Day Six: Alkmaar to Den Oever: (Year 6: 1973)

September 26, 2017

I had a great idea for my Ph.D. thesis, on income distribution, but no data to work on. A trip to Statistics Canada in Ottawa revealed they did not have it either. McGill faculty suggested I go out to a project they were involved in in Winnipeg, where the kind of data I needed was about to be created.

This time it was all four of us in a plane. Winnipeg from Montreal, even by plane, seemed extremely far. But the kids were golden. Arriving in the typical deep frozen winter, we chose a place on the outskirts, creating a commuting problem. This was solved by "Herman", an ancient black VW bug. Herman had a finicky and weak gasoline heater that stood between us and being little blocks of ice.

In the Fall we moved to another place on the other side of the city and Dodie enrolled in the University of Manitoba, faculty of Nursing.
She would ultimately work many years as a nurse in Winnipeg and Victoria.

Dodie ventured overseas, to Israel, to visit her grandparents. Laurie learned how to walk while on this trip.

Laurie begins bicycle training, while Joni continues to develop her skills. If you look closely you will see that she has the front wheel backwards!

From this year forward Sesame Street became a big thing for us. Mainly we (and sure, the kids) liked the music. But then there was also humour and what seemed to us great cinematography.

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We took one last spin around the centre of Alkmaar before setting out for the day. It has a very small picturesque central core after which one rides through a more modern section and enters the countryside.

Along a canal in Alkmaar. The Dutch seem to favour black as a colour for shutters.

Leaving Alkmaar, we found quite a few windmills that had been converted to just residences.

Each windmill had a sign that traced its history - usually beginning in the 1600's!

I expected a lot more Beemster style beauty as we headed north and east from Alkmaar making for Den Oever which is the point at the top of North Holland where the Afsluitdyk hops 30 km over to Friesland. As it turned out, for the first 10 km we had not ugly stuff, for nothing we have found in Netherlands is ugly, but merely unnotable residences and offices. After that things improved a lot as we reached an area called De Noord. Here there was a return to those very lovely Dutch style houses, with tall tile roofs and fancy brickwork.

Near De Noord houses again became interesting to look at.

Unfortunately we soon left De Noord behind and had just normal farms for the remainder of the way to Den Oever.

Following the pattern of last days, the temperature rose through the morning, reaching 16 C by 10:30. What it was "supposed" to do was to then proceed to a completely comfortable 20 C, and maybe edge up into "too warm" territory. Instead, the temperature slumped back to 14 and even 12, and a cold head wind sprang up. We put on extra layers and that was ok, but the headwind was tiring for Dodie. She has been sick since catching something on the plane, we think, and a cold headwind was the additional something she didn't need.

We began to long for an indoor spot to relax and warm up. But we know from experience that what might seem like a small town on the map does not usually have anything like a café. Still, we pinned our hopes on Middenmeer, which had a reasonable yellow smear around it on our map. We would have to go off route a bit to look for any café, so we stopped an old man (on a bike, of course) coming from that direction and asked if there was anything to be found. He was so kind in that honest Dutch way. He began by apologizing that it was just a small town, and at first he could not think of any place. But then he brightened and allowed there was a place "where they have potatoes". After that he lapsed into Dutch. He was so sweet.

The old man made us think of a favourite song "The Dutchman", written in 1968 and performed around 1973 by Steve Goodman.

"Potatoes" meant fries to us, and in the cold wind that is just what we needed. The town did have a line of buildings containing shops. Before we could despair, we came to the café (or snack bar) at the very end. It had indoor tables, hooray! The Asian extraction lady running the place really spoke only Dutch, but no problem, since what she had was laid out in a cooler before us. It was a selection of sausages and croquettes, that she would deep fry, along with any "fries". We went for the fries, of course, and also a "satay" croquette and a sausage that was labelled Frickadella. This means something more like hamburger to us, but Google now assures us this is legit as a sausage.

A whole pile of fried things may not have been the most elegant, but it hit the spot for the moment. We rolled on, ever more slowly though, with Dodie dreaming of being able to flake out in a soft bed.

Her dream came true at the Pension Waddensee in Den Oever. The lady put us in a giant room with not one, but four soft beds, and Dodie was out like a light in two minutes.

Yesterday's accommodation was small, dark, and unventilated so I too am enjoying the space and light here. Breakfast is included, and we are welcome to take the ingredients from the fridge and set up for ourselves. That means we will be able to leave tomorrow as early as we have strength for. How tomorrow goes will depend on the wind on the dike. But tomorrow is another day...

These cows staged a break out. A motorist and two cyclists chased them back to where they belonged. Interestingly the motorist left his car directly in the middle of the roadway while the chase was on, showing that traffic was not a priority. In fact only a couple of other vehicles appeared during the whole course of the cow drama.

Harvesting red cabbage, The cabbage heads were large, perfectly round, and firm.

Harvesting potatoes. The rig works wonderfully well in filling the truck. Many trucks of potatoes could be seen on the roads during the day. Lots of fries are soon to come!

Quaint houses, as seen from our room in Den Oever.

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 189 km (117 miles)

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