Goodricks' Goodies

August 14-15th Lake Bled - bike ride, boat ride, rope swings August 14th Checked into our room. Our accommodations: They boys were stoked to find a basketball hoop, a soccer goal and two soccer balls. They have spent pretty much every spare minute shooting hoops or soccer goals. I love that. We have a nice, large, clean room with 2 bunk beds and a double. The bathroom is shared with campers and we have to wait in line for the toilet sometimes, but it's O.K. We have internet! Always a huge bonus. The beds are comfortable and it's been pretty cool here so we sleep well, too. We share the kitchen and dining room, too - each in separate buildings. There's no garbage can in our room, but there are garbage cans outside. 19:00 is a big deal here. The bells start ringing at 18:45 - all of them!- and continued until 19:00. It was pretty cool. We went shopping in the tiny market in town, then to dinner at a pizzeria nearby and ate for less than we have our entire trip (21

August 18-20 Church Boys' hair cuts Cliff jumping at beach August 18, 2018 Traveled to Rijeka. We didn't know it at the time, but our border crossing into Croatia (not part of the Schengen Zone) was unbelievably fast. We learned since that border crossings usually take hours - 4 if we're lucky! Croatia is green and has big, beautiful mountains. We've loved watching the scenery. Our accommodations: This is a great apartment. Nothing fancy, but it has strong wifi, more than one garbage can and, most importantly, it was clean. This place had AC which was so appreciated since it was in the high 90s while we were there. The guy who rents it out (it was his parents and they died so they renovated it and now rent it out) lives across the hallway and was very nice. I love staying in places that are pleasant! Sunday, August 19, 2018 Church started at 10am and was only 8 minutes away, which was great. The speakers - all missionaries - translated their o

August 20-22 Plitvice Lakes Monday, August 20th Our accommodations: This is a nice, big house with three bedrooms (all double beds). You can tell it's really old from the tiny, Soviet-styled oven, to the only cold water sink in the kitchen, lack of cupboard space, etc. The only really major down side was the smell of mold? mildew? Some very musty smell that permeated the place and was the strongest in the bathroom. The babushka that lived next door and rented the place was as attentive as a mother hen. She would come out whenever we were leaving or returned. She didn't speak any English, but was very kind. She even folded all of our wet clothes that we hung up! Due to the smell, we were happy to leave after two nights. Tuesday, August 21 Plitvice Lakes Woke up early to get to Plitvice Lakes around 7am to beat the tourist crowd. Spencer was tired and cried a lot so we had to wait about 20 minutes for him to calm down and get in the car. Then we parked in Entranc

August 25th - August 27th August 25th As we were driving from Mostar, I hit a pot hole on the right side of the road while trying to avoid zooming cars on the narrow road coming at me. I went over a pothole which popped both passenger tires. So, so sad. We limped up to a place with a shoulder and parked. Luckily, my phone was working and I was able to contact the Renault road service. They were so much more helpful than I was expecting! We waited 2.5 hours for someone to pick us up, but they did! They drove us 1.5 hours away to Neum, Bosnia. The driver picked us up with his son who could speak English. That son jumped out as they passed the top of lane where they lived and another, older son got in. He also spoke English and was very nice. The ride was during the sunset and we were driving up and over mountains. It was such a beautiful ride! I felt lucky we got to see it. The driver dropped us off at a mechanic shop where the mechanic was waiting. While Dan discussed/pantomime

August 22-25 Stari Most Walking tour Old market Kravitka Waterfalls Blagaj Monastery Ah, Bosnia! This is such a cool and different place! The call to prayer heard through at least 5 minarets, a cool cobble stoned market with interesting goods, the mountains, flowers, old buildings with bomb holes in them - a fascinating city. Stari Most (Old Bridge) August 22-25 Mostar, Herzegovina Stari Most Free walking tour Kravitka Waterfalls Mepas Mall – bowling Blagaj Monastery (boat ride) August 22, 2018                 We meant to leave at 6am, then decided to leave at 7am then left at 7:30am. We were trying to avoid the long wait lines we’d heard about at border crossings. We drove to a border crossing that had no wait line. We found out from the guards who spoke no English that the road had no asphalt and it was a bad road. They said we had to go towards Split to get to Bosnia. One guard gave us his bag of fresh figs. They were yummy! This trip to the non-busy bo

August 8-11 Swim in apline lake Hallstatt Mine Tour Austria is so beautiful! Grass grows where weeds normally do, there are flowers and gnome statues at the gas station and little bus stops, older women ride their bikes to the grocery store on large, paved roads that could be mistaken for roads in other parts of Europe. The mountains are breathtaking! Everything seems so well maintained. There are no abandoned buildings, no graffiti, no road side garbage; it is like Shangri-la.   Our accommodations: This is the best place we've ever stayed!!! It's a beautiful, huge home, hand carved wooden banisters up to the third floor and it's clean! It has 14 beds and 6 bathrooms! Our host, Anneliese, lives very near and is so great! I couldn't believe the views out our of windows. I was pleasantly surprised every time! We asked if she had a toaster and she said that "many guest ask for toaster. Tomorrow I bring one." And she did! It was actually a grill contraptio