I knew today would be tough, as I planned a seven hour driving day to get up back up to Denmark – so we all expected to be in the car most of the day – but those seven hours turned into eleven pretty quickly. There was so much road construction in Germany, one stretch of road that should have taken less than an hour to drive, took well over three. And to top it off, we had incredible downpours and pitch black skies off and on throughout the day so if the construction traffic and rush hour traffic weren’t enough, the slowdown from the rain got us. We left at nine this morning and got to our campsite near Legoland in Denmark twelve minutes before eight o’clock – and just in time as the office closed at eight o’clock. I’m not sure what we would have done if we came after closing, but sleeping in our car wouldn’t have been out of the question. Poor Kory had to drive all but one hour of it and it was white knuckle driving most of the time as the construction lanes weren’t quite wide enough for our van so it was pretty stressful trying not to hit other vehicles. Thank God we made it safe and sound and this day is done.
Kaleb entertained himself for nine hours straight playing a new Pokemon game he bought for his Nintendo. Normally I limit his use on electronics, but today I knew better. We didn’t hear a peep out of him for nine hours. We didn’t stop for lunch and he didn’t even say he was hungry – no bathroom breaks – nothing. That kid was focused. Then the last hour we asked him to turn it off and look around at the landscape and all we heard was how bored he was and when will we get there. That Nintendo was a lifesaver today and I highly recommend it for long car trips. Kaleb did look up long enough to notice the police in Holland are very “polite” as that is how they spell “police” in Dutch. Pretty funny.
We at least saw some nice scenery during the drive as Holland doesn’t have any trees up next to their freeways so we saw lots of cows, corn and wheat fields and we watched all the new windmills spinning throughout the day. Holland must have a zillion windmills and I’m sure a good portion of their energy comes from wind power. We saw some incredibly designed office buildings and very interesting sound barriers along the freeways – many of them in glass and quite artistic. We also enjoyed trying to figure out what the road signs said, as Dutch is very similar to Norwegian, with just one or two letters off on many words. Some words are nearly universal – like the center of town - in Norwegian it’s called Sentrum, in Swedish it’s called Centrum and in German it’s called Zentrum. But a lot of the traffic signs about all the construction – we were just clueless - otherwise we would have taken side roads. Every single person on the freeway today had a car full of people, loaded down for a holiday vacation somewhere – pulling campers or with bikes attached. Today was the day for getting out of town. All of Norway shuts down for vacations the month of July, but the rest of Europe tends to take their vacations in August.
Once we got to our campground, Kaleb couldn’t wait to check out the facility and meet other kids. Some he made friends with right away and others beat him up. He’s clueless as to what he contributes to those rough encounters with other kids, but we see clearly he is no innocent bystander. We only blame ourselves because he has no siblings to rough him up a bit – just two over protective parents trying to explain the ways of life, but knowing it’s much better experiencing things first hand than being told about them – even if it means getting beat up every now and then. I’ve decided I do like staying in campgrounds better than hotels because of all the social activities and ability to get out and move around. I think European campers are a different breed than Americans. When I’ve had to camp in campgrounds in America before (something I loathe), it seems there are plenty of loud, drunk and obnoxious people who break up the whole “peaceful nature” experience that should come with sleeping outdoors. But in Europe, people sit quietly by their tents, trailers or cabins, reading or talking softly – no one is playing music or making a scene. And there are designated HUGE play areas for kids which keeps them all contained rather nicely, so it is a much more enjoyable atmosphere here than in the U.S. Kaleb likes the campgrounds too but says it would be nice to not have to walk so far to use the bathroom. I can’t disagree with that.
Kaleb entertained himself for nine hours straight playing a new Pokemon game he bought for his Nintendo. Normally I limit his use on electronics, but today I knew better. We didn’t hear a peep out of him for nine hours. We didn’t stop for lunch and he didn’t even say he was hungry – no bathroom breaks – nothing. That kid was focused. Then the last hour we asked him to turn it off and look around at the landscape and all we heard was how bored he was and when will we get there. That Nintendo was a lifesaver today and I highly recommend it for long car trips. Kaleb did look up long enough to notice the police in Holland are very “polite” as that is how they spell “police” in Dutch. Pretty funny.
We at least saw some nice scenery during the drive as Holland doesn’t have any trees up next to their freeways so we saw lots of cows, corn and wheat fields and we watched all the new windmills spinning throughout the day. Holland must have a zillion windmills and I’m sure a good portion of their energy comes from wind power. We saw some incredibly designed office buildings and very interesting sound barriers along the freeways – many of them in glass and quite artistic. We also enjoyed trying to figure out what the road signs said, as Dutch is very similar to Norwegian, with just one or two letters off on many words. Some words are nearly universal – like the center of town - in Norwegian it’s called Sentrum, in Swedish it’s called Centrum and in German it’s called Zentrum. But a lot of the traffic signs about all the construction – we were just clueless - otherwise we would have taken side roads. Every single person on the freeway today had a car full of people, loaded down for a holiday vacation somewhere – pulling campers or with bikes attached. Today was the day for getting out of town. All of Norway shuts down for vacations the month of July, but the rest of Europe tends to take their vacations in August.
Once we got to our campground, Kaleb couldn’t wait to check out the facility and meet other kids. Some he made friends with right away and others beat him up. He’s clueless as to what he contributes to those rough encounters with other kids, but we see clearly he is no innocent bystander. We only blame ourselves because he has no siblings to rough him up a bit – just two over protective parents trying to explain the ways of life, but knowing it’s much better experiencing things first hand than being told about them – even if it means getting beat up every now and then. I’ve decided I do like staying in campgrounds better than hotels because of all the social activities and ability to get out and move around. I think European campers are a different breed than Americans. When I’ve had to camp in campgrounds in America before (something I loathe), it seems there are plenty of loud, drunk and obnoxious people who break up the whole “peaceful nature” experience that should come with sleeping outdoors. But in Europe, people sit quietly by their tents, trailers or cabins, reading or talking softly – no one is playing music or making a scene. And there are designated HUGE play areas for kids which keeps them all contained rather nicely, so it is a much more enjoyable atmosphere here than in the U.S. Kaleb likes the campgrounds too but says it would be nice to not have to walk so far to use the bathroom. I can’t disagree with that.
