Basically a Slide Show with Limited Commentary

When you last heard from this blogger, we were in Charleroi, Belgium, or wandering briefly through France en route to Dinant where we saw the gory citadel scenes set up to depict historical accuracy. We were avoiding swan-attacks and eating frites.Next we stopped by my in-laws’ house briefly before heading to what’s called a “gite.” Gites are a housing concept that’s kind of hard to explain, and I don’t have a lot of time to write leisurely. Instead, I’ll point you to the Wikipedia description.I snapped a couple of photos of our spartan accommodations, so you could get an idea. Here’s our room before we pushed together the twin beds:Here’s the kids’ bedroom from one angle (two more beds on the other side):But look at the scenery. Next to us was this adorable cottage straight out of a fairy tale:Is it “Grandma’s” house in Little Red Riding Hood? Or the place Snow White stumbled into, where the dwarves were whistling while they worked?Nearby was a woods with walking, cycling, and horse paths for people to enjoy. We took a couple of walks through the woods. To get there, we passed farm fields with various grains blown by the breezes. In my state, we grow primarily corn and soybeans. Having grown up on a farm, I find myself curious about other crops, and it seems that one of the main crops here is sugar beets and some grains, but being a corn-and-soybean Midwesterner, I can’t tell one grain from another. Here’s one (I have others, but need to find them in our collection of photos):What is it, farm friends? Barley, maybe? There’s another I’ll pop up in a later post with long strands poking up beyond the grains, like spikey hair.And here’s a field of sugar beets near my in-laws’ house:One of my sisters-in-law needed to pick up her daughter at a farm where she’d spent the afternoon with her school friends on a field trip:Here’s a closer shot:En route, we saw one of those “Smart Cars” at a stoplight:And thus ends today’s slide show.I have no big insights to share nor stories to tell.Only an odd, rural tour of Belgium.