As the days have become longer and warmer, we've been wondering when our Dutch friends would be ready to ride for the 2011 season. Kevin went on rides with several guys last year, usually after work in the long evenings or especially long rides on Sundays. Saturday, 9 April 2011, he got "the call."
So, on Sunday we went to our friends' house and met up with the group. Altogether, there were six of us on four motorcycles. We had hoped to be on the road to Cochem by 1:00, but when we stopped in Kerkrade for fuel, one of the guys had trouble with his bike starting. The battery leads were a bit corroded and caused the problem. Not a huge issue, but we definitely lost some time there.
From Kerkrade we went to the Eiffel park area again. This winter has been extremely hard on roads here in this part of Europe with more snow than usual and many, many very cold days. Some of the potholes left for courageous riders and drivers are big enough to hold our laundry baskets. The old patches from previous winters are almost as bad as the holes!
When we stopped for drinks in Belgium, we decided that Cochem was a bit too far for the time we had left in the day. All were agreed that we'll do it some time soon, however! The cafe where we stopped was in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Most Belgians, I have found, know at least some Dutch (Flemish), but the waitress pretended to have difficulty taking our very simple order - nothing but coffee or diet cola, and that sounds pretty much the same no matter which language you're speaking around here. She also left the table filthy from the last customers. When I spoke with her in French and questioned that and asked her to clean the table for us, she said someone else does that! What cheek! I don't think we'll be stopping there again!
We rode around the area and went to a few favorite spots where Kevin has already taken me. It was nice for him to be able to show Marcel and the others some places they had not visited before! Way to go, Husband! When we couldn't find a restaurant in that area, the unanimous decision was to go to Eupen, Belgium, and eat dinner at the Mesopotamia Restaurant. I've been there before and had a schnitzel, and that was some good motivation to get back on the road.
The schnitzel with mushroom in cream sauce was better than I had remembered. The other lady in the group had the Hawaiian schnitzel. I can't imagine a piece of pork in a sauce with pineapples. Just not my idea of what's yummy! Others at the table had pizza. The "pepperoni" pizza was actually a vegetarian pizza with sliced peppers - looked like cross-cut Greek peppers.
After about an hour at the table, we waddled out to the motorcycles and eased our way home. At our last rest stop, the Italian ice cream shop most of us had coffee or cappuccino while one brave lad had a "Blue Angel," a tall glass of vanilla ice cream with blue sauce poured over it. There were mounds of fresh sliced fruit stuck into the heaps of whipped cream. Oh, my! He made it through about two-thirds of the angel before leaning back with a silly grin on his face. The angel had won that contest!
We went our separate ways as we left the ice cream shop, so after another fifteen or twenty minutes Kevin and I pulled into our garage at around 9:30 p.m.
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