From Paris to the beach!

One of the things on Michelle's list was to hit the beach while she was here. My list while I'm here includes hitting as many seas as possible. (Although just now, I realized I forgot to take us to the beach when we were in Italy. Darnit!) So from Paris, I decided we should drive to the beach in the Netherlands, which we did.

We stopped to eat at a Dutch restaurant near our destination. While we sat, I attempted to find us a place for the night. I came close, lost it, and then couldn't find a place after that. To their credit, Ouddorp's office of tourism told us to come by and they would find a place for us. I believe they would have, but I was feeling like we'd better get to the beach if we were going to go. It was already pushing 1500 by the time we were done with lunch. So we (perhaps me more than anyone else) decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours and then drive home the same evening.

We certainly enjoyed ourselves! There were a lot of jellyfish that day, so we didn't swim in very deep. But the sun was pleasant. The breeze was pleasant. It was July 4th, and I remember last year on the 4th of July when I was lamenting not being in the U.S. with the lightning bugs and the family and the fireworks. Being at the beach with my sister and the family was the perfect remedy for German 4th of July blues. I didn't have them at all this year. (Note to self for next year.)

We had a five hour drive to get home, so we didn't linger at the beach for very long. I felt a little silly for driving the five hours out of the way it took to get there for two or three hours on the sand. But Michelle was glad we did, I got to see the North Sea, and the kids had a really good time.

It was a pretty good drive home, and the fact that it was pretty easy made the whole trip worthwhile. We were tired, I think it's safe to say, but it was a satisfying little whirlwind of sightseeing, and I was looking forward to the next couple of days with just me and my sister.