Hello everybody! Today was our first day in Belgium. We arrived after an overnight flight this morning at about 7 am And decided that since we were already in Brussels, we should travel to Bastogne to visit the Battle of the Bulge museum. So we fired up our Garmin, set it to kilometers, braced oushelves for the roundabout roulette game and off we went. It turned out to be about an hour and a half from Brussels and was a nice drive. Bastogne is a town of narrow winding streets, roundabouts, one way streets, cobblestones and hills. Garmin had to favorite phrases ... Entree roundabout and recalculating. We found the museum, circled it a couple of times and parked. It turned othere reserve were two museums in that building -- one was the WW II museum ... read more

Today was the day we went to Chester. Mom had been told by some of the folks we talked to on the canals that we should go there, and they were right. A very interesting city with history that went back to something like 600AD. We took one official tour - in a cool double decker bus with a narrator who was hard to understand and only provided the most basic description of the sights. She also kept directing us to look to the right and left, and as you all probably know, Mom and I definitely have the left right problem, so we spent the entire tour trying to figure out right and left. Later on, when we were on our own in town, we ran into another guide who took us on a quick ... read more

Today was our last full day on the canals. We had intended to go visit the National War Memorial on our way out on the canals, but couLdn't, so we planned to visit it on our way back. Just outside the town of Alwares, the memorial is pretty spot of memorials, trees and flowers. The memorials are mostly focused onWW II and beyond, and it was surprising to see how many places Britain has been involved in in over the course of history and even since the time from the Second world war. There were memorials to the artillery, engineers, adjutant generals corps and to conflicts from the Korean War to the Northern Ireland conflict. A very pleasant morning remembering the servicemen and women and the civil servants who so faithfully served. Back to the boats ... read more

I posted the pictures from dinner last night today - better Internet connection. Hope you enjoy them. The weather here is something .... You can go from sunny and nice to cool and almost rainy in less than 15 minutes. So we have had a little of everything today. We also learned today that the canals we are on compete pelted in 1777 - and it is not even the oldest one. We crossed over a rivier today as well, on our canal and we cross a bridge and there is the river below us. Definitely cool. I drove the boat most of morning ... The score when I handed over the boat to Dave was one boat run aground, one near miss, and one bank torpedoed. The boat that ran aground was really because who ... read more

Today was an off day and we spent it here in Rugely. We needed to take on water, get groceries, and do laundry today. The first thing we did was to stop at a water point and get water. We queued up third in line and waited for our turn at the water point. It seemed to take forever to fill ur tank .. Actually only 30 minutes ..it seemed seemed like a lifetime. We met a nice couple at the watou point .. Had been on their boat for about a month and were headed home to Birmingham. Their dog, Charile, very nice nice. The best thing about talking to them, was that they knew where the closest grocery store was. Our next stop was Morrisons - a grocery store - And they had everything ... read more