Headwinds, Tailwinds, and Windmills

Today was full of headwinds, tailwinds, and also some windmills. We started the day at the kitten campground picking the fleas off  Ruby. I was very glad that we had put yesterday’s clothes in the dirty laundry and that I had been barefoot while playing with the kittens. I didn’t play with them this morning. I spent most of my time with the ponies.

When I first walked over to the ponies this morning they gave me a big loud “hello” that was heard throughout the campground. I fed them armloads of grass for they had none in their pasture.

We pedaled to Dordrecht. On the way, we saw a big old windmill that was very, very tall. We went to tourist information and asked about pancakes. She said that pancakes were mostly savory in the Netherlands like French crepes and that poffertjes were more like American pancakes. We headed to a poffertjes restaurant and on the way saw a building from 1660.

The poffertjes were tiny pancakes with sugar and butter. Ruby and I each got 16 of them. Daddy and Mommy decided to share some strawberry poffertjes and also have sandwiches. When we told the lady our order she acted as if we’d gotten a ton of food and would not be able to eat it. It made us extremely worried and we started making up stories that they were gigantic and we’d just ordered 48 giant pancakes.

Turns out they were quite small and we finished all of our food quite easily. But they were extremely sweet and buttery. Sigh... We decided that they would have been better with Grandpa’s berry sauce and maple syrup.

Then we moved on and continued pedaling, our stomachs uncomfortably full of sugar and butter. On the way we paused to see some horses and noticed a windmill spinning in the distance.

It was much smaller than the one we saw in Dordrecht — about half the size.

 When we got there, the door was open and a man was sitting outside at a picnic table. We walked up and the man, who was a volunteer, gave us a guided tour in English of this windmill, built in 1836. It was almost completely furnished as it was in 1905, and it was in full working order so you could have ground flour or corn at that very moment!

He was very fluent in English and could answer all of our questions. We learned that the reason the windmill in Dordrecht was so big was because it had housing for the mill workers as well as equipment inside. As we were leaving the wind changed direction and we got to watch him spin the top of the windmill and the sails to face the wind. Ruby and I even got to help him use the brake while he demonstrated how to turn off the windmill.

We arrived in our campground one day’s ride from the beach. We washed our clothes from yesterday’s flea fest. 

— Lyle