The following dynamic had been playing out in our upstairs kids’ bathroom. There’s a little shelf in the shower for hair care products. Angela occasionally checks this to see if Bree needs more shampoo or conditioner and, if so, Angela buys some and puts it on the shelf. Meanwhile, if Bree notices a new bottle on the shelf when there’s still an unfinished bottle already there, Bree moves the new bottle to the cabinet under the sink.
After some period of time living with this arrangement, Bree discovers that the bathroom cabinet is running out of room to hold the many, many full bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
Jan and Chris leave for The Netherlands. When Jan spent a week in Utrecht last year, he really enjoyed biking around the extremely bike-friendly city and resolved to come back again for a multi-day bike tour. Chris was up for the adventure, so back in November, Jan began planning a week-long bike loop around the western part of The Netherlands. The day for the trip has finally arrived.
Lyn picks Jan up before lunch, and the two drive down to 13 Coins Restaurant for lunch just outside the airport. Chris arrives from Bend around 1:00, and they pick him up. Chris hasn’t had lunch yet, so they go back to 13 Coins. The restaurant’s main area is always dimly-lit like a casino, so it’s hard to tell that time is passing inside.
After lunch the three go for a walk on the trail beside the nearby Green River. Jan had discovered this trail for the first time a few years ago. Despite being surrounded by a fairly built-up commercial and industrial area, the trail itself is pretty.
They return to the airport by 4:30 so that Jan and Chris can catch their flight. Lyn’s current driving restrictions include a recommendation to avoid highway driving, so Jan sets her up with driving directions back to Wallingford on surface streets, and she manages the trip back home safely.
In the jetway, Chris demonstrates the proper teleporter room stance for getting beamed up.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Seattle → Haarlem. Our flight to Amsterdam is bumpy but otherwise fine. After Chris and I land at Schiphol Airport, we have the most hassle-free international arrival: the immigration officer asks a single question (“Business?”) and the customs officers standing near the exit don’t ask any questions.
We quickly find the bus we need to the city of Haarlem. The bus doesn’t take cash, and Jan’s credit card doesn’t work in the little card reader — but Chris thinks to try paying with our phones, which happily works. The bus gets us to central Haarlem in half an hour.
We’ve arrived so quickly, in fact, that our AirBnB host isn’t ready to check us in, so we sit at an outdoor cafe and eat a snack. The weather is gorgeous, and all the outdoor cafes have crowds of people sitting outside in the middle of a workday afternoon to hang out.
We walk to the AirBnB. It’s a little unclear where the actual entrance to the place is, but eventually the host, Emilia, finds us. At the same time, Anne, a delivery person from the bike rental company, shows up far earlier than scheduled. There’s some confusion while we sort things out, but eventually Jan goes with Emilia while Chris stays with Anne to get the bikes set up. Among other things, we’ve brought our own bike pedals to go with our bike shoes. Anne’s supposed to install them, although for a bike company employee he seems a little unclear on how to install pedals.
Emilia comments that we’re renting “nice bikes”. By this she means that our bikes have more than 3 gears. Everyone else in Holland seems to have the exact same model of bike: black, 3 gears, upright seat position, flat handlebars, trivial built-in bike lock, and a little basket in front or a rack in back. Chris says they look like a bike Mary Poppins would ride.
Jan takes his bike for a ride down the block. He comes back and tells Anne that the left shifter doesn’t work. Chris takes his bike for a test ride too — and his right shifter doesn’t work. Anne doesn’t have the tools (or know-how?) to fix the shifters himself, so he resigns himself to taking the bike back and returning with them the next day. Luckily we’re not starting our ride until the day after tomorrow.
