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Always An Exception Before packing up and hitting the bike path Tiny made us an American breakfast of bacon and eggs. They asked us which country we were going to next. When Girard found out we were going to go to Scotland he said that his son-in-law, Rick, wanted a bagpipe. I told him "just squeeze a cat. It makes the same sound." We had had a great visit with the Schriks. "We were usually laughing or trying to think up the word," Girard summed up our visit. Multitudes of people were out on bikes. The bike trails were congested with people in both directions. I was getting a little feeling of what it must be like in China. In wooded sections it was dangerous to pull out and pass if one couldn't see far enough ahead. Some people rode towards us side by side making Sharon and I, with our wide bags, crowd way over to the edge of the path. We followed a bike trail through the dunes, eventually arriving on the coast to gaze out at the gray North Sea. I saw shovels hanging on posts and wondered what they were for. The Dutch told us Germans liked to vacation there and were fond of digging themselves into the sand where they would lay all day. They liked to do that. Apparently they had been doing it since about 1942. Bike traffic lessened for the last twenty kilometers into Den Helder. We wanted to take the twenty minute ferry ride to Texel, the largest of the West Frisian Islands. Riding down Den Helder's main street we turned left at the boat sign. A bike path was on our left but I didn't see it when I turned. I still wasn't used to riding against traffic on two-way bike lanes. A dude in a rush to catch the ferry took exception to my being off the bike path. Tires squealing, he roared up behind us, laid menacingly on his horn, then shot past so close his side mirror smacked my handlebar mirror, a mere half an inch from my hand. "Holy sh*t!" I said to Sharon as I shakily pulled to a stop. "Except for one guy, car drivers in The Netherlands have been so considerate." "That's a mighty big exception when the exception kills you," she replied. We missed the six thirty ferry by one minute. It was still at the dock when we arrived, but by the time we got our bicycles to the bicycle ticket window it was pulling away. Just as well. Who knew what I would have done to Mr.. GX05. Obviously he was a card carrying member of the Mad Hatter Society. The next ferry was in an hour. We sat and ate while waiting for it, mulling over that it cost $17 each to cross to the tiny island that had only forty-six kilometers of roads. Deciding it wasn't worth it. we headed out along the dike and found a camping spot beside the canal's tall weeds. We went back in the trees a little ways to be out of view and sheltered from the cold wind blowing off the water to find four camping spots had already been tramped down. |
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