Off to Borneo

We create a new blog for this trip.

Finally, a noteworthy bird.

We walk every morning, but the birds have been a little ordinary. On the way home today, Chris spotted an unusual looking bird. Even more so once we got the binoculars and camera on it. This is the second time she has found a red-necked phalarope. The first was a couple of years ago swimming in the channel.  This was on the sandbar.

Happy 67th

We returned to Sonoma for Mike’s 67th birthday. It’s just an hour flight from LA and then 20 minutes from Sonoma airport to Healdsburg.

Our first stop was at Bella Vineyards, a beautiful winery with just average wine. It was one of our favorites in our first trip to Napa, but I think our tastes have matured.

We checked into the Single Thread Inn and had dinner at their three star Michelin restaurant.

They only have five rooms and we got the one suite - it was amazing.  We have stayed at many nice places over the last years, but this is a first -the iron was stored in an adorable felt bag that was like a custom purse for it.

Dinner was elegant, but nothing really jumped out as the most exciting dish we’ve had in a while. I think our Amsterdam dinners were better.

Overall the inn and suite were nicer than the actual dinner. They had a Toto toilet that after awhile we were both talking to. How could you not!? 😂 it takes care of everything - opens the lid when you pass by and does it all until closing the lid as you leave. They even had Chris’s favorite scent from PF Candle Company in the bathroom. We discovered that scent at Big Sky Lodge in Utah and have the reed diffusers all over our place so that was a nice homey and welcome touch.

The next day we had lunch at Lynmar winner. The location, wine, food, and service were all excellent.

Our first visit there was impressive and we wondered if our second experience would be as nice. We enjoyed it just as much or maybe more!

And they have a vineyard named Adam in addition to Quail Hill and Bliss, so naturally we had to purchase a bit of wine in honor of our grandson.

It was just two nights away but we ate and drank enough for three! 



Always nice to come back home and get a bird’s eye view of our neighborhood ❤️🌊

Kings Day

We didn’t know it when we booked the trip, but April 26 is King’s day in Netherlands. This is the King’s birthday or an excuse to wear orange and drink beer in the street. 

We started out pretty mild at 8 am by walking over to a children and family celebration in Vondelpark. We got some strawberries covered in orange chocolate on the way.

Outdoor peeing is also one of the pass times. This was our first encounter in the park with the temporary urinals and they turned out to be everywhere.

We saw this sign as we started walking the surrounding neighborhoods early in the day. No one paid any attention - we have never seen so many people urinating in the streets and off boats into a canal.

The streets were pretty crowded with people drinking beer - and loud music is allowed (or encouraged) from the boats and canal houses. Normally no music is allowed on the canals.

We found a relatively quiet place at the bar at the Doubletree

We rented a private boat and then experienced it from the water. We were like celebrities since we were about the only group of two on a 100 year old boat. Our captain was Joost and he was great. He kept checking on us to make sure we were okay. We assured him we were fine. We had been warned to either escape it or put ourselves in the thick of it - so we chose the latter.

A boat next to us ran out of alcohol and convinced us to give them a bottle of champagne for a girl’s birthday who just turned 21.  At first there were a lot of hand gestures we did not understand. The boats were really crammed at one point so then we conversed in English and got the gist of what they wanted. We became the popular Americans because they wanted to pay us for the champagne and we said it’s on us.

The boat dropped us off right across from our hotel about 8 pm so we didn’t have to walk back through what had become an even more rowdy street and canal party. Overall it’s in a way good clean fun - just a lot of heavy drinking, loud music and dancing. No protests. No fights. And we didn’t see anyone fall in the canal - which came as a huge surprise!

Back to Volendam

Yesterday, while dining on eel, we observed Mike’s favorite grebes in the harbor. They were exhibiting some fancy courtship displays.  It was rainy and we didn’t bring our birding camera. After the Van Gogh, We grabbed an Uber and returned. They weren’t quite as amorous as the prior day, but left plenty of opportunities for photos of them building nests, sitting on nests, and just swimming around.

Chris was nice enough to get takeout lunch while Mike was photographing. She didn’t realize that french fries were included with the burgers so we got two burgers and three large orders of fries..

We finished the day with more pancakes.

Getting to know Vinny 🖼️🎨🎨

Chris was reading Lust For Life as we were heading into the trip and it was such a good story about Vincent Van Gogh she felt close to him and nicknamed him Vinny.

We had a really great private guide for our 2 1/2 hour tour of the Van Gogh museum yesterday, and our guide, Victoria, brought Vinny to life for Mike as well.  This is her favorite Van Gogh entitled Undergrowth.

Chris liked this one that van Gogh painted for his mother.

She also explained that he had a box of yarn he used to experiment with combining colors.

His art is one thing, but the story of his life is quite amazing- so much so that now Chris wants to read even more about it and explore some of the other opinions on certain “facts” that circulated. Victoria our guide studied art and psychology at UCSD, so she had a wealth of background facts on whether he took his own life or not.

They do allow photography in the museum so we took a few. Victoria explained they loosened up the rules on that after Covid. In the past she said the guards were walking around repeating “no photography” and it was a constant drone in the background of your visit.

Some people are serious Van Gogh fanatics and some come completely unprepared- apparently to the annoyance of the educated ones. One visitor interrupted us with our guide to “vent” for a few minutes about something he overheard or that someone pronounced Van Gogh incorrectly. We found this a little strange but he did apologize for interspersing himself into our experience. 

We were both surprised by the young lady who kept photographing her doll with all the art - I guess each generation has their own thing.

Victoria told us we were her first guests that had also come here for birdwatching, and she thought we had gotten a lot accomplished overall during our visit.  She thought we were well prepared and that we even asked some questions that have given her some new things to explore herself. It was a really fun morning!

Here’s a Monet from the same period,more representative of our trip

Third visit to Keukenhof

No, just kidding! 😂🌷🌷but I’m on my second cup of coffee this morning (only my first strop waffle) and I’ve been thinking again about how struck I am with the gardens. Many people we have spoken with say the photos just don’t capture the feeling. I have been disagreeing with that perspective, and it just occurred to me that OUR PHOTOS do capture for me the experience but if I attempt to buy a calendar or some similar souvenir or look at another person’s photos it does not move me in the same way.

I’ve decided that any time I have a low feeling I can just pull up our photos and feel joy. The rest of the trip is great as well - but these flowers, well, “and the flowers were beautiful.” Thanks mom 😉❤️