Europe 2018 - July 31 - Lelystad to Hoorn

Tuesday - July 31
The most humorous toiletries packages we have ever seen gave a good start to our day.

Our first stop was Batvia, which is all about wooden ships. It was about 3 miles (5km) from our hotel.

Now  we have 17 miles of the dike that separates Markermeer (to the left) from Ijsselmeer. We did this dike from the opposite direction in 2011. There is no route finding involved!

More construction!

The little bicycle symbol is on Checkpoint Charlie.

We hear their delicious apple tarts calling.

We were sure glad that cloud looked like it had already passed over the dike.

That's better!

Their masts are a little hard to pick out of all the windmills and light poles, but there are 2 sailboats crossing over the road. We reached the west end of the dike at noon and looked south. It looked very dark so we debated out choice to camp tonight.

It started to spit rain moments later so stopping for lunch seemed like a really good idea too. A kind lady showed us how to get to the restaurant when we found a canal blocking our way.

We started lunch outside after helping them pile all the pillows under the dry area of the deck.

Then the wind started blowing the rain sideways....

....so we retreated inside....

....which we found delightful.

Eetcafe de Buren was our refuge for an hour. It also had good wifi so we made hotel reservations too.

Hard to believe it is the same day. What you don't see is that the wind and our direction of travel have both shifted so now we have a 15 mph headwind.

It was still lovely riding.

Good bike parking, 

a nice room, and our host washed and dried our clothes for us before dinner. Hotel Plattegrond.........we are spoiled.

We walked to the center square for dinner, pizza and ice cream.

It's been one of those days!

Europe 2018 - July 30 - Amersfoort to Lelystad

Monday - July 30
This is the main train station in Amersfoort. We have found that train stations are a good place to find the bike routes and this one connected us to LF9.

This is what remodeling looks like when you live next to a canal.

Amersfoort is quite the mix of old and new.

Off the road, again (to sort of quote Willie Nelson😉).

Windmills usually mean wind but today that is mostly a tailwind.

We made it over just before the drawbridge opened this time.

This road was adjacent to but not on our route. However, Doug saw picture opportunities and we were in no hurry on this very pleasant day.

So we rode up and down this very quiet road several times just to make him happier.

At Knooppunt 78 we rode past a fellow who asked us to slow down because there was a big Scouting event ahead.

And it was really BIG.....4000+ young people, ages 18-23 in one really BIG camp.

At the other end, we stopped to talk to Aniek who filled us in. The scouts are from all over Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. They started in Den Haag on July 23, broke up into groups of 50, and scattered across the Netherlands. They arrived here in Zeewolde yesterday. We think we must have seen some of them on the waterworks last Wednesday. This event is held every 3 years. (2021 is probably going to be a little iffy due to the pandemic)
Aniek was an exchange student in Sioux City, Iowa in 2003 and a camp counselor in Texas a couple of years later. We really enjoyed our conversation with her.

Lunch at the RCN Campground

Scouts on the horizon.

And the scouts just kept riding by ....

.....almost continuously the whole time we were eating.

Hay bale art - Dutch style.

Still pointing the favorable way.

We ran into another road construction detour on the outskirts of the city. This is the view from our room.

Dinner next door was very tasty and capped off a very good day.

Amersfoort to Lelystad

End of Week 6 - Bruges, Belgium to Lelystad, Netherlands
225 miles - 363 kilometers
Total trip so far: 1146 miles - 1848 kilometers
We added our final "C" - Cheese