Katwijk aan Zee

High 70s in the Netherlands! Time to check out the beach!
"Wow!" you say "In addition to its awesome canal network, prestigious university, and cool museums, Leiden is also coastal!" Well not quite. But the North Sea is within biking distance (if you adjust your idea of biking distance from an American point-of-view to a Dutch one). Beautiful and quaint Katwijk aan Zee is a mere 10 km 35-minute bike ride from the center of Leiden (unless you are hauling two toddlers in a bike trailer and you keep taking wrong turns- then it is about 45 minutes). And when I  say that you can bike there I don't mean that you just point yourself in Katwijks direction and then try to muddle though traffic via sidewalks, parking lots, and highways. There are actual bike lanes the entire way there. Bike lanes that parallel highways! It is an amazing system. The lanes, like the road, always continue. They do not just drop off like they do in the US (if they even exist at all).
  Anyway Katwijk is an adorable little coastal town that I imagine looks something like coastal towns in the U.S. in the 1950s. It is touristy but still low rise and quiet. We biked right up to the sand, took off our shoes, and ran into the water. And then we ran right back out. Did I mention that it is the North Sea?!?!? The same sea that touches Norway? Yeah it was cold. Leif and I eventually warmed up to it but poor Klaus was not a fan. None the less we spent a very pleasant morning on the beach.

  At around 12:30 we packed up our things. I knew the boys would never make it home for nap so I accepted that they would just take their naps in the trailer on the way home. What I didn't quite realize is that this would mean I would be biking in the noon-day sun. Most of the bike lanes were not shaded and by this time it was definitely in the low 80s. I gulped down a can of Fanta and a bottle of water before we left the beach to try to avoid impending dehydration. I made it to the out-skirts of Leiden alright but soon started to feel as if I was overheating. I've had heat stroke before and I remember the symptoms of it rather well. Have you ever been so hot that you felt your pulse in your head? If it was just me I would have continued on (hence why I have experienced heat stoke before) but I had a responsibility to the two sleeping little guys in the bike trailer not to faint in the middle of the road. So I pulled off the bike lane onto a shady patch of sidewalk near the bio science park. It was a really quiet part of the route and I didn't figure I would be in anyone's way as there was no one around. No sooner had I extracted the water thermos from the saddlebag than some pedestrian starts chastising me in Dutch for being on the sidewalk. I didn't really answer him figuring that he would notice my obviously red face (also I was having trouble forming words in English much less Dutch) and just let it go. But he kept talking while I chugged some water. Finally he said "no drinking here" in English. I looked at him and, with an American brashness that I don't often use, I poured myself some more water and drank it. He kept walking.
   We made it home soundly and sandy. I immediately tossed the boys in the bathtub, took a cold shower, and then vacuumed up all the sand. All in all a pleasant little trip.