The trip back ended up taking exactly 12 hours. I left at 8:06AM, with everything ready. Our timing had been good throughout France. I took two breaks during the first seven hours of the trip, which lasted an hour. I had about two and a half hours left when we approached Antwerp. At that point we stopped on the road for 10 minutes due to traffic. We got closer to Antwerp and there we sat in unmoving traffic for 35 minutes. I couldn't understand what the traffic issue was since I still don't understand Dutch/Flemish; I could only make out on the radio that they kept mentioning the Kennedy Tunnel which I knew to be on our route.
I was finally able to pull out into a lane that seemed to be moving and figured that it couldn't hurt to go there since I was not making any progress where we were. Mercifully, after a few minutes I saw a sign for Rotterdam. Since Rotterdam is only an hour from Amsterdam and Belgium is not that small, I figured it could not be that far away. The GPS system figured it out and rerouted us through Rotterdam. Everything went well. We got stuck on a drawbridge in Rotterdam for 10 minutes while a massive tanker went through, but that was the only thing that slowed us down. By that time, we took another short break and made it home. Dan was waiting on a bench outside for us, so he was a good sight for sore eyes!
Here were some remarkable things along the route:
The Belgian road scarecrow. For this most intriguing thing, I was not able to take a picture. What it was was a scarecrow-style thing with an arm that bobbed up and down with the wind. It was used to direct traffic over for merges caused by construction. Next time I'm over there, I will try to get a pic.
Truck Stop Bathrooms - a squat toilet and a children's toilet
Apparently a "new" Citroen 2CV a la "New Beetle." A picture of the classic is on the right.
A relic from a bordered Europe. Now this checkpoint between France and Belgium just gathers dust.
Generally, I felt the driving was much easier than in the US. This is primarily due to the fact that all the semis must drive at a much lower speed - 90 kph or about 55mph. They have stickers on the back of the truck that state how fast they can drive. Because of this, there was no anxiety about passing them, or them passing me. You can also see the safety bars between the wheels of the semis, so cars do not get caught under them.
1 comment:
You're a helluva woman! I would be terrified to drive through the Netherlands by myself with some kiddies ... great post.
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