240. Europe Bicycle Trip--Picking Up My Camping Equipment and Goodbye to Ellen

Today is Day 82, Monday, July 7th,2014. Today is my older brother, Frank's 68th birthday. I was up at 7 am and did my Bible reading of a chapter of Psalms. Every day I write a meaningful verse from my reading into my journal. Today-"I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord" I worked in the bedroom until Carla woke up and then ate my granola bars for breakfast. Every morning at about 10:30 Carla makes coffee and brings it with cookies across the driveway to Dick and Marnix working in the accounting office. I joined them but had a cup of tea. Then at 11 am, I left on Silver to go to Cousin Ellen's house where cousin Hans had dropped off my camping equipment and front pannier after my broken rack accident in Oosterhout.

It is only about 5 km. from Hoofddorp to Heemstede where Ellen lives but somehow near the end I got lost by Hageveld the same way I got lost earlier in my trip when I came here for the first time. I land up following the knooppunten and come to a bridge over a canal but the bridge has many stairs that you have to climb up and then after you cross, you have steps going down. I cannot do this with Silver and land up bicycling a long way around and past the place where I had had an accident with my pannier coming off and getting tangled around the wheel hub and the garage where the workers had helped me in my predicament.  I should have just stayed along the main highways here instead of following the numbers. But finally I found Ellen's house where she was busy in the back lane where men were trimming the hedges. We enjoyed a cup of tea and a strrop waffle cookie and later she  invited me to lunch with her.

I helped her set the table outside in the back yard.

We had nice buns with cheese and meat and radishes and strawberries BUT as we were enjoying the food it started to drizzle and we had to rush and bring everything inside. We also put Silver in the shed. We finished lunch inside. I got to see Sadjith again before he was off for a dental appointment. Both he and his sister, Malika need to have their wisdom teeth taken out. In the afternoon, Ellen helped look up train and bus schedules on the internet for me because I want to go to Haarlem tomorrow. She said she saw a photo with wine bottles  on Facebook from one of my brothers. She had an apron with the same wine photo and wanted me to take it and give it to my brother. She also gave me Wilhemina peppermints and some chocolates to bring to Canada. I packed Silver with these items and also with my camping equipment and gave her a big hug goodbye. She followed me out to the street to make sure that I went the right way and this time I followed the roads and had no problems getting back to Hoofddorp. I changed my clothes and then rode my bicycle downtown to the train station. There were thousands of bicycles there so I wheeled Silver right into the ticket store with me to ask how I could get more money on my bus pass. Then I went outside and was able to add 4 Euros cash on the bus ticket. Then I bicycled to the bicycle store but it was closed today.I biked back to Dick's with much more success than the first day riding my bicycle to his home from the bicycle store at the beginning of my trip. I Skyped Dave and my daughter, Caroline. I called Ome Fritz to arrange a goodbye supper. They will pick me up tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday) at 2 and we will go out for supper at the Ijmuiden locks. In the evening,  I  watched the movie, Apocalyse while Dick was at exercise and Carla was at work. When they both came home, we talked for a long time. We made a plan to go together to eat in Haarlem on Saturday. It was another late to bed night.