stumbling through a foggy morning in the middle of nowhere
it's 5:47am and i'm sitting in a tiny diner that smells like burnt coffee and old grease. the weather outside is doing that thing where it looks colder than it actually is - just checked and it's -1.9°C there right now, hope you like that kind of thing. my fingers are stiff but the waitress keeps refilling my mug like she's trying to keep me awake until the sun decides to show up.
i came here because someone told me this place has the best cinnamon rolls in the state. i heard that from a guy at a gas station three towns back who looked like he hadn't slept since the 90s. he also mentioned something about a ghost train that passes through at midnight, but i think he was just lonely.
*the map says i'm somewhere near 42.3444, 130.3844 but honestly it feels like the middle of nowhere. there's a train track behind the diner that hasn't seen a train in years, and the only sound is the hum of the refrigerators and the occasional cough from the guy in the corner booth who's been nursing the same cup of tea for two hours.
if you get bored, sapporo and hakodate are just a short drive away, though 'short' is relative when the roads are this empty and the fog is this thick. i keep expecting to see deer crossing signs but all i've seen so far are crows that look like they're plotting something.
"the best photo you'll ever take is the one you almost didn't get,"
said a photographer i met at a roadside rest stop. he was carrying enough camera gear to start a small museum and had stories about every abandoned building we passed. i believed about half of them.
the weather here has this way of making everything feel like a black and white movie. the humidity is at 75% which sounds like nothing until you step outside and your breath turns to fog and your eyelashes freeze together. the pressure is holding steady at 1015, which means the weather apps are useless and you just have to feel it out.
i keep thinking about what the gas station guy said about the ghost train. maybe it's real, maybe it's not. but there's something about being awake when the rest of the world is asleep that makes you believe in things you'd normally dismiss. the cinnamon rolls turned out to be decent, not life-changing, but the experience of eating them while watching the fog roll in thicker than my ex's excuses was worth the drive.
the locals here don't ask where you're from, they ask where you're going. and when you tell them you don't know yet, they just nod like that's the only reasonable answer. i think i'm starting to understand why people get lost on purpose out here.
anyway, i should probably get back on the road before the fog decides to settle in for the day. the next town is supposedly famous for its hot springs and allegedly haunted onsen. sounds like exactly the kind of place i need right now.
pro tip:* if you're driving through here in winter, bring chains. and maybe a good book. and definitely more coffee than you think you'll need.