With several hours left of daylight and beautiful sunny skies, we drove an hour to Kinderdijk...A village in the Netherlands' South Holland province, known for its iconic 18th century windmills. It's water management network features 19 mills and 3 pumping stations, plus dikes and reservoirs that control flooding of the area.
I'd been dealing with some issues with my right foot (I honestly think it may be arthritis which scares the crap out of me) for a couple of months and it became pretty inflamed while walking miles and miles in the Keukenhof Gardens. At this point, I was holding Brian's arm and limping around, wincing in pain with each step. Basically, one or two of my little toes pops and feels like it's dislocated (like someone tied a string around my toe and is pulling on it with all of their strength), especially when I'm walking uphill (or running) so I naturally pull up on the front of my foot to avoid bending my toes, which stresses out the tendons in the top of my foot and it feels like someone is twisting a dagger into the tops of my feet. I'm generally ok for about 5 miles and then it starts to really bother me. I think we walked a total of 12 miles that day. Either ailment, or especially both at the same time, is very unpleasant.
Anyway, the little town around the windmills was super cute and had a paved bike path with little windmills and tulips leading the way to the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Afterwards, we drove to our motel in Uithoorn for the night. It was an old train station that has been remodeled into a restaurant and boutique hotel and it was adorable with tons of very, tight, steep stairs to get to our room. We got settled in, had a glass of their house butterscotch brandy, and then walked to a Thai restaurant across the street for dinner.
Day 2, we had a huge breakfast at our motel and then drove to Geithoorn. We passed a few cute little towns and several tulip fields. It was literally the last day of the blooming season, so farmers were out cutting the last of the tulips that day. It was kind of sad...we'd spot these vast, sweeping swaths of color and by the time we got to them, were being mowed down.
We arrived in Geithoorn mid-morning and set out to explore on foot before grabbing lunch.
You'll notice below that the meat in my salad is raw beef carpaccio. I was unable to get it down so Brian and I switched...he's the best. I can't help that I have the pallet of an 8 year old. But that little glass is full of clam chowder and it was delicious.
I also spotted an Idaho license plate hanging on the rafters <3
Then we rented an electric boat to explore deeper. We were laughing about how our customers would be asking all of these stupid questions that we get asked a million times a day..."Is there a place for my backpack?" "What if we have to use the restroom?" "Can we swim?" "What's your FASTEST boat?" "What if someone hits us out on the water?" "What if we get lost?" "Do these boats have bluetooth?" It's probably not funny to anybody else, but we were cracking ourselves up.
The canals eventually led to a big lake and marsh where we saw them collecting reeds for the roofs of all of the houses in the village.
We finally returned our boat, grabbed souvenirs for family, and affogatos for the road to our next destination for the night...in Germany!