Maaasbree, The Netherlands
I have been corresponding recently with a friend who lives in Maasbree. This is a beautiful area which evokes a great many fond memories. In Google Earth you can fly to it at the Lat/Lon coordinates of 51.358605,6.047438
For lots of years it seemed like many of the places that my wife and I travelled to were in this part of Limburg, The Netherlands. Generally to one side or the other of highway N273, and fairly near to the Maas river. This road also has other names including Napoleonsweg. Either Napoleon constructed this road for his troops, or he took this road. I don’t remember.
We spent a lot of time up in this part of the world. There are several horse st
ables with indoor riding arenas near there, and many of the dressage competitions which my wife entered were nearby. It rains a lot in Limburg, so indoor riding arenas are important!
We owned two Dutch Warmblood dressage horses. One was a rough old bastard with a heart of gold appropriately named Dynamite. With the first owners he was trained as a champion jumper. For some reason Dynamite and I really bonded. I guess we were both grumpy old men who understood and trusted each other.
Our other horse was a 
sweet young female beauty queen named Oludine or “Lulu” after my father's mother. Oludine's father was owned by the Dutch Olympic gold medal dressage rider Anky van Grunsven, and for a while he had been the world’s champion dressage horse. For the most part Pamela rode the horses and my role was that of financier, stable boy, and chauffer. I enjoyed this era immensely.
My life has consisted of many discrete and different chapters. And most of them have been quite good. The fifteen years that I spent living in Limburg, The Netherlands was certainly among the finest. The countryside is beautiful, and for the most part the people are kind, generous, and honest.
Looking around at various nearby places in Google Earth I came across a small ferry which takes cars across the Mass River just to the East of there which I remember well. We were pulling the horse trailer with both horses inside. Of course the trailer had windows for the horses to see out of. They got very excited indeed when I drove up onto the boat. They could see that they were surrounded by water, and the trailer was rocking gently on the water. This first time floating across the river was just a little too far outside of their realm of prior experience. When we returned that afternoon the second trip back across the river already was not as big a deal. Lat/Lon: 51.333885,6.117318
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My friend who lives in Maasbree sent me a joke today. MBA stands for Minimized Brain Activity. That sure applies to Hank Paulson and the other dumb asses at the investment banks on Wall Street.
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