After a nap, we walk around central Haarlem, which has the sort of winding cobbled streets and charming building facades found all over Holland. We pass a restaurant called Dijkers with outdoor seating, and decide to eat dinner there. It’s quite good, although there’s some error in the kitchen that causes the meal to take a while. As we’re eating, a bell of a nearby church begins to toll. Today marks a memorial of some kind. The bell tolls for a very long time — maybe half an hour? When it stops, the other diners stop talking. We’re not sure if this is coincidental, or a moment of silence, so stop talking until conversation around us slowly resumes.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Haarlem. We have breakfast at a restaurant called TOAST that serves yummy toast. Back at the AirBnB, Anne returns with our rental bikes. We ride them down the street and all’s well. Having transferred all our belongings to bike pannier bags, we hand Anne our luggage to hold onto for the week.
Today we’re making a short trip to the neighboring town of Heemstede to visit an old friend of Chris’. We add some things we’ve brought to the bikes, like mounts to hold our phones so we can navigate while we’re riding. I’m reminded of the backpacking maxim, “You pack your fears”: people tend to bring gear for the things they’re worried might happen. I point out that Chris’ fears apparently include mechanical issues with the bikes, because he’s brought a small toolkit to attach to his bike. I’ve brought a padded gel seat cover to add to my bike — apparently my fears include a sore butt.
We try out the bikes for our first real (but short) ride of 2 miles to Heemstede. The Netherlands are a biking utopia, with dedicated bike paths everywhere, dedicated bike highways, bike traffic lights, bike roundabouts, and millions of people of every type and age doing their daily activities by bike. I see all kinds of people biking: people commuting to school or work, people biking with their groceries, parents with cargo bikes with kids, a postman on a bike, a food delivery service person whose bikes has a compartment to keep food warm, an old man with his dog in a little basket, a school group out for a field trip, and a young couple facing each other on a bike who are making out as they go along.
We arrive at the home of Pieter and Renné Bervoets. Many years ago in the 1990s, Chris spent half a year working in Heemstede for Pieter’s company, which makes radio-controlled model cars. Pieter was an industry pioneer, and over lunch at a nearby restaurant, he regales us with stories from his 50 year career. He also tells the story of his brother, who at the dawn of remote control car racing invented a transponder system for tracking the lap times of the cars Pieter was making and racing. That system eventually found a much more lucrative application in the field of auto racing, and today Pieter’s brother’s company owns the market for timing pro racing events everywhere.
Back at their home, Pieter shows us a beautiful radio-controlled model car that was his last big project before handing off the reins at his company. These days he focuses on virtual remote control car racing simulation games. He also shows off a virtual fireplace he’s trying to develop into a product. It looks quite realistic once it’s running, but my favorite part is seeing the words “Loading fire…” appear in the back of the fireplace as it’s starting up.
We finally say our goodbyes and head to Amsterdam to see a “once in a lifetime” Vermeer exhibit at the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum has a few Vermeers, but has also managed to borrow from other museums and collectors about two-thirds of the known Vermeer paintings, something like 27 works. Most of them are gorgeous. I particularly like “View of Delft”, which practically glows.
We have a modest Indian dinner at a restaurant called Taj, then take the train back to Heemstede and bike back to Haarlem. We’d been warned that today is a Dutch national holiday — Liberation Day — and that there will be noise. We haven’t really seen much evidence of this holiday all day, but as we’re going to bed we can hear thumping music from an outdoor concert somewhere nearby. I’m glad to have earplugs.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Haarlem → Utrecht. We start the day with good coffee at a nearby cafe called Native Haarlem. It’s pleasant to sit in the chairs outside the cafe and watch the store owner across the little street open up his garden shop.
We pack up our gear into pannier bags provided by the bike rental company. The bags are made by Ortlieb, which is famous for their amply-sized bike touring bags. These Ortlieb bags are the smallest we’ve ever seen, and I can just barely fit all my stuff into them.
My bike is missing a water bottle holder, so our first stop is at a nearby bike shop to pick one up. With that, we begin pedaling towards today’s destination of Utrecht. The network of dedicated bike paths in The Netherlands is unbelievably extensive. Seattle is justifiably proud of its Burke-Gilman trail, which is 27 miles long, but such trails are rare. In comparison, The Netherlands has well over 20,000 miles of bike trails.
