We had a busy day, filled with blue sky and sunshine!

After a week of overcast skies it was sure great to see the sunshine and blue sky all day. And it looks like this might continue for a few days yet. 

We took full advantage of the beautiful weather and spent the day outside. Our first stop was the fortified town of Naarden. This interesting town has a lot of history, and dates back to the 13th century.

You have to dig deep to get the whole story

There is a 48 hour time limit at the free motorhome parking area in Huizen, and there are lots of walking paths in the area so we decided to stay a second night. 

The rain has finished, and the forecast kept calling for sunshine, but it was quite a while before the sun finally appeared.

Max's batteries and fuel mileage

Yesterday was a rain day. We managed to get out around noon and walk over to the motorhome parking area where there are 8 spaces to see how many were available. It turned out that four of them were empty, so we moved Max the one kilometer over to that location. It's not really much better than where we were, but it's not so close to a busy road.

We haven't seen the sun since Sunday. Monday through Thursday were all overcast. So Max's batteries haven't been getting much of a charge from the solar panels. And we haven't been driving much, so they haven't been getting much of a charge that way either.

An interesting story

We enjoyed our visit to Utrecht, but we were in need of some forest and greenery and country fresh air. So we found a big park area about 25 kms (15 miles) north of the city that has lots of walking and cycling paths.

Coincidentally, this big green space that we found is also where Queen Beatrix, the former Queen of the Netherlands lives at her home called Drakensteyn Castle.

Utrecht, or Amsterdam?

We didn't plan on making a choice between the two, and we haven't really done that. We still want to visit Amsterdam at some point, but not on this trip. 

When we visited Czech Republic in 2012, we found Prague to be very touristy and very expensive compared to the rest of the country. And we found that the smaller city of Olomouc had as much to offer, but without the tourists or the high prices. 

And it's much the same when comparing Amsterdam to the smaller city of Utrecht.

Flight tickets booked!

Yesterday I booked our flight tickets for our trip to Canada. Unfortunately, there were no deals to be had. Because of Canada's strict Covid regulations, there are very few choices when it comes to flying into Canada from Europe. 

So we're pretty much stuck with Air Canada, which certainly wouldn't have been our first choice for flying across the Atlantic. Normally there would be options such as Lufthansa or Swiss Air which are much better airlines.

Sometimes in life, the stars align!

When we fly to Ottawa next month, we will stay at Ruth's father's house until the auction on August 21st. After that, we were going to have to find somewhere to live for five weeks or so. Our daughter's house is okay for a night or two, but it's pretty small and with us there it gets crowded very quickly.

And Airbnb rentals around Canada's capital city are pricey. So we were looking to see if we could find a house sit for at least part of that time. 

The Windmills of Kinderdijk, and a perfect overnight spot

We took our time yesterday before leaving the campground. When you are paying for it, you might as well make use of the facilities and take the opportunity to do some cleaning. And of course we made sure to drive away with the holding tanks empty and the fresh water tank full.

As I said yesterday, it was a nice campground. For €13 ($19.25 CAD, $15.50 USD) including electric, WiFi, and nice hot showers. 

Our first campground in Netherlands

Despite the fact that "wild camping" isn't allowed in the Netherlands, finding a free place to overnight hasn't been that difficult for us. It may often be just a parking lot, but when we can find more scenic places during the day, we try to spend most of the day there, and only move to our overnight spot later on.

But the problem is trying to find somewhere to empty and fill our tanks. In Germany, they have a lot of free or very cheap places to do this... in Netherlands, not so much!

3 weeks living in Max the motorhome

It was three weeks ago today that we moved into Max.

And we haven't gone very far. But everything is new, and we don't really have a destination in mind so there is no need to go very far. Max now has about 440 kms (273 miles) on the odometer, and he still has about half of his original 90 liter (23.8 U.S. gallon) tank of fuel left.