Prancing in Plitvice

Thursday May 17.  Today we made our way East to Plitvice Lakes National Park.  The drive was nice and particularly spectacular though Rijenka, with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other.  We had a pretty powerful storm in Rovinj the day before with lots of rain and lightening reaching down into the sea, that was a new sight for me.  The temps dropped enough for a blizzard in the mountains above 1400km, nice Colorado spring weather following us here.  We filled up 3/4 of the tank today, 39.5 liters for 392Kn, that is about $75 yikes.  We saw a number of hill towns on the drive, each capped with the church bell tower.  These towers anchored the town square and acted as a pre-TV public address system.  The towers and the attached churches are reminders of the influence that Christianity had on the formation of Europe and the kids and I are having fun trying to spot them andululating count around the mid 50s.

The Plitvice Lakes National Park is claimed to be Europes most beautiful park.  After a 5 hour hike amongst its countless waterfalls and beautiful clear waters we were convinced as well.  Here is a shot of the most dramatic falls in the park.  If you look closely about mid way down the image, middle left, you can see little tiny people that will give you an idea of the scale.  Man builds some cool stuff, but the wonders found in Gods nature can have such scale.

Here are kids after the 5 hour hike, keep in mind that we also gnawed through about 200g of that big old Swiss chocolate bar that, will make 'em crash hard.  This is the first TV they have watched since we left, not that they watch a lot anyway and they are fixated on Ratatouille with German dialogue.  Patti started making lots of noise while cleaning up the dinner dishes.  When she offered to turn the volume up Riley responded "why turn it up, we can't understand it anyway".

One thing we did bring on the road was the device that I have been using for weight training exercise for about 5 years now.  It is basically two handles and an adjustable length strap.  Very simple looking because it is and it makes you do all the work.  Patti has been very regular and me pretty regular.  The odd part is doing it in the middle of everyone and getting the random comments from the kids  such as "you are doing it all wrong".  What do they know about it?  Not much, but it makes a great swing.  Here is Tara showing us how to do a balance lunge in und secret garden house.

Oh, and we under packed, not enough warm stuff.  Today we hiked where yesterday there was snow.  I had 5 layers on.  The stinky sweater is now my second skin.

Pictures are slowly making it online but still behind ;-(