Holland on our own

August 6, 2018: Well. The car is packed and we head home tomorrow. Hard to believe it has been 8 weeks for James and the girls and 7 for me. We have had a fun time the past few days exploring Holland. On Saturday we took the train into Amsterdam and explored the city. We were surprised to find out that it was the gay pride parade in the city that day. Things were so busy and chaotic but it was so much fun. We wandered around the 9 streets area, and out to the canal that the parade was on. The canal was absolutely packed with people partying on boats and on all the streets lining the river. It was such a fun atmosphere. We wandered through flea markets, and went to a diamond factory for a tour. The kids each got to hold a diamond, examine it through the magnifying glass and take a turn polishing it. In total we spent about 6 hours in the city before heading back.

Sunday we went for a long bike ride from Pamela's house. We went east into the farming areas and rode all around the canals to see old windmills. In total we bike 20 miles. It took us 5 hours to do the ride including water breaks, a stop at the windmills, and an ice cream break at the end. It is such a beautiful county and amazing how much infrastructure is in place for biking. We were on bike trails almost the entire time and you feel so safe. It is really cool.

Monday we did a lot of cleaning, laundry, packing and organizing. The car had to be scrubbed from top to bottom to return it tomorrow. When we had most of our tasks completed we drove about 30 minutes to a farm where you can see them make cheese and clogs. It was such a cool farm and they are the nicest people. We had to wait awhile for a few tour buses to pass through so we killed time looking around the farm at the cows and horses. The kids were happy to pet the calves and baby chicks. We then had a demonstration of how they make the clogs and the guy doing it was so nice that he gave us the demo shoe. We saw how they make the cheese and then we wandered around in the gift shop and bought a few souvenirs. After dinner and final packing we took an evening bike ride.

It has been an awesome summer of travel and hopefully the kids will remember some of it.