macedonia

11 august
A short distance to Ohrid, Macedonia from Meteora, but it takes a LONG time. At one point we lost the road altogether. The one we were on was closed, for road works I guess, and there were no detour signs. A nice man at a garage helped us even though he didn’t speak any English and it’s ‘all Greek to ‘ us. Lake Ohrid is a beautiful, large mountain lake. The literature claims that it’s one of the oldest lakes in the world.

the city from near the lake

I think that the mountains that I see on the other side are Albania. The border runs down the middle of the lake. We were dissuaded from driving through Albania on our way to Dubrovnik, the shortest route, by a French couple that were camping next to us. The Poles on the other side agreed. However, our land lord here says it’s no problem to get through Albania. A bus does it every day. It’s only the northern tip. So we’re going that way. The alternate is at least a day and night out of the way. The Loves, Kristine, and David drove the entire length of Albania, in a Lada no less. We should be just fine in our brand new rental, even if it isn’t insured. It probably wasn’t insured in Romania and Bulgaria either. We were driving slowly though the village of Ohrid looking for camping signs when we reached a dead end and were addressed by an older man on a bicycle. His English was very good. He offered a room for 25 euro a night for us near the center and said camping was 15 km away. We took it and followed him to it. I asked if he’d been following us and he smiled and said, ‘since the traffic lights.’ His son lives in New Jersey. We parked the car and walked to the center, skirted the old town and sat in the grass on the shore and drank a beer while Tim climbed all over us. He’s getting good at pulling himself up and seems to have discovered his knees: they bend and he can rest on them.



12 august
This is the 40th day of our tour, which gives me pause. The days have not disappeared. As a matter of fact, most days have felt like full days, each hour a complete unit. This doesn’t happen often. When I was working, the days either stretched on forever or were gone in a flash. It feels to me like I’m living in real time now. Part of it must be because I have to deal with very little stress. I think a big part of it is because I’m with my family, and the needs of the family are the current that push and pull me through the day. It’s nice. Tim is certainly getting his fill of love and attention from both parents.

relaxing at our flat

We walked through the old city today. It is on a hill, crowned by a fortress and littered with churches on the slope down to the lake. It’s beautiful. The people have been friendly, the food filling and cheap, and the weather perfect.

one of the churches on the lake