Saturday, August 3

Its time to head for home (Soest). We estimate the drive will take about 5 hours, but, of course, we stop several times. Our first stop is Andernach and we find a nice cafe to have a snack along the side of the Rhine River. We ate different kinds of wurst. Its a walled city and we stroll through the streets and squares. There is some type of a festival about to happen, but not yet. Down by the cafe is an olive tree that looks to be hundreds of years old. It is spreading out its branches in every direction. There is a very old Banyan tree in Ft. Myers, Florida and it looks a lot like that one. Normally, olive trees are split into two when they are relatively young. That's if you want it to produce olives. Linda touched it and felt its energy. She was saddened by a wound where someone had torn off or knocked off a branch.

Our second stop is Remagen. This is where a bridge over the Rhine was taken by the Americans in WWII and three German generals were executed on Hitler's orders for failing to blow it up. We have a coffee at another cafe by the river and watch boats cruising up and down the river including one shaped like a whale and called Moby Dick.

Then its the final push. We can feel the air getting a little cooler as we head north and eventually into the Netherlands. We arrive at the house in Soest just before 6:00. Four tired puppies. There are things to do - I mow the front yard, Sue puts in the wash with Dan's help, and Linda waters plants.

We can't decide where to eat. Sue wants a hamburger but we don't want to get back into the car. We walk down the main road and end up outside at the Luykje. We all said that we were not that hungry, BUT.  Dan orders a very large skewer with 4 different pieces of meat and I ordered spare ribs because they looked so good on other tables. Dan's skewer was so long (1 meter, called  Speis) that they had to bring in a special rack to hold it. Check out the pictures below. Linda had a mustard soup and Sue had a tuna salad. We all shared. We had a very helpful waitress who took real good care of us.

We waddled home.