Still in Roermond

We have been enjoying settling in to the boat and getting the dogs adjusted, so we're still here.  Yesterday we motored down to Maasbracht to get fuel where we confirmed that the fuel guage is not accurate and we really didn't get here on 1/8 of a tank, unless the tank holds 8x465L - I don't think so.  The weather is beautiful, which means that the waterways are looney-tunes so we will wait until Monday to leave for Maastrich.  In the mean time we will enjoy sitting on our back deck in the shade of our new bimini and watching everyone else avoid each other on the water.

Back (Home?) again

We are back aboard Armida and it feels good now we have got to sleeping and waking up again at the right time. While we were gone Armida got a new look:

We now have a new bright blue bimini for the back deck to protect us from the hot sun.  It also means we can take down the white canopy in the warm weather and motor along “al fresco”.  It is on rails so it can slide forward to cover the steering position.  Along with the new small outdoor sofa we bought, the back deck now feels like an outdoor room.  It is especially good for our new crewmembers:

Rosie and Noodle are not yet sure what this boating life is all about and still give us that “are we going home yet” look but they are getting fed and walked so they will get used to it all pretty quick.
The Dreissens, who own the boatyard and marina where we have been staying very generously took us out to dinner to the best meal we have had in Holland, at a local Italian restaurant (Il Forno) with no menu!  You tell them how many courses you want, what you like and don't like and they do the rest – wonderful.  The owner came and sat with us afterwards and gave me the coolest bottle of wine ever.  The company was great too – a wonderful evening.
We are enjoying getting the boat reorganized and are not in a hurry to leave Roermond.  This is partly because the weather has been grey and raining and also because one of the big locks on the Maas/Meuse River in Belgium is closed until the 24th so we couldn’t get through any faster.  So we will probably leave in a couple of days and stop in Maastricht (again) and then on to Liege in Belgium.

Coming Back

We'll be back on board ARMIDA in Roemond on August 12th and then we will head south.  We can't wait.

Photos for Now

As we leave for home we have posted a few more select photos here:

We'll be back in mid-August with the doggies.

Roermond - packing again

It's been a while since we have had free fast internet and, unless we sit outside MacDonalds here in Roermond we have to use the expensive "stick". More more photos may have to wait until we get home. This is the end of the trail this time around as we fly back home in a week for the big family event we have coming up on July 17^th: Tess and Tony's wedding.

While in the charming city of Maastricht we caught up with an acquaintance from over 30 years ago, Marco who was a witness at our wedding in Ottawa. He is married 25 years to an American, Jill. Even though she is retiring Friday after 32 years with NATO, and they are dealing with sending a car and furniture to their condo in Naples, FL and the rest to Amsterdam once they find a three bedroom place with their 22 year old son who is finishing his Masters, they still found time to show us a very special Sunday. It started with an amazing brunch in the historic city of Aachen, Germany. You'll have to see the photos to believe the beautiful fresh food choices. Afterwards we walked around. The city was badly damaged in WWII and the older buildings have pieces missing from the stone façades. The Cathedral has four wings from different centuries, the oldest being the 800's. Those of you lucky enough to catch another of Rob's famous slide shows will see photos of the interior to see why we thought it to be so special.

All this was followed with a lovely drive through the beautiful hilly lush green countryside to see a place that moved me more than I ever thought it would, The American Cemetery. We saw thousands of marble crosses or Stars of David standing at each grave which held an American citizen killed in many battles fought in the surrounding region in WWII. May 5^th is Memorial Day here. We were in Sloten that day. Almost every home had a flag flying and there were services held at the churches, cemeteries and town squares, and 2 minutes silence at 8pm throughout the country. It's an event that is honored and not just treated as a day off work. At the American Cemetery on May 5^th there is also a memorial service and a Dutch school child stands at each grave to lay flowers. War continues to be such a waist of human lives. Will it never end?

We've had good times, good baked goods, exciting boating experiences and I am so glad to be here in The Netherlands. Currently we are on the back deck eating nuts, grapes, drinking wine, watching the boats go by, the hot air balloons above (which are so popular here) and waiting for the sun to set so we can go to bed. Yesterday was the longest day of the year. It starts getting light here at 4:10AM and finally gets dark about 11PM.

Maastricht

We are moored in the middle of the river here in Maastricht looking out our windows at the old city. The weather has turned grey and cool again, which is OK as we will be here for the weekend doing city stuff and catching up with our long lost Dutch friend Marco.
The recent travelling has been mainly on commercial canals which are interesting in their own way but not very picturesque. It is amazing how much gets moved around on the waterways in this country, although it seems that most of it is sand, rocks and dirt for construction, or demolished structures on their way to be converted back to sand, rocks and dirt. The barges are huge and often loaded down to the gunwales, or even over. Mostly they seem to be operated by Husband and Wife teams with their car on the back; usually he is driving and she is outside cleaning.

There are more locks here and they are BIG - Long enough for two or three of the big barges and up to 10m (30') deep. Fortunately they are well organized and have bollards built in to the side to tie up to, or even ones that float up with you. We will stay around this area until we leave it looks like we will leave the boat at a yard in Maasbracht where we can have a few things done that we have learnt we want as we have got used to ARMIDA. When we return in early August we will be well positioned to leave the crowded waters of Holland in the summer and head up the Maas/Meuse into Belgium and France.

Relaxing in Den Bosch

We have had a very nice day here in 's-Hertogenbosch (locally called and much easier to pronounce as Den Bosch) and we kept saying to each other, "We really like this town". Then Terry said "Why? it's not that much different than others". Well it does have a unique network of small canals under the city and a good little tour run by volunteers, a grand Cathedral (of course) but one of the first not made out of brick and more ornate as it stayed mainly Catholic, and a pretty intact set of walls as it was once an impregnable fortress town surrounded by marshes until the attackers diverted the river, built a long dike and drained the marshes – only the Dutch could do that. We were here on a Saturday which is market day and the weather was nice and everyone was out and about. All the cafes, and there are many, were packed with people sitting outside and meeting friends. It may have been our mood but it seemed that people were even more relaxed and easy going than other places in Holland, which is not to say the others aren't as the Dutch seem to be uniformly happy and friendly, it just felt good. We also had a very nice dinner in a modern restaurant, and we still got fries as a side. So we'll stay today (Sunday) get some washing done and relax some more.