Peter | Chaos roaming the world

It only took one afternoon and one morning to make our flat look like a whirlwind went through. No matter, we’ll be back in a couple of days and can clean up then.

Number 3 and I managed to go to the farmer’s market to buy cherries as a road snack and fresh bread at our local bakery.

Repacking was easy as we hadn’t unpacked a lot in the first place. So by 9am, we were back on the road. The distance to our friends’ place in the Netherlands isn’t too bad at 340km, but with two small kids, you have to time everything just right.

The Agent slept and Number 3 was pretty good, which made things easy. Also, he can be distracted by audio books if push comes to shove.

brand new and cool charger – but it did not take my charge card. 5 minutes delay for the call but then for free …

Finding a fast charger was surprisingly hard this time. Only because we started to be a bit picky and also because we wanted to stop next to the autobahn before we got to the sprawl that is the start of the Rhein-Ruhr area marked by Cologne. In the end, we stopped at an e-on charger. Flo couldn’t get the charger to work with his charge card. After calling in to report the issue, they activated it remotely and we charged for free.

Again, there was no shade to be found. Plus, the actual rest stop was still closed on this side of the autobahn. Now we had the choice between a bench in the shade and a toilet at the fuel station or a walk across the autobahn bridge to the open rest stop. We chose to stay and eat our delicious bread and cheese.

With all the kerfuffle in the beginning our stop ended up one and a half hours long, more than enough to fully charge the car again.

This time Number 3 fell asleep while the Agent was awake for a while. We managed to get to the Netherlands before Number 3 woke up and immediately started to complain that he had to live his life in a car and never wanted to go by car ever again. It was quite a long way for kids, we understand that. Once there, we planned to stay put for at least two nights.

As it was, the last 30 minutes dragged with me trying to keep the kids from screaming. And then just like that, we were there. 🙂 A house, a big yard and garden, shade, kids, something to drink and the world looked brighter again for Number 3. Both our kids went off to explore and we had time to talk to our friend Leonie which we hadn’t seen in way too long.

She cooked a yummy veggie meal for us and Peter arrived before we all sat down to eat. All four kids demanded attention to get them fed and ready to sleep. By the time we had our two in bed and asleep (which didn’t take long), the others also were asleep. So, we had until 11pm to talk to Peter and Leonie before I had to fall into bed as well.

The one spot with shade – not in frame, the polish van driver just behind me cooking his dinner o.O

First order of business, breakfast, went pretty smoothly. We slept in late a bit – given that Number 3 had not had the best of nights. That came out just right, as packing for camping after a bit of a break can always be a little struggle, especially with new gear added into the mix. Nontheless, we took it slow and ate until a bit of a break in the rain seemed like the perfect opportunity to complete our little camp.

Our friends joined us for breakfast with fresh bread and a great attitude. Since Peter is running a shop aimed at (adventure) motorcyclists, he will be opening up today. Still, we had at least a good chunk of the morning for a couple of things.

Our full set up with car, tent, tarp and friends’ tent

Leonie, Peter and Mini van Bartang have a new, enormous tent. What nobody told me was that it was also a bit aggressive. Just when we thought it might actually be a good idea to peg it down before getting the rods in, it decided to viciously attack me with one of the metal loops (i.e. a gust of wind threw a corner at my head). I managed to turn a bit, but the impact left quite the bump, just sort of a cut. No baby was hurt though and this was the last bit of trouble while setting up.

Peter left for the shop around lunch time, leaving us to catch up with Leonie and sit out a good bit more of the bad weather. It was a wee bit too chilly until the sun came out to make it real cosy, but good company made up for it.

After the midday sleep for the kids, the winds picked up just before the weather got better. After 4 or 5 times of putting back single pegs for the awning tiedowns after a gust of wind we switched to soft soil pegs to cope with the wet and sandy pitch. All of this did not save me from a particular strong gust taking out the entire awning and sending one of the poles full speed into my head. This was the second tent attacking me in one day. This time, I was a bit dazed for a minute or so before we decided that it might just be too windy for the awning that afternoon. It was time for shopping anyway.

Later on, picking up Peter after he closed down the shop, we went out for dinner. Even though the Dutch are maybe a bit less enthusiastic to come up with veggie options for Nina, the result was great for all nontheless.

To round off the evening, we all sat down with a bunch of (non-alcoholic) beers. Other travelling friends we know came by to show their newly converted T4 camper and have a good old chat. All in all, this seems like just the right place to let out trip fade out …