Stromboli's Rolling Log: Day 15, April 28, 2017. The Forest, Fresh Fish and Final Day in Werkhoven

It was mostly a day of exploring and trying to determine why the well touted Capital One credit card we had, would not work in any device except the grocery store. Any thoughts out there? We tried five gas stations, (at the pump) the ATM machine twice (2 different times) and tried to get a "cash out" on to the grocery bill, but could not, even though they said it was something they did at the store. I think its the card! Ruth was able to change the pin code thinking that might be the problem. No dice! We did finally find an "pay inside" gas station that allowed us to "fill up" and pay in the station. At last we can still travel, but are getting down to the last few 10's in cash. It's a mystery why the outside "pay at the pump" stations will not accept either the Capital One or the Visa.? As one guy said who tried to help us..."Its certainly NOT that we don't want your USA money".

But , we kept going today in an exploratory mood and headed for a large, spread out National Forest that runs the top of an old glacial ridge just about where Utrecht is located and runs from west to east for the most part. It s called the Utrechtes Nat. Park and is filled with trees and a few hills that are seldom seen in most of the Netherlands.

Ruth captured these goslings with their mom.

Ruth cannot stop taking the photos of these foals.

We chased the rain clouds about the time we got "under way"
in the morning. A steady , fine, mostly... rain.

We took many of the national highways with the label "n" and looked for places to pull off and search for whatever was there. Some birds were found, and the surprise for us was running into the Broekhuizen Estate. a huge historic piece of property that has a 1/2 mile long entrance lined with what I believe are Beech trees that must be hundreds of years old.

The Broekhuizen Estate near Leersum
Note the huge trees lining the entry.

It was first occupied by Tyman of Zuylen in 1408 It has had many occupants some of whom remodeled, added on, and after a fire in 1906 it was rebuilt upon past plans.
But we sat in the benches near the entrance about where Ruth's photo was taken and counted the bird life that was quite active, there were tits, woodpeckers, thrush, black capped , to name a few that we saw.
We continued along some of the roads and when we did find that gas station that took our credit card (Thank you Marie!) I turned the opposite direction we were headed, and ended up in the middle of a town that had one way streets due to construction. I did find the way out using "sense of direction". The rest of the afternoon we took photos of buildings , horses, lambs, ducks and ducklings, and the clouds. All in all it was a quite relaxing day. Ruth settled for dinner at home with what we had in the house and I opted to try the temporary fish stand that was set up in the nearby town (2 miles) of Odijk. I finally selected a fillet of fresh fish and I cannot remember its name. Fresh and fresh fried in a light batter, it was just what the" doctor ordered" for me.
Tomorrow we head to Enschede and a visit for three days with our friends whom we met in USA, who will host us for those nights. They are avid bird watchers and I believe we will do some of that as well as share good times.

A few more days left.