Eliot's Travels

As we were leaving the Batavia, we realized that no one had the camera. We were tired, and the boys were really tired and ready to leave. We must have set it down or lost it off our arm in a child hand-off somewhere on the boat. I took the boys down, and Jim and John scoured the ship to no avail. I am sure that someone just picked it up. We had not even been off the ship, so it's possible someone even saw us leave/drop it. [We found out from Jim's colleague that the Batavia is known for pick pockets; the museum staff was sympathetic but indicated the camera was long gone; they didn't even have a lost and found.] The irony is that Jim and I had talked about downloading all of our pictures after lunch since the camera was full. We decided John's camera was better anyway for getting the boat pictures, so we didn't. We lost all of our vacation pictures and videos. I was just sick. I felt even worse because I had been through the entire set looking for pictures I could delete so I could take more. I can still remember which ones I took.

We went home via the N302: straight across the Ijsselmeer across the second dike in the Zuiderzee reclamation project. The reclamation was halted but the dyke remains connecting Lelystad with Enkhuisen. This is the scene from the road - water, birds, boats, and dyke for 30 km. We decided against stopping anywhere else and just headed home. No one was in the mood to sightsee or drag out the day - least of all me.

After a pizza-delivery dinner, we went to bed. Eliot (and I with him) cried about our lost pictures and videos. He didn't understand: "Why did someone steal our camera?" And he asked "can we go back and do all those things again to get more pictures?" He was most sad at losing his paddling video where he made zigzags. Luckily though, John was with us and we are glad to have his wonderful photos. Eliot and Grandma made a drawing of the canoeing adventure so "we could remember it."

posted by Whitney @ 3:14 PM