Friends and Windmills

Most of the people on our voyage were older and from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Toronto.  There were very few westerners.  The first two people we met were Donna and Peggy from Long Island.  They were both celebrating their 80th birthdays--I hope to be just like them when I'm that age.  We sat and talked with several of the passengers, but didn't really click with any of them.

Then one day during afternoon tea Pam asked if she could sit with us.  We had an immediate connection.  She works for the park system in Ontario and when she learned I'm a Yellowstone ranger we had so much in common.  Her friend, Melissa, owned horses and has a daughter that shows horses.  Then we met Louis and Judy.  They're from North Carolina, own property, and Louis is retired from a civilian job in the Navy that was similar to what Irv did.  They became peas in a pod.

From that point on we ate meals with them, formed trivia teams with them and danced with them during dance challenge.  That's Irv waving in the back.  Louis is on the left.

The next morning we landed in Kinderdijk, Netherlands

Kinderdijk is a small village located on the Alblasserwaard polder.  What the heck is a polder?  I didn't know either.  A polder is a low lying tract of land reclaimed from a body of water that is surrounded by embankments knows as dikes.

There has to be a way to keep water drained from the polder so in 1740 a series of 19 windmills were created in Kinderdijk to  pump the water out.  The water was pumped into a reservoir that was higher than the polder and then into the river if the river level wasn't too high.

These days two diesel pumping stations drain the water.  Three of the historic windmills are open to the public and the other 16 have families living in them.  Someone each of those windmills has to be a certified miller.

This is the largest concentration of historic windmills in the Netherlands.

It was such a beautiful place!

The cloudy skies and greenery made for some beautiful photos.  Just scroll through if you don't want to see all of them.

After a short, but cold and windy walk, we made it to one of the windmills we could enter.

Irv chose to climb up to the top.  There were too many people in there for me to attempt it.

The tour guide said the millers had large families and would house up to 14 kids in the mills.  The parents on the first floor and the kids up above.  It had to have been very cozy.  Here's the kitchen which is also...

...the parent's bedroom and sitting room.

This wheel turns the blades on top with a series of ropes and chains.

Due to the threat of fire the main kitchen was in a separate little building outside.

The interior of the kitchen.

There is a legend surrounding a flood of 1421 which took many lives.  After the storm a boy went to inspect the damage at a dike and saw a wooden cradle in the water that contained a cat and a sleeping baby girl.  The cat and baby survived and were buried together and now every year on St. Nicholas Day Dutch children give their pet kitties new collars in honor of the cat.

Our tour guide talked way too much for a cold and windy day so we eventually left him behind and went off on our own.

Pam and Melissa

On the last night of the cruise Louis thought it would be funny to tell the crew it was birthday so they'd come over and sing.  Not funny, Louis, not funny!

Next and final stop:  Amsterdam!