Ashes to ashes...

The news of the day is the volcanic eruption on Iceland. We heard about it the day we landed in Amsterdam and really didn’t pay much attention. The next day we heard that Britian’s airports had been closed, no flights in or out. Apparently planes can’t fly through the stuff.

Yesterday when we boarded the Viking Pride we discovered many what our Captain called the “oldies” the tour group from the prior cruise still stuck and sitting around in the lounge.

Poor people, Amsterdam closed its airport too and they were stranded. Many of them had gotten up when the airport opened to try to get a flight out - no luck! Finally about 4 pm they were informed by the Captain and the cruise director that Viking was putting them up on board the ship tonight - to a round of applause.

The problem of getting out of Amsterdam also worked in their favor as the next tour group couldn’t fly IN to Amsterdam. Of the 144 expected passengers to embark on the ship yesterday only about 60 actually checked in! So they had empty cabins to put these people into.

Of course travelers thousands of other travelers are experiencing this problem. Hope for favorable winds!

Bikes and books

They have a great culture of bicycling around here. The government encourages their people to bike. The city is pretty compact and like all the older European cities their streets are narrow. It's also pretty flat so biking here is pretty easy. You have to watch out though, I think the cyclists have the right of way and I almost got run over by about a hundred of them. They're on the sidewalks, on the bike paths and in the streets. I see kids in 'boxes' installed on the front of the bikes with their parent cycling them around. Becky, you probably wouldn't do that - no straps!

We got here a couple of days early before the tour starts. They have a fabulous library (bibliotheek). Everyone comes here to hang out. Not only does it have books and magazines, they have rows and floors of pubic computers, ethernet ports for people to come just play games, e-mail, or do home work.

Here's a shot of some of the bikes parked by the library.

This is our hotel. The Grand Amrath. It's only a hundred years and was the center of shipping in Amsterdam. The hotel itself has only been in this building for 3 years. I thought it looked old when I first saw it (and it was) but it's really a beautiful hotel inside! Very modern, I would say 5 stars if I knew what a 5 star hotel was like!

Don't need a gym membership

Lee says that he would hate living in Los Angeles because of all the traffic, but he wouldn't mind living somewhere like New York, or here in Amsterdam.


Why do you say? Well, he wouldn't mind walking here...


I didn't know that Amsterdam was sort of like the Dutch version of Venice. They have tons of canals and bridges. It's really very pretty!


Hi everyone, sunny but breezy today.

How not to get to your hotel...

We arrive in Amesterdam around 8:00 am local time. I don't know what time that was MT but it was very LATE/EARLY, I still don't know which.

Transatlantic flights are weird. They turn off the cabin lights pretty much right away as they hit altitude. I don't know if the psychology of the airlines is "if they think it's night, they might sleep and not be a pain in the b..." or if it's to actually helps the passengers reset their internal clock. What do you think?

It seems to me parts of Europe has a fabulous public train system. At least in Paris (our last Griswold vacation) and here in the Netherlands public transport is convenient and cheap.
Everyone we talked to told us to take the train into Amsterdam (cheaper than hiring a taxi) and there are ticket kiosks right by the bagage claim areas. Unfortunately we were unduly blurry eyed and short on brain power by the time we landed. On top of that, we couldn't read Dutch. After fumbling at the ticket kiosk, (thanks to the helpful man patiently standing behind me telling what to do) we triumphantly exited immigrations and searched for our train platform.

Here he's indicating his general opinion of my uninformed opinions...

Too bad Lee and I got on the wrong train heading AWAY from Amsterdam toward Rotterdam.

I noticed if you (or me) act very lost and confused (which we were) they will very nicely (without rolling their eyes at us) give us directions. They told us we should get off at the very next stop and head back toward the airport...

We finally arrived in Amsterdam. From their we only needed to figure out where our hotel was in relationship to Central Station. We actually stopped several fast walking Dutchman (native amsterdamians?) to ask for directions.

Central Station (pictured behind Lee) is like Grand Central station in NYC. People are in a hurry and likely to run you over (literally) if you're in they way.
I should have bought that Garmin Nuvi! It would have really come in handy. I highly recommend it if you travel to these older cities. The streets have no rhyme or reason and it's definitely very easy to get turned around here.

