Our first camping trip in 2004 was to the X:Water Tower Campground in the Netherlands, named after a rather attractive watertower which is right nearby.



This trip would begin a habit which Mark is not sure he wants to repeat this year - Mark traveled to the US, flew home (arriving Friday morning), and we all went out camping that same night!

The campground was great - it had just opened about a week before, so we were almost the only ones staying there - but the proprietors went out of their way to make us feel at home, even offering to let John use one of their children's bicycles when we wanted to rent bikes and they didn't have his size!

The excuse for the trip was to see X:Mondo Verde, a park with different areas designed to look like different areas of the world (from a rainforest to an Italian village to a Portuguese castle, etc) - we had free entry with our membership in the local zoo.  All in all, it was a good day at Mondo Verde, but I was glad that we didn't pay to get in.

The next day we went to the X:Drielandenpunt, which is the highest point in the Netherlands (which isn't saying much), but also where the borders of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands all come together (thus the name, the three country point).  Below is our divided family, with Karen and Lydia in the Netherlands, Mark in Belgium, and John in Germany, and then John in all three countries at once!

Right at the Drielandenpunt is the labyrinth, a hedge maze with the symbols of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands all woven into the maze, along with water traps (fountains which occasionally shoot up water, woe to you if you are walking over one when it is time to spout!) and other hazards.  The kids had a great time here - it took us probably a half hour to solve the maze and another hour to explore all the passageways that we didn't take and to see where they all went.

In these photos, Mark is standing on a bridge about where the red circle is.  Karen and the kids are standing about where the red dot is (a little to the left of it, actually).  The gazebo style structure in the middle is the ending point of the maze, seen right in the middle of the maze map. On the right, Karen and Lydia negotiating a water hazard, where the water would spout on and off at somewhat unpredictable intervals.  Let's just say that no one was completely dry by the time we left the maze...

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