Up North. Scrambled omelet

Very conveniently right 10 minutes before sunrise we opened eyes, made sure that there is not another episode of "Sun and hedgehog in the fog" going on and went out to see the sunrise. The golden sun, rising from behind the blue lake was worth every minute of getting out of the bed at 6am. Especially since we could go back to bed at 6:20am. Just to get up again at 8am, pack our bags and be ready be the chosen diner at 8:58am.

I took scrambled eggs with hash browns, bacon and melted cheese. And rye bread. Scott had some next level hot dog that was additionally covered with minced meat and onion, a breakfast sandwich and half a serving french fries. Their half a serving would feed the children in a smaller African country for a week. Anyway, the food arrived and mine was served on a hot pan. My scrambled eggs were replaced with omelet and when the waitress came to ask, if everything was good, I very politely asked her to tell the kitchen that my meal should have scrambled eggs not omelet. She told me that actually it's scrambled eggs, just fried like omelet... I figured that we could leave the tip same way that it's actually a tip, just in the shape of verbal praise.

We made our way to one of the most picturesque roads in the country - the River Road, where we started visiting one gorgeous place and views over the river after another.

Since today morning the bill was brought before I could voice my wish to have some pancakes too, we stopped in a pub on the way home, where I got my two blueberry pancakes in the magnitude of family size pizza. Scott had wrap and house chips and cheddar tots.

Very handily there was a huge outlet center on the way home, where I left over an hour into Tommy Hilfiger shop alongside with an amount of money that is still looking at me very disapprovingly from my bank account.

Up North. Zoo.

Last night we saw a place called Bavarian Bakery and Restaurant on the map. Quick Google informed us that it has the best pastries in the neighbourhood and German breakfast. We scheduled it in. Also, since our bedroom window faced the lake and staying on the east coast, also the sunrise, we also planned to watch that in the morning.

Today we woke up around half an hour after the sunrise and spent a while trying to locate the sun behind the fog. Like the bear was looking for the hedgehog. We got dressed and made our way to the restaurant to have some pastries and other unhealthy food there. After looking at the menu our choice was to share a Bavarian Plate. It appears that Americans consider two eggs, two sausages, biscuit and gravy, a slice of cooked ham, hash browns and two slices of bacon typical German breakfast. The Germans also seem to like to compliment all that with either toast or pancakes. We had chocolate chip pancakes. To share. One portion. Was really good. However, having lived in Munich, I'm puzzled now, how I never ended up eating the typical Bavarian breakfast there.

The day was planned to be active - to start with a little hike on the peninsula near Tawas. Before hitting the trail I saw the swings and of course I had to go and make good use of one. But before I managed to get myself on it, I saw an anaconda, carrying a frog in the mouth rushing through the playground. Scott tried to tell me that it's  a garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis, in case someone would like to google), but last time I checked he didn't have a degree in zoology, so I wouldn't trust him on that. Anyhow, I had almost circled bigger part of the peninsula, when the snake was finally more or less set with the frog and Scott agreed to step away from the fascinating lunch. We walked to the information stand which promised us that we have the chance to meet the garter snake, see deer footprints and even a fox. I could only hope that there's only one snake loitering around in the area and currently busy digesting the frog and none of his relatives would be out. Already before we managed to see some footprints, we saw a family of deer crossing the road and camping in the bushes. And soon after there was also the promised baby fox near the path. Full package. More than I would have as a matter of fact wished for. As a bonus there were different colorful birds, frogs and beach bums.

The city of Tawas and the beach park are apparently connected via a picturesque walk and bike path, but biking twice 11 miles didn't seem reasonable in this heat. So, we drove to the city, parked the car nead the beach, hopped on our bikes and biked to the Dairy Queen. While Scott was waiting (and waiting and waiting) for his hot dog, I had the Extreme Brownie Chocolate Blizzard and to everyone's amazement could only eat half of it. I'm not really used to shovel Nutella with a touch of ice cream in my mouth. We biked some more in the city, went to shops, chose the breakfast place and drove back to our cottage.

Rest of the evening was spent eating, napping, lazying on the beach, jumping in and out of the water, watching the reflection of the sunset on the lake and discussing where to go for dinner and making a desicion of not going at all.

Up North. Vivaldi. Four Seasons.

Around noon we packed our things and and took off direction north - to Oscoda and Lake Huron. First and only stop on the way was planned in the Wilson Cheese Outlet, where we last time stocked up cheese for the whole winter. So, we drove until the shop, where the gigantic mouse was in front of it eating cheese, stepped in and ... stepped out again. Turned out that the shop that we were both certain was the one, we shopped in last time, wasn't this one at all. We drove about 5-6 miles back to Williams Cheese Outlet, the same one, we just drove past, because "no, there was a mouse in front of it!". Stepped in, carried around 10 pounds of cheese to the check out, paid and drove to our booked cottage right on the beach of the lake.

Dressed as it was appropriate for Ann Arbor in shorts and tank top, I jumped out of the car and just as quick back into the car, because mere 3 hours north it was total Alaska. After I gathered myself for a sec, we carried the bags inside our lakeside cottage and I dressed properly - leggings, sneakers, sweatshirt and just in case also a raincoat, because in addition to the freezing temperature there seemed to be this kind of fog that if not snow, there will be at least some rain any second now. We walked out again and watched the hazy lake and beach and if we wouldn't have known better, one would have thought that Christmas is on the way, not 4th of July. Anyway, the outfit seemed to fit the weather and we walked in to get some drinks. We had our brand new thermo tumblers with us to keep the wine nice and cool. I did consider for a minute to heat up my wine and make