Helen and I were in the lounge at 7:30am, Peter and Heather joined us shortly and then we waited about a half hour for Kate to hike down and see Lake James and then take Trail 3 out through the Nature Preserve to Hell’s Point and back (about 2.5 miles). We called Stacy and Chad at 9am (woke them up!) and they then joined us for the buffet brunch – with Santa!
It was a 3.5 hour drive to northeast Indiana and Pokagon State Park. Helen, Chad and I arrived first and immediately rented a toboggan and did the quarter mile refrigerated run. Peter and Heather were at the bottom to meet us. We hiked back up and I did a video of the four of them flying down the track. Stacy and Kate arrived shortly thereafter and we rented a second toboggan and continued doing the slide. The four guys hit the top speed of 38 mph. It was in the low 30s and snowing when we arrived but by the time we returned the sleds it was starting to drizzle and getting slushy.
Stacy, Kate and Chad were in a cabin while Peter & Heather and Helen & I had rooms in the Potawatomi Inn (Lodge). Our room served as the hospitality suite for drinks and then we had a delicious buffet dinner in the dining room. Afterward, we all played Texas Hold Em in the lounge (fireplace and decorated for Christmas) until Stacy, Heather, Kate and Chad lost all their chips. Yahtzee games followed until we went to bed at 11:30.
Tom – We tried but didn’t sleep on the 7.5 hour flight and arrived in Amsterdam about 9am local time (3 am Ohio time). We were, however, able to consume both dinner and breakfast on the flight! Found a locker to store our two carry-on suitcases and took our backpacks with us on the train into downtown. Just outside the train station we hopped on a glass enclosed tour boat for a very nice (great views and commentary in English) circular hour tour through the canals and around the city. It was 45o – great for this time of year.
St Nicholas church was next and then two hours of walking around the city. The houses were tall (sometimes 5 stories) and narrow (mostly 3 windows wide, though we saw many 2 and the smallest was 1 window wide); when they were built the tax was based on the width. So how did they ever get their furniture into these houses??? Outside the house at the top of the building were huge hooks they used to pulley things up and then bring them in through the windows. Way cool!!! Helen felt I had to see the red light district, where the ladies display themselves in windows. We could not find the area for the longest time and Helen felt pretty embarrassed asking for directions. Being Sunday, most windows were not open so we went for a coffee latte and did some people watching. We were both struck by the international flavor of the city. Never had to exchange any money, VISA worked everywhere! Arrived back at the airport about 4pm (10am EST) and then had a 5 hour wait for our KLM flight (9pm) to Cairo.
Introduction: Tom and Helen Martin hail from Springfield, OH. They have one dog, four children, two children-in-law, and one beautiful granddaughter, with another grandchild on the way. This Blog is related to their experiences as they traveled to Sri Lanka where Tom served as a Fulbright Scholar. It includes Amsterdam, Cairo, Nile Cruise, Sri Lanka, Agra India, Jaipur India, Beijing China and Xian China.
Tom – Dianne and Pat picked us up at high noon and drove us to the Dayton airport. As we were saying goodbye, Dianne gave Helen a St. Christopher medal to keep us safe! Our two large checked suitcases weighed 50 and 57 pounds (both were opened and inspected by security), our carry-on suitcases were about 30 pounds each, Helen’s backpack 10 pounds and mine 20 pounds (included laptop). The NWA flight was suppose to leave Dayton at 3:15 but was delayed until 5:30. Fortunately, we had a long layover scheduled for Detroit. We got there about 6:30 and our flight left the gate for Amsterdam at 7:10pm.
The Martin's Blog 