The bike trails are all so good that it’s not really necessary to seek out a special bike touring route. Instead, we just go wherever Google Maps biking directions take us. This results in a wide variety of bike paths through all kinds of areas: farmland, suburbs, industrial. At one point, Google Maps sends us down a thin dirt trail for a few minutes, and later we ride alongside a road at the southern end of the runway for Schiphol Airport. We pass a number of sheep farms, including one where sheep are blocking the path. When we stop to look at them, one makes grumpy bleats at us.
We stop in the small town of Mijdrecht for lunch at Kantine Mijdrecht. The waiter tells us the soup of the day is “kerrie”, which I look up to find is Dutch for curry. It’s delicious.
In the afternoon we follow the Vecht River south into Utrecht. Cycling in The Netherlands is so safe that almost no Dutch cyclists wear helmets. Chris has brought his own helmet, but I’m going without. (I asked for one, but the bike rental company failed to bring it — maybe it’s an unusual request?)
Riding on the trail next to the Vecht River, I do notice that there is one category of Dutch cyclist that does wear a helmet: hard-core cyclists. These people invariably have nicer bikes than the usual 3-speed bikes everyone else rides. They also always wear Spandex pants. Once I notice this correlation, it invariably holds true: every single Dutch person wearing a helmet is also wearing Spandex.
We bike through Utrecht’s Neude Square and reach the nearby Hotel Beijers. We have two loft rooms, and to reach them, we have to climb the sort of typical Dutch staircase that’s so steep it’s practically a ladder. Climbing one always feels a little unnerving, but that’s especially true when our hands are full with pannier bags. The loft rooms are nice, with exposed beams, and little staircases up to dormer windows so one can look out at Domkerk Cathedral.
My normal post-ride process involves a hot shower, washing the day’s biking outfit in the room sink, then a nap. With that sorted, we go for a walk. It’s a beautiful afternoon, and every street is lined with outdoor cafes packed with people. We stop at one cafe and have a snack. Both of us are jealous of this cafe culture. I think the closest approximation to it one can find in the U.S. is Disneyland, which is something of a caricature of an old European town center.
Dinner is nearby at Heron, a restaurant that’s received a Michelin “Green Star” for their local, seasonal, sustainable cuisine. The restaurant’s site had shown them fully booked for tonight, but I called a week ago and they said they could fit us in at the kitchen counter.
The counter seats give us a fun close-up view of two cooks busily prepping the dishes. We both eat several courses, many of which contain foraged local ingredients for which we can find no translation online. Example: my dessert includes a sorbet made from zwartmoeskervel (“black chervil”?) that’s unusual as an ingredient even in The Netherlands where it’s native. When I ask about it, the host has one of the cooks fetch a stalk of it — tasted plain, it’s intolerably bitter. The cook explains that they need to boil it with sugar water to turn it into something palatable. He also mentions that they try hard not to waste anything, pointing out that Chris’ dessert includes a caramel made with the whey left over from their cheese-making operation.
Walking back to the hotel on a narrow street, we see lights moving in two buildings. Both buildings seem to be rigged to have eerie lights turn slowly on and off in various windows on some program. This makes the buildings look haunted.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Utrecht → Rotterdam. The room where the hotel serves breakfast is in the basement and has a vaulted ceiling. We sit down to a standard Dutch breakfast: hard-boiled egg, bread, slices of ham and cheese, and yogurt with fruit. A big group of women comes in and is very happy and chatty.
It’s drizzling when we get on the bikes, so we put on our rain gear. Happily, the rain lets up at the outskirts of Utrecht, so we stop to take all the rain gear off.
We have a beautiful morning biking in the countryside. There are so many great bike paths going every direction in The Netherlands that even the efficiency-focused Google Maps routes are also extremely scenic. Near the town of Oudewater, Google Maps sends us down a paved one-lane path that follows a canal between two lush green farms. It’s gorgeous.