On our way

Big European vacation!
It was quiet COLD when we left Kalispell...I was surprised at how warm it was when we landed in Denver. By the time we got to Washington, D.C. (only a fast 5 hours later) the only thing I was concerned about was if there was something good to eat (and sadly Wendy's was the best answer) and where the bathroom was was! I think the worst part of traveling is TRAVELING.



This is the first time I've ever landed at Dulles International airport. It certainly has the big city feel, in that it's crowded, a little bit dingy and you feel a little bit like a hamster in a cage.

Funny, I didn't feel that way when I grew up in NYC, on the lower east side. That must come from being acclimated to the pace of life then.

Of course we didn't convert any of our money to Euros before we left town... There was a "TravelEx" money changer by our gate in Washington. Before we boarded Lee bought some Euros. The exchage rate was terrible, but we thought that we should have some euros on hand when we landed. All the web sites say exchange your money when you get there and I do believe that is true. The exchange rate here in the Netherlands is at least 10% better than what we got at the airport.

All that being said, it was very good to have the right currency on hand when we landed!

Technology you must have

Josh bought a refurbished Garmi Nuvi 360. Before he got it we discussed that he would lend it to us on our trip. It also plays audible books which I think a great added benefit.


The unit did a great job getting us through Wisconsin, but directed us through ALL of the TOLL highways. It cost us around $15 to get around Chicago and Indiana. Although we have it set for fastest time I think it took us a long time to get around the Chicago area going that route. I don’t think this unit has the capability to figure out the best alternate fast route.


After the fact I saw that there’s an option to avoid Toll roads, duh!

Another thing we did was add broadband connection onto our Verizon plan. It’s $60/month but it’s a month to month option and we can discontinue after our trip.


The best thing about using cell phone as a modem is you can be surfing the internet as you go down the road. I wouldn’t advise driving and surfing simultaneously.

The Saga of TBH part 1

The saga of the TBH (the bus from hell).

I said to Lee last January, “Lee, when was the last time your folks went back to Michigan?”

“Well I think it’s been about four years now,” he said.
I cogitated for a few minutes, “How old are they going to be this year?”
Lee gave me a, duh, can’t you do the math look and said, “They’re going to be 90.”
“I betcha they’d like to go back for a visit.” Little did I know what kind of Pandora’s box I was opening.
“That sounds like a good idea.” Lee agreed. He ran in to ask Mom and Dad if they’d like to go to Michigan this summer and found out that Dad’s family holds a family reunion every August in Wisconsin and yes it would be nice to go back and see those relatives and Mom’s in Michigan

“Hey maybe we could rent an RV and take the cats along.” I suggested.
“I don’t know, I think RVs are going to be too expensive, and I don’t think we should take the cats.”
“But look, we could put them on a leash and train them to a litter box!” I pointed out this website which I'd found when I Googled "How to walk your cat on a leash".

(This isn't really our Sylvester)
You could train your cat to use the toilet too, but that was even too weird for me.

We got collars for the cats, but Snickers got out of her 3 times the first night we put it on her and then she lost it. Sylvester of course was a complete gentleman and kept his collar on. Both of the cats learned what a litter box was and Snicker likes it so much that she comes in from outside to use it!

We're OFF!

It was a hard struggle with many set backs and frustrations BUT we are finally heading down the road.
We finally finished loading and took off around 7:00 pm Wednesday for Missoula.

First stop:

After a truly yucky and not so quick dinner. we really were on our way.

We left town at 8:00 pm and arrived to our first overnight destination in Missoula. the Walmart SuperCenter. Hey don't you guys turn up your noses at that! It's a great place to boondock.
If you forget something, you can just walk right over and buy it - at a great savings to your pocket book I might add.
But seriously, we couldn't believe how many big rigs were parked there.
We stayed most of the next day there and headed over to Dr. Rosen's for the deposition a little after noon.
Our next destination: Bozeman to drop off Debbie & Andrew's wedding present from Grandpa. He'd only been working on refinishing the table for the last year and a half but it done. Not to Grandpa's satisfaction. In fact he said to me, "Maybe we should take it to Michigan with us, I can finish it up and we could drop it off on the way back."
Our final destination last night was Billings, but we didn't make it. We stopped just outside of Billings and parked the bus in a truck stop over night.

North Dakota, here we come!