Day 12 - The day when we biked really fast and Jessi pet a cat

This morning we woke up in the fairy tale village of Giethoorn and enjoyed our morning breakfast at the hotel. We took our time getting ready, as our distance for the day was a bit shorter. It's the calm before the storm, because tomorrow is our long-haul day for the trip!

We took a final run of Giethoorn and turned the other direction this time to see the other side of the village. It was more touristy, so we were glad that we spent the bulk of our time in the other direction yesterday. We took some mind-blowing pictures in the village and then hopped on our bikes. The fields of province of OverIjssel sprawled into the province of Friesland, as we crossed into it. Polders were everywhere and EVERYTHING was so incredibly flat. Farm equipment passed us on nearly every turn. They were out in the fields with combines and whatever farmers use to rake in grass and mow fields. Our speeds went way up! before we knew it, we were biking at over 30 km/h (about 18 mi/hour)! Ducks, sheep, cows, horses, goats, and storks breezed by in a blur. before we knew it, we had completed 25 miles and were feeling rather hungry. We found ourselves in the town of  Lemmer just South of Sloten, where we stopped to eat lunch. We had a pleasant tapas lunch and hopped back on the bikes to buzz by the beaches on our way further North towards the Slotermeer. It was at this point that we were finally treated to a peek at the Ijsselmeer, the man-made lake which we are riding around on this trip. Wind turbines sat like distant vanguards in the water, turning slowly. One of the turbines was actually located on land and we biked right past it. From afar, the turbine seemed to be moving slowly, but up close you can see how fast these things actually move. You can feel the force and see the speed at which the blades move through the air. Now I can understand why, as Jessi tells me, birds strike the blades and die. They are massive and powerful!

We wound our way up the coastline and eventually turned in and Northward towards the Slotermeer. Before long we found ourselves riding through large beautiful polders and eventually a small forest. The forest looked like yet another thing out of a fairy tale. Of course, it had a perfectly paved path running through it!

We rolled into Balk around 3pm and did a bit of laundry. I don't want to talk about what I've been wearing over and over again and how many times...

Laundry consisted of old-world style laundry doing, and it is now hanging about our room air drying! We walked down to the Slotermeer and gazed upon the large lake. On our way back up from the lake, we noticed a curiously noisy green cart moving in a nearby commercial yard. We stood and watched an autonomous device traversing the grass until we finally realized...it's an autonomous lawn mower. It's like a roomba! It was just trawling the grass in random patterns until it hit a fence or a wall! We could not stop giggling at the absurdity! 

Tired, we ambled back to the hotel and had a lovely dinner at the attached restaurant. During dinner, we had a surprise furry dinner guest, a cat. He sat right down in front of Jessi and stared at her. It was like he knew....he knew she would give in. Before I could say anything, Jessi was already dropping pieces of fish for the cat! He ate up the fish and, of course, looked back to his benefactor for another delicious donation to his personal cuteness fund. Jessi was ecstatic, and it was all very cute. Eventually he got the impression that there was nothing left, and he moved on to the next mark. Later, Jessi and I spotted him sitting up on a bench at the restaurant, using that same staring move on someone else. It was also insanely cute, and I kind of wanted to just buy the cat a cod filet.

Jessi and I moved down a few doors to the ice cream place for some evening scoops and wound up back in the hotel room for a rest. We have a very big day tomorrow as we cross a 20-mile long man-made dike called the "Afsliutdijk" ("closing dike") which was used to wall off the Ijsselmeer from the North sea, thus actually creating the Ijsselmeer! Just a short post today, as we need to get our rest. Wish us luck for tomorrow! Dooie!