I’ve planned our route so that each day we should only have to spend 3-4 hours on the bikes, leaving time for some tourist activities too. Today’s tourist stop is in the town of Gouda at the Goudse Waag museum dedicated to Gouda cheese. The museum’s in an ornate stone building in the town square, right next to the equally ornate town hall.
The town square is bustling with a Sunday market, and all the outdoor cafes are packed with people. Since we arrive at lunchtime, we decide to get lunch first before entering the museum. The museum has a self-guided audio tour that tells us everything anyone could ever want to know about the history of cheese-making in Gouda. We get a little cheese tasting of local cheese: we both like the “young” goat’s milk cheese and cow’s milk cheese, but find the “old” cow’s milk cheese too pungent.
As we’re leaving the museum, Chris asks a docent for a recommendation for where we can get poffertjes: tiny little pancakes with butter and sugar. She points us to Pannenkoe, a pancake restaurant chain that is apparently the oldest poffertjes shop in Holland. The poffertjes are delicious, but on top of lunch and a cheese tasting, we’re stuffed.
From Gouda we get back on the bikes for another hour or so to Rotterdam. It rains on and off, and eventually we get tired of changing our gear so just ride without rain gear into the city.
Tonight’s lodging is a tiny rented houseboat at a marina in the middle of the city. A company called Wikkelboat rents a number of these houseboats in a couple of marinas. The houseboats (really more like small cabins on a dock) are quite cute, with two small sleeping areas, a bathroom, and a kitchenette.
The houseboat also has a hot tub on the deck. We go out onto the deck in bathing suits and bathrobes. Since it’s daytime in the middle of the city and we’re in plain view of a busy bridge, we attract some attention. A group of four women stops to take our picture, as does a family of Asian tourists. Sadly, the hot tub isn’t hot. We fiddle with the controls for a bit, then leave it in hopes that it’ll get hotter.
We walk a short distance through downtown Rotterdam, which has edgy modern architecture in all directions. We eat dinner at Umami, an Asian fusion restaurant. We pick a set of a dozen small dishes, and they’re all pretty good.
By the time we get back to the houseboat, the hot tub is finally a little hot and now it’s dark enough for a little privacy, so we have a soak before bed.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip, Day 5: Rotterdam → Willemstad. Breakfast is good coffee and pastries from a coffee chain called coffeecompany.
Yesterday, we’d noticed signs for waterfiets (“water bikes” with pontoons) available for rental at the marina. They’re rented by the same outfit that rents our houseboat, so we’d used their site to book an hour on the bikes. A guy comes to unlock the water bikes and give us life jackets.
The Wijnhaven marina we’re in sits on a small island, so we start by pedaling around it. It’s fun to see the city from the level of the canals, and there are all kinds of houseboats and working boats to look at. We follow one canal as far north as we can go, then back to the marina. Pedaling the water bikes, of course, uses the same leg muscles we’re going to use on the regular bikes, so this whole excursion is fun but adds another 10 virtual miles of work to our day.
Chris left his USB charger behind at the previous hotel, so we make a quick stop to get a new one on the way out of Rotterdam. From there we pedal out of town through various business districts and bridges, and within an hour arrive at a river ferry.
The ferry takes us across to Kinderdijk, a town famous for its collection of 19 historic windmills. We bike through the windmill museum’s grounds, stopping to take a look inside at one of the operating windmills. Outside the windmill is a poffertjes stand at which we stop for a coffee and a snack. The stand’s run by a man and what seems to be his grandson. The man is quickly pouring out the batter into a poffertjes pan that makes silver-dollar sized pancakes; he flips them over with a little toothpick. He takes them off the pan onto a small plate then hands them to us, so they’re hot and delicious.
We pedal through the rest of the museum area and then alongside a highway to reach a chain restaurant called Verhage for lunch. Back on the bikes, we ride a short distance to another river ferry. We can see the ferry is there, but just as we reach the dock, the ferry begins to pull away. Rats. Someone on the ferry spots us; the ferry backs up a bit and lets us ride on.
The ferry takes us across to the north entrance to Biesbosch National Park, an area of forests and wetlands. As we bike south through the park we see very few people, but we do see — and hear — zillions of birds. At one point a weasel or something similar darts across the bike path in front of us.
The southern part of the park is a long, thin spit of land with another ferry terminal at its end. But as we’re riding down the spit, we come to a closed gate across the path. “Niet Betreden”, the sign says, which doesn’t sound promising. Google Translate says: “No Entry”. It looks like we’re going to have to bike all the way back to the north end of the park, ferry back to the other shore, then bike all the way around to pick up our route.
We do notice that there’s an old sort of bus stand near the gate. Beyond the bus stand there’s a dock. Maybe this is another ferry terminal? We find a “Welcome to Biesbosch” sign, so maybe a boat comes here sometimes, but there’s no boat in sight, so we guess it’s not running now.
The bus stand has a telephone number, so Chris tries calling it. An old Dutch guy answers. After some discussion, he says, “I’ll be there in 2 minutes”. Where could he be? Finally we spot a tiny boat making its way across the river, and eventually it’s pointing toward our dock. Hooray!
While we’re waiting, two other pairs of people show up. The ferry turns out to be a cute, little pedestrian and bike ferry. It looks old, but the ferryman rings up the ferry charges on his iPad and has us pay by credit card.
Safely back on track, we approach a huge industrial area with factories and refineries that our route skirts around. Although we’re biking at a good clip, we’re passed by an older man with large calf muscles. As we approach today’s destination of Willemstad, the route follows a long dike above fram fields. There’s a stiff headwind, so everyone on the path is working against the wind. A 12 year-old girl on a 3-speed breezes past us without visible effort. People here are in good shape.
Willemstad is a small medieval walled town whose layout from above looks like a six-pointed star. We cross over the town’s moat and through the outer earth berm to enter the little town and reach the Mauritz Grand Cafe and Hotel.
The hotel’s restaurant is the best-rated in town, so we have dinner there and it’s great. After dinner I take a walk through the small town to the little harbor.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Willemstad → Hellevoetsluis. It’s raining and going to rain steadily all day. We eat breakfast at the hotel, then walk out onto the back patio and into the rain. Chris has a bike helmet that affords a little warmth, but I’m not wearing one, so my head’s going to be a little cold today.
To avoid spending all day alongside highways, we make a slightly longer trip across the island of Goeree-Overflakkee. By the time we reach the bridge to the island, I’m soaked through my rain gear.
When we reach the small town of Middleharnis, we’re eager to stop somewhere and get out of the rain. We pop into a pizza restaurant, which turns out to be take-out only with a small waiting area with a few chairs and no tables. We order lunch anyway and eat it while sitting in the chairs so we can warm up. This would be easier if the restaurant owner would close the front door we’re sitting next to.
Chris wants to get coffee, but the owner says they don’t serve it; he points us down the street at a cafe. The cafe is much nicer and warmer inside — we should have come here for lunch. The coffee hits the spot.
Continuing across the island, we pass our first field of tulips, a stunning carpet of the brightest yellow. A while later we reach the approach to the road off the island, but there’s a construction barrier with a “Detour” sign. The actual direction of the detour is unclear. Another bike tourist loaded with gear comes by and points us in the right direction. We follow her to a large canal lock, which we cross on a narrow catwalk over the lock gates.
This puts us onto a path alongside a highway that runs atop the massive Haringvlietdam: a long series of huge moveable barriers that can hold back storm surges. From there it’s a short ride to another medieval city, Hellevoetsluis, and the Hotel De Oude Veste.
After a warm shower and nap, I walk a bit of the harbor area. There’s a large dry dock working on two ships, as well as a bright red lightship: a floating lighthouse.
Once again, one of the nicer restaurants in town is attached to the hotel. This one is a steakhouse, where we have a good (albeit slow) meal.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Hellevoetsluis → The Hague. I’m up very early to get online and try to get tickets to the new Ghibli Park in Japan for our upcoming family trip there in August. The ticket site is swamped by visitors and the site for international visitors is particularly buggy. After two hours, I finally manage to get tickets through the version of the site for Japanese residents.
It’s cool out, but at least yesterday’s rain has stopped for the morning. As we pedal north, I’m struck by how much water surrounds us. For the past five days, we’ve almost always been in sight of a river, canal, pond, or drainage of some kind. When one canal ends, the next one begins 30 seconds later.
We take another cute bike ferry over a river on our way to The Hague. On the north side, we get a little drizzle around lunchtime. It’s only supposed to rain a little bit today — right around now — so I find the closest restaurant and we detour there. It turns out to be a disappointing fast-food restaurant, but the weather is clearer when we leave.
The last hour of the day’s ride is through increasingly dense apartment areas. We reach our AirBnB on Noordwal Street just outside the old town area. After getting the key out of the key box, we go up the steep stairs inside to what we think is the right apartment — but the door is open, and there are two pairs of shoes at the entrance. Maybe we’re in the wrong place?
It turns out the AirBnB’s owners have stopped by to fix an issue with the TV. They finish up, but before they go, we ask one of them for a recommendation for an Indonesian restaurant. (Holland’s imperial past left the country with an abiding taste for Indonesian food.) She recommends a place her Indonesian friend claims is the most authentic in the city.
We walk around the old town for a while, stopping at a pancake house called Will’s for more poffertjes.
In the evening, we go to the address of the Indonesian restaurant, but below the sign we find an Indonesian grocery instead. Happily, Chris notices that right across the street is the restaurant we’re looking for — both the grocery and restaurant have the same name. The food dishes we order aren’t exactly what I’m expecting, but they’re still quite good, and surprisingly spicy.
Bree takes the Advanced Placement Biology exam. She’s been working towards this goal all year in her AP Bio class, which has turned out to be her more challenging and (therefore?) her most favorite class. She says the test took a very long time and was exhausting. She’ll have to wait until July to get her test result.
Angela’s cousin, Leslie, comes to stay at our house for a few days while she interviews at several offices. She’s wrapping up dentistry school, and is hoping to find a position here in the Pacific Northwest.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: The Hague → Haarlem. Today’s our last day on the bikes. We bike through a series of lush city parks on our way out of The Hague, then pick up the North Sea Cycling Route which follows the coast. This leads through a beautiful coastal park with dunes and marshes. There are birds calling all around us.
I’d been interested in stopping at the Atlantikwall Museum — remains from World War II of Nazi defensive fortifications along the coast — but it’s closed today. A short while later, it begins to rain. With intermittent rain, it’s always a question of whether to just keep pedaling, or to take the time to stop and put on rain gear. We elect to stop, which proves to be a good decision when the rain intensifies.
We leave the coastal path and head for a restaurant called Como on the outskirts of Lisse. There are a fair number of other touring bikes parked in front of the lakeside restaurant.
From the restaurant, we have a short ride to the Keukenhof garden, famous for its annual tulip display. Their site says that they plant 7 million tulips for the event. We stroll around the extensive grounds for an hour, taking in the stunning palette of colors.
We now have less than an hour’s riding left back to Haarlem. We travel through the town of Heemstede again, then join the flow of commuters pedaling around Haarlem. For our last night, we’re staying at the ML Hotel in the middle of the old town, right next to the cathedral.
Shortly after we arrive at the hotel, someone from the bike rental company arrives to return our luggage and collect the bikes. I watch the approach of my backpack on my phone’s “Find My” app, and at one point I see that “Jan’s Backpack” is on Jansstraat: “Jan’s Street”. We bid farewell to the bikes, which did a fine job carrying us around for the past week. We’re happy that we had no accidents or bike issues, never really got lost or had to backtrack, and saw a lot of beautiful scenery and interesting things.
I hadn’t expected to eat in so many hotel restaurants, but tonight’s hotel has a Michelin-starred restaurant, so I’ve made a reservation for a course menu dinner. A waiter sets out an amuse bouche — then sets out three additional amuse bouche dishes. “That’s a lot of amusement”, I observe, which makes him laugh. We particularly like a tiny crunchy roll filled with steak tartare and garnished with tiny rings of toasted onion. The opening course is followed by courses of bream ceviche, North Sea crab, celeriac, Dover sole, and steak. Everything’s amazing.
The meal is so leisurely paced that it threatens Chris’ plan to meet up after dinner for a drink with an old Dutch friend in Haarlem. Chris ducks out before the dessert course, which is the right decision. The waiters brings me a dessert course of two plates, then tea, and then another dessert course of three plates. By the time I leave, it’s been four hours. I stagger upstairs and pass out.
Liya returns to Seattle for the summer. She’s finished her sophomore year at Yale, so she’s now halfway through her time as an undergraduate!
She has a paid summer internship at a lab in the University of Washington. She doesn’t know much yet about the lab work she’ll be doing, but it will generally involve work on the evolution of yeast: e.g., varying the environmental conditions of yeast samples to see how that effects their evolution.
Brotherly Netherlands Bike Trip: Haarlem → Seattle. My alarm goes off early so we can make a short walk through central Haarlem’s charming streets to catch a bus back to the Schiphol Airport. After clearing passport control, we stop to look at an Internet-famous art installation, in which a giant clock appears to be manually updated by a man painting and erasing the clock hands every minute.
Our flight is uneventful, and at the airport we’re met by Angela — plus Jan’s mom and Liya, who’s just returned to Seattle for the summer. We have another lunch at 13 Coins, go for a walk through the Highline Botanical Garden, then return Chris to the airport for his flight back to Bend.
It’s finally Zelda Day! Six years after Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and four years after we finally finished the game, they’ve finally published the latest game in the series, Tears of the Kingdom. Jan, Liya, and Bree have been looking forward to this for a long time, so settle in after breakfast for a morning of playing Zelda. It’s fun to watch the opening cut scenes, then finally dive into playing.
While Leslie’s in Seattle for job interviews, it’s only right that she get to do something outdoors too. We take her for a short hike in Seward Park. (Left to right: Liya, Angela, Leslie)
Jan and Angela attend a Seattle Sounders game. We virtually never attend sports games, but someone had offered us two tickets for box seats for a game against Austin FC. Austin wins 2 to 1, but we still have a fun time.
It’s springtime, which means it’s time for lots of baby bunnies in the neighborhood, which unfortunately also means that it’s time for Mojo and Moxie to go on a murderous bunny-hunting spree. This morning Bree and Jan manage to rescue a baby kit, first from the jaws of Mojo, and — after we’ve stuffed Mojo inside the house — from the jaws of Moxie.
We wish we could post signs on our fence that bunnies could read saying: ☠️ Cats! Bunnies Stay Out if You Want to Live ☠️.
Jan, Liya, and Bree are playing The Legend of Zelda in the late afternoon The game requires players to occasionally cook virtual meals to provide Link, the hero of the story, with energy and various magical powers.
Jan: “We should take a break to cook something.”
Bree: “We have plenty of meals in our inventory.”
Jan: “No, not in the game. We actually need to cook dinner in the real world so we can eat.”
A Spanish language unit on household chores requires Bree to photograph someone in our house doing chores. Bree chooses Mojo.
Jan positions Mojo in the act of doing various chores. Mojo turns out to be a perfect cat model for this task, as he hangs completely passively for the entire time we’re taking pictures for this assignment. Most of the time, he purrs.
Jan and Angela join their friend Anna on a day hike with Anna’s friends Ann and Marie to Talapus and Olallie Lakes. It’s sunny but cool, so perfect hiking weather. We take a snack break at Olallie Lake, which still has melting snow and ice in the middle of it.
After the hike, we have a late lunch in Snoqualmie at the Snoqualmie River Brewery. Since it’s a sunny Saturday on Memorial Day weekend, the place is packed even in the middle of the afternoon, and it takes an hour to get our food.