Last Day

This is the last day for me to spend in NL. My suitcase and trusty traier are loaded into the Van Schoot's bike trailer, and Franz, Marianna, and Hans ( who worked on the assembly of my Versatile at Tempelman) lead me off to the train station. They gave me the folding bike to use, which would replace my luggage in their trailer for the trip home.

By the time I realized we were leaving and tried to get some quick pictures, Franz was disappearing on his Challenge.

I did manage to get Marianna on her Flevobike, as she made me realize we had to go NOW to get me to the airport in time. Hans has had his head obscured by my ineptness, and the rushed nature of our departure, but the bike trailer is visible. So is the bike that Guus used to whisk me home yesterday.

I got my ticket, and made the train with minutes to spare. about three of them. I brought my bike trailer back as luggage, with the wheels, pit pin axles, and drawbar zipped inside. I wiretied the zippers closed, and put wireties in the suitcase incase I had to redo it. As soon as I got in line, security from Continental took me aside, and searched my suitcase. The only problem was that I needed to take the batteries out of the two mini mag lights inside. They didn't bother cutting the wireties.

At the gate, everyone has to talk to a Dutch Customs Agent. I had to explain why I came, and how long I had been there, what I was bringing back etc. The flight was long, but uneventful. When we got to Newark, we had to circle waiting for a runway, and consequently landed 5 minutes after my connecting flight departed. I also missed the NEXT connecting flight back to Buffalo by 5 minutes by the time I rechecked bags and made it through customs and security. Now a three hour wait for the next flight. Luckily my ride waited for me, but I had to drop her off at work right from the airport,take her car back home (yech) and unpack, and be there in the morning to pick her up. Makes for a long day.