About 9 miles from Kinderdijk we arrived in Brandwijk for our lunch break. Most of our group was there already. We were greeted by some lazy goats:
We stepped inside and got the last apple pastry, along with some iced coffee. We shared our table with two of the most interesting people on our tour. Todd and Lucia traveled with their own bikes - Bike Friday foldies. We had chatted with them off and on during the trip, but this was the first extended time we had spent with them. They were so interesting. Lucia told us that she went on her first European bike adventure when she was 20 - that was over 50 years ago! They were not on e-bikes like so many others. We were so inspired by them!
The next part of our day was filled with more glorious miles. Les and I talked and laughed and marveled at the tidy houses. I don't think I have mentioned just how clean Belgium and the Netherlands are. We saw zero trash on the bike paths. The only place we saw trash was in Amsterdam at the end of our trip. They seem to take great pride in their homes and communities.
We had been told that the captain would not know where the boat would be docked until he got to Vreeswijk. We received a message from the captain with the location. There was a GPS pin that Les put in his phone then transferred to his bike computer. We blissfully continued on our way. We did make one wrong turn, but quickly corrected and found the boat just as expected.
We got cleaned up then headed to the salon with our remaining truffles. We filled our water bottles with ice cold water and were just relaxing with Franklin. Our phones started getting very busy. "Are we way off?" "3 of us are lost too, looking for an hour no luck." "Franklin, we have given up trying to find the ship. I will send our location and we will need someone to come get us. We have been looking for over an hour." "Turn left here:"
This went on and on. Franklin calmly sat there while a couple of men came in, "You need to go rescue our wives!" They seemed to forget that there are no cars with the boat, so expecting Franklin to just go out and find the lost cyclists was pretty silly.
We had our best dinner of the trip that night, but there were a bunch of very unhappy passengers at dinner! The complaining just went on and on. Les and I kept our mouths shut about the fact that we didn't have any trouble and Franklin looked at his wayward "children" and patiently tried to explain the directions for the next day. Those who were the most unhappy were the same ones who paid the least amount of attention during the daily briefings. The answer to the question of how not to get lost is very simple - pay attention to your ride leader!
This was our longest riding day, even without getting lost - 41.89 miles.
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