Homecoming!

It shouldn’t surprise you that only the Bimobil could push back a story about my return-home adventures.  We’d expected the Bimobil to arrive later this week, or perhaps the beginning of the next depending on how many pick-ups and stops it had to make.  On Wednesday night we got a text - he’ll be there between 8:00 and 10:00 tomorrow!

Anticipation is excruciating, especially when you realize that no, it isn’t going to be on the 8:00 end of things (I thought he might have spent the night at one of the near-by rest stops - he hadn’t).  I started working, but you know how that goes - focusing was difficult.  Fortunately, it was easy work where I was doing a lot of boiler-plate writing so I didn’t have to focus too much.  Then we got another text - he’ll be delayed about an hour - and then another text - a video showing he’s driving through snow at a speedy rate of about 15 km/hr (i.e., a highway crawl).

Back when he picked the vehicle up, the driver and I discussed the best place for him to park and he decided he’d likely drive into the Shell station next door.  So from my attic office, I’d periodically get up, walk over to the skylight and try to look down into the Shell parking lot (I can barely see the SW corner of the lot).  On one of my trips away from my desk, . . . “It’s here!”  As I was running down the stairs and throwing my coat on, Ann said, “It’s Wim on the phone . . . .”  Within a minute I’d taken the shortcut through the back yard gate and was waiving the guy down.  He saw me in his side-mirrors and stopped.

Apparently the trip down was not without incident.  Apparently at the Dutch or Belgian border, the customs authorities inspected the Bimobil.  The driver warned me that they had opened all of the various compartments and had entered the vehicle . . . so that some of the compartments might be unlocked (several were, though I noticed they re-locked the access to the propane gas tank).  We’re learning that folks up here are very anxious about the drug trade and what they refer to as “black money”

That wasn’t the end of it though.  Apparently, the highway bridge that crosses the road from Zevenaar to Didam, the one that you have to go under when you get off the exit coming from the west is . . . one of the lowest highway underpasses in Holland.  Fortunately, (and this is where I realize that I did not expend all of my luck when Ann married me), our driver noticed the low-bridge height warning (I don’t recall ever seeing it), about 20 feet before the had to go under.  Wim said, “Yeah, everyone complains about that bridge because every few months a truck hits it.  Last week a car got ripped off a carrier and the driver was not aware of it, so there was a car sitting there for a few hours.”

So, the driver had to back up 50 feet (causing a traffic mess) and turn around, drive on the highway to Germany and loop back to take the other exit ramp, which is on the north side of the highway.  As you can see - no damage to the roof of the Bimobil! And when I tipped the driver, I gave him his tip, then handed him another €50, “And that’s for stopping before you hit the bridge!” He laughed.

So it’s home!  Wim says he’ll take me to his Iveco buddy (who will be our service guy) who will be able to tell us how to get it registered and whether anything needs to be tweaked to conform with Dutch regulations.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that this process proceeds much better than down south.

But this is its new home, next door to our home.  I found out the turn around at the end of the drive is not as big as I’d thought, so I suspect I’ll be backing it into the driveway.  That shouldn’t be a problem, so long as I take it easy.

And yeah, I still occasionally will look out our bedroom window to confirm that yes, the Bimobil is here!

Now to get it registered and finally start on our travel adventures.