to see some of these roads from the car.

To get to this first stop, we drove up through Ohara and onto the small mountain road that goes to Momoi Pass, a heinously-steep route that I first cycled in July. At least it's steep for me... toward the end of its 7km length it has a 1.2km section at an average of 12%.

It was much easier in the car.

We stopped at a small village with no services of any kind, except for one hidden drink vending machine, and a very old phone booth:

There's also a nice field of irises that I hoped would be in bloom, but they weren't. Rather, here's a photo from this trip to the same place nine years ago...

Not far away was a small shrine...

I go by all the time (this “Entering a Small Village” picture snapped on the fly during one cycle trip was taken just as we passed the shrine) but I had never stopped to check it out.

This kind of place can be a mixed bag... it is of relatively recent construction, so it lacks the old feeling that provides a certain appeal, yet because it's built simply to serve the local community, its has a level of honesty and purity that the big ostentatious temples and shrines have long abandoned.

Across the way were active small-plot farms, which certainly have an appeal to me.

We continued on up past Momoi Pass, then over Hanase Pass and down into the small village at its northern slope.

The shrine back in the mountains behind this gate made an appearance in “Visiting the Back-Mountain Hiyoshi Shrine with Jon Van Dalen” six and a half years ago.

I'm guessing that this is one homestead, with the original house in the center, the storage kura at left, and a (relatively) modern 2nd-generation house for the now-adult oldest son at right.

The letters are made of Styrofoam, so it gets broken easily. Compare with the same sign a year ago. Sometimes I'll stop by Cowbell for coffee while cycling, such as on this trip last year. Yet, I'd never noticed the cycle rack they have for road bikes:

Road bikes don't have kickstands, so one parks using a rack like this by hooking the seat over the pole, as seen here.

Then the drive brought us deeper into the mountains, where we stopped by a tunnel that I cycle through every so often...

I was shocked recently when I realized that this bridge/tunnel/bridge combo, which I'd been cycling through without a second thought, is the “Kyoto’s Road to Nowhere” that I posted about nine years ago (and then re-connected with four years ago).

During both of those visits, the location in my mind was merely “in the mountains somewhere”, so when I started cycling through it on this ride last May, I never made the connection.

The 600m (⅓ mile) bit of road that it bypasses is still as pleasant as it was the first time I took it, so I still have no idea why what must have been such a large amount of money was spent.

We then made our way over to the Joshokoji Temple (常照皇寺), which I first visited four years ago for photography. I've stopped by a few times while cycling, including during Bridget and Sarah’s Tour de Kyoto last fall.

After while we started back to home, stopping by a shrine that has been on my blog many times...

The property is dominated with towering ginkgo trees, which are richly yellow in the fall. Here's a photo from early during last fall's season, from “Cycling to Kyoto’s Ochiba Shrine Amid the Fall Colors”...

My first visit to the shrine had been five years prior to that, with Paul, as chronicled in “Carpet of Yellow at the Iwato Ochiba Shrine, Deep in the Mountains of North-West Kyoto”. As with all the photos on my blog, the “nearby photos” link under each pictures brings you to other visits to the same place.

Closer back to Kyoto, I showed Paul and Anastasiya a little natural spring that cyclists often fill their water bottles at (as seen here)...

When I cycle by, I'll often find folks filling up big jugs in the back of their car, to bring home. I guess the water is supposed to be very good, or blessed, or something. It is tasty, I know.

This is near the Kyoto Mountain Restaurant “Yama no Ie Hasegawa” that has also appeared many times on my blog. We would have liked to have stopped in, but time had run short. (I made up the visit by stopping in a couple of days ago on the end of this 127km ride with Gorm and Manseki.)

All in all, a relaxing, enjoyable day.