A Day at the Beach

 First, a few pictures of Eeklo.  It is neat, clean with brick buildings and tidy pruned hedges.

Poppies grow wild by roadsides.

The greenish yellow building is our stay. Across the street are farm fields.

We hit the grocery store for breakfast.

Now that's my kind of water.

Blueberries, raspberries and golden gooseberries.

We have only seen this one old windmill but plenty of modern wind turbines along with solar panels and multislot bins for recycling.

We arrived at the beach resort town of Ostend to see the museum and home of artist James Ensor.

His family ran a souvenir shop with carnival masks and these creepy mermaid skeletons in the late 1800s.

The skulls and masks make up much of his work.  His paintings were shown using animation in very creative ways.

After our art, we hit the beach; hot 85 degree sun, cool 70 degree water.

 Seals migrate here each year.

We also decided to ride the 4 seater bike up and down the long promenade.  Kylie showed us her driving skills!

Back in Eeklo, we experienced the oldest cemetery and tried to look for our grandmother's family name, Rogiers.

We did find this one.

Some of the names were too worn to read but we enjoyed the peaceful sculptures.

Another supermarket dinner in which Ben created 'Meatball Surprise' as Aunt Lulu bought fermented sour cream instead of yogurt.  "The meatballs were delicious".