This was the last stop on this 48-mile tour of the area around the northern World War One battlefield. By this time there was a pretty good rain coming down which only goes to soften and enhance the picture of the Van Couillie mill. The area around here is quite flat and was for centuries a bog and marshland which would flood during the late winter and early spring, never really drying out. Then came dikes and locks and pumps and the land was drained and reclaimed for farming. The pumps as well as the mills were all wind-powered systems. Gristmills were placed on as high ground as possible to catch the wind and then made as tall as feasible (and affordable) so that huge sails could be installed. This mill was one of the largest and tallest in the region. It was captured by the Germans before it could be destroyed by the Belgian engineers. It served as a lookout and surveillance point through much of the war. One particularly important use by the Germans was to look for and pinpoint artillery muzzle flashes so that the German guns could target the allied artillery. As such, the mill was also the target of the allied artillery as well. The picture shows what remains of the mill which stands as a monument to the war.

So, the Ijzer Battlefront Tour is complete. It took much longer than I had anticipated but was quite educational. Additional pictures may make it to the website! I took more than 800 pictures on this trip…. I finished the tour about 2 p.m. in the afternoon.

The original plan was to go to Church and then complete the tour in the afternoon. The Hotel people were kind enough to try and contact someone who would know where the Branch met. I got back to the hotel last night to find a phone number to call. It was the Kortrijk missionaries’ cell phone. They told me the Branch was now meeting in Moeskroen — a town about 10 miles south of Kortrijk. There was a French-speaking branch and a building in Moeskroen (Mouscron in French), so the Kortrijk Branch had moved there some months ago to save on rent. However, the missionaries couldn’t give me the address or tell me how to get there. They gave me the phone number for the Branch President — the same number I had called the week before. I called the president who told me that the members met “behind the train station at the bus stop — the only bus stop behind the station — at 9:15 a.m. and carpooled to the branch.” So, at 9 a.m. I was at the bus stop. There were no group of branch members carpooling. About 9:20 an elderly woman showed up (the only person I had seen anywhere in the area). She spoke only French. When I asked if she was Mormon, she nodded in the affirmative. She either didn’t know or couldn’t tell me that she knew the route to the Church building. She stayed about 5 minutes, then got on her bicycle and rode away the way she had come. I waited another 10 minutes and the left myself. It shouldn’t be this hard to go to Church in a foreign country!

So, I went back to the hotel, changed out of my church clothes, and headed back to Keiem where I had left off the tour the night before. After completing the tour, I headed for the freeway planning to make a fast drive to the office where I could get a good Internet connection (that’s where I am now, at about 8:15 p.m. on Sunday evening Belgian time — the times on the weblog entries are all Pocatello time). I saw a McDonalds on the way — the first one I had seen in that area — and stopped for a Big Mac lunch meal. Then to the freeway and almost an immediate traffic jam. There was an accident ahead. I crawled along with thousands of other cars for an hour to the next exit where I made my way overland to the office.

So, I’ve spent the last four hours fixing some pictures and uploading them, putting a picture on each of the posts relating to World War One. I started linking up some other pictures in the text, but haven’t gotten very far on that activity. When I get home I’ll put more pictures on the website under the Pictures! link. It’s been a good trip.

I’ll be in the office all day on Monday. I’ll check out of the hotel on Tuesday morning and make my way to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. My flight is at 4:30 p.m. so I should have plenty of time to get there. Early is good — I can always wait at the airport in the lounge! There will likely be limited posts until I get home from here. I’ll spend the time categorizing pictures and getting them ready to be uploaded instead. I’ve got a lot of pictures to toss out!