Jon | HandelBlog

When we were researching what we wanted to do in Croatia, we found out about this national park with lots of waterfalls. It seemed pretty ridiculous to do as a day trip from either Split or Zagreb, so we decided to rent a car. Since we are in Europe, I got to drive a manual transmission for the first time in a while. A bonus of this route is that we no longer had to figure out how to get to Zagreb from Split. The trip from Split to the park was a little under 3 hours.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is the largest national park in Croatia, and one we had certainly never heard of. Apparently, everyone else has because there were *a lot* of people there! And now we definitely understand why so many people were there – it was stunning.

The day before visiting the park, after arriving in the area, we explored the village of Slunj and had dinner there. Lots of waterfalls!

We stayed in a small village that was walking distance to one of the park entrances, that way we could enter the park when it opened at 7am before most of the day trippers arrived.

The documentation on the park and how to best explore it was confusing, but we settled on route “H” – which involves starting on a bus and walking along the lakes / waterfalls before taking a electric boat to more lakes and waterfalls before taking another bus back to the start.

This sums up what is happening at the park, elevation is dropping and some of the ground has remained to hold back the water as it goes downhill.

After we got off our bus and walked by the first lake, we took a side quest to a lookout that I assume was one of the highest areas in the park.

After that, we started winding our way down the lakes and seeing endless waterfalls.

A lot of the hike was along boardwalks

View from the electric boat we took. Yes, the water was that color!

Landscape changes a bit in the lower portion of the park – but still waterfalls

This was a closed portion of the trail – you used to be able to hike into and up through a cave.

Nice little path through the woods back to our accommodation

10/10 recommend this park if you happen to find yourself in the area.

Long time, no blogs. I’m sure you’ve all been wondering what we’ve been up to since we got back from Colombia last February. It’s your lucky day, because after months of “thinking about it” – I’m finally writing this post!

So, in late March of 2022, we packed up the mighty Hyundai and drove to the Austin, TX area to stay with my dad, step mom Mary and younger brother Nick (and dogs Lucy and Luke!) for 5 months.

While we were in Texas we had many adventures. When we weren’t adventuring, it was good to just be able to spend time with the family.

At the Texas Stars minor league hockey with Nick

The whole crew hiked Enchanted Rock – (Relive Hiking App view)

We all (including Jeff and Natasha) took a trip to Iowa for another one of my Uncle’s epic farm parties – this one coinciding with my dad’s 77th birthday and the “Arlington Days” parade. Sara and I stayed at the farm my dad grew up on.

The whole Handel clan in Iowa – Jeff, Mary, Dad, Nick, Natasha, me and Sara

Selfie while Mayor Don Handel drives by in the background

Back in Texas, we got a chance to hang out with my sister Natasha in Austin as well.

We briefly headed back to Maryland for Sara’s mom’s 75th birthday. We saw the musical “Six” while in DC.

Sara also went back to the east coast alone for a long weekend to catch up with some friends.

After our time in Texas was up, we headed off to stay with my older brother Jeff in Tahoe for a month just like we did the prior summer. On the drive there, we stopped for two nights in both Santa Fe, NM and Las Vegas.

Santa Fe was a nice stop and we did a few hikes and explored the old town.

We hadn’t been to Vegas in years, and it’s changed a lot. There’s professional hockey and football on the strip now! No real luck at the craps tables – but lots of “free” beers were consumed.

This year Tahoe started off with glorious weather for the first two and a half weeks before we got a sniff of smoky air. The last week and a half were on again, off again smoky from nearby fires. We managed to get in quite a few epic hikes. It was great to be able to spend extended time with Jeff again.

Enjoying a break while making our own trail up the backside of Alpine Meadows ski area.

Sara scrambling to the summit of Twin Peaks

One of many alpine lakes we hiked by. This is probably Azure Lake?

Click the link for a map and extra photos of our hike to Azure lake.

Click the link for a map and extra photos of our hike to Round Top.

Click the link for a map and extra photos of our hike to Mt. Tallac.

Don’t worry, I managed to sneak in some golf

In mid-September it was time to leave Tahoe, and we started our trek back across the country to Maryland. We stopped for two nights in Park City, Utah for a few more days in the mountains and got in a few more hikes. Here’s a link to the longer one we did – Deer Valley.

After park city, it was a lot of driving with stops in Sidney NE, Iowa City IA and Columbus OH. The mighty Hyundai performed admirably.

We went to see Hamilton with friends in DC!

Our nephew Adam turned 15!

Then it was another trip down to Greenville, SC – to hang out with friends and look for a place to live. We found a nice little apartment in a small town about 10 miles away – Travelers Rest. We packed up all of our stuff in a POD and moved to South Carolina!

Sara, Terra, Mike and I before a delightful meal

Right after moving in, I went back to Texas to play some golf with my dad and Jeff

Well, that gets us to November at least. I thought I was going to be able to catch all the way up to the present time, but we’ve even done a lot between November and now, so that’ll have to wait for another blog – hopefully sooner than a year from now!

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Plitvička Jezera – Plitvice Lakes National Park

Catching up with the Handels