We are at our final stop for our fall trip. Today and tomorrow we are at a campground near the Amsterdam airport where we will do our final preparation before delivering François for storage.
The drive over from the Ardennes to here was pretty easy and included three countries. When we left in the morning the roads were pretty empty in France, the traffic built in Belgium, and when we got to The Netherlands it was quite busy.
When we arrived at the campground the owner met us in front, and asked very tentatively if we spoke English. When I applied that I did she looked relieved and said that most French don’t speak English, so I had to explain that I was an American in a French camper which she thought was funny.
The campground is on a working farm with sheep, chickens, and some interesting horses. But it has been inundated with incredible rain over the last few weeks. I had emailed the owners a couple of days ago but their reply went missing in the ether. So when we arrived they said that we were welcome but that we would have to park in the driveway next to the bathrooms because the actual campsite was far too wet to accommodate us.
We settled in and Ton began figuring out what was going and what was staying, and did some preliminary cleaning. Mostly we hunkered down as it was both cold with occasional showers all afternoon. We finally got out for a short walk near sunset. The countryside around here is exactly what I expected of Dutch countryside, roads on top of dykes, small canals feeding into large canals, and tall and blonde Dutch people riding by on bicycles. It was a fun walk.
