Texel

As I write, I'm on a plane to the US. Captive without the internets, I'm finally writing a blog post again.

I took today's photo in Texel (pronounced "Tessel") when my aunt and cousin were visiting at the beginning of September. Texel is the largest of the Wadden Islands. "Wadden" is basically "wading," and a couple of the islands you can actually wade to from the mainland at low tide, and you can also walk between two of them, also at low tide.

Texel is quite easy to reach from Amsterdam, and yet it's remarkably deserted, even on the weekends. And YET, it's the most populous of the Wadden Islands. Casey and I are quite excited to go back and see some of the others.

These little houses seem to be somewhat privately owned, but I think they're only storage. They did have some individualism in the form of decorations, but they are maybe half the size of the garden "houses" near the city that are country escapes for city people.

We camped at a tulip farm (at a grass clearing, not on actual bulbs). Most of the island is farms, but the west coast is a long dune nature preserve, which reminded me a lot of the dunes at Cape Cod or on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. We didn't have time to explore the dunes as much as we'd have liked. Definitely worth a long weekend.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a downloaded episode of Most Smartest Model to watch.