Saturday, April 6, 2013...heading home

We had put the address for the pet kennel into the GPS the night before to get an estimate of how long the drive was back. The GPS said 8 hours. We figured we'd add an hour for stops along the way and because we had run into so many "deviations" (detours) in France.

So, we got up around 5:00 a.m. and headed out by 6:00 a.m. The kennel closes at 4:00 p.m. and we wanted to try to get them that day. They're normally closed on Sundays, but they had planned an Open House for this particular Sunday, so we did have the option of keeping them there one more night. We know Socrates (the cat) does not like it there, so we wanted to try to get back in time to pick them up.

We drove and drove and drove!  We made a couple of pit stops. One of them was just to use a restroom.......I walked in and there were some very large, loud men arguing inside (looked like they were closed to physically fighting!) so we left right away. We couldn't find the restrooms in there anyway! So, we kept driving...

There were several places we had to stop to pay tolls...

 We were happy to cross into Belgium!

Then into The Netherlands!

We made it to the kennel by 3:30!!!  Sammy and Socrates were very happy to see us.....and visa versa!
We feel okay leaving the pets there knowing they are safe and well cared for. They are very friendly there and it's obvious they love the animals. Sammy loves it, and this time Socrates at least ate. I think he's starting to get used to it there.

http://dierentehuiskennemerland.dierenbescherming.nl/hetdierentehuis

 We had a great vacation.....but ahhhhhhh, it's always nice to be home!

We had made a few purchases while in France....most of which are "consumables"!!!

Fish soup......which is delicious!!!!

 Cidre, which is a sparkling apple cider with a very low alcohol content (and a couple of cidre cups!)

And, of course, the champagne!