Half Way Point!

Today, on Saturday the 20 we are about half way through our total travel time.  Wow!  We have seen and done a lot already and been in, counting hotel layovers for travel, five countries so far!  That old passport is getting a real workout@  Sadly some of the countries don't stamp anymore they just scan and move you along.  It would be great if everywhere agreed that you could just carry a card.  If there are no stamps no need to have it on our end.  It would be great to have a way to go into government records and see a list of everywhere you have traveled.  Leafing through my book with two added sets of pages is even more difficult since stamps are faded, not fully inked, or stamped one on top of the other!

Today we say good bye to Sarajevo and set out for Karanac, near the Hungarian border  While driving Tina and Mickey share stories and talk about what we are seeing and "how life is here."  Tiny is very good about answering questions.  She has also prepared a Blue Book of many sheets of all kinds of information and maps.  Lists of things Croatian and so forth.  I saw today some of the inventions and was surprised that a Z-Pac is a Croat discovery!  Also surprising that Doctors earn significantly less than bankers.  I read the National Anthem but couldn't persuade her to sing it.  The lyrics were interesting.  We drove through a beautiful area where floods a few years ago created massive mudslides.  Houses and barns are still perched on precarious angles.

We had our usual stop for the bathrooms and a break.  Then we could see that the area was becoming more farmland.  Neat red tiled roofed white houses sit very far back from the road with the newly planted or prepared fields stretching out before them.  A few cows started to dot the landscape but no sheep around here.  I didn't see any hogs but we have entered Catholic and Christian areas so pork is not a problem. Lunch was in a charming old restaurant set amongst a simulated medieval village.  We were greeted outside by a young lady wearing something similar to a Swiss type costume.  Her tray of welcoming brandies included a variety of choices.  I chose plum

After our soup, then salad, we ate our chicken skewers with potatoes, carrots, and broccoli.  Dessert was an apple crepe type treat.  Always included are water and tea or coffee,  We had time to walk around.

Turns out you can stay in these cabins tucked between highway and stream.

Some cabins are just replicas for display.

For some reason everyone loves the haystacks.  They are mounded this way to prevent snow or rain seeping into the centers and rotting the silage.

I guess this is a warning to be sure to pay your bill!

Of course, everyone uses the restrooms before we leave anywhere.  Here the men's and the ladies were through the same door with secondary doors inside.  The sink are was for both.  Most unusual to have herbs decorating the restroom sinks!

Mama Stork perched high on a utility pole to oversee our exit from Bosnia - Herzegovina into Croatia once again.  This is a crossing used by locals so the traffic was less but added to the time.  When we left the restaurant we went on the highway to the border control but were stopped and turned around.  The road was closed for a bike race.  So we circled back in another direction.  Mickey is a good driver and knows his way around.  No GPS needed for him!

 The town has the same name on both sides of the border and a lot of people were walking or biking through the Passport Control.  Note:  They have EU ID cards to  make it easier.

Next came the big, yellow flower controversy.  I thought Rapeseed which produces Canola Oil.  Two or three recognized it as Canola.  Mickey insisted it was Sugar Beets.  Farm after farm had burst into yellow blooms.

We had another break where we had to pay 5 KUNA to use the bathroom but if you bought something they would give you 3 back as a credit n the bill.  So naturally everyone spent more money to save that 3 KUNA.


At last we arrived at the 1910 Farmstead of Dennis and Goca, our hosts. Since we are staying the night with them I will leave you here and put the Home Stay in one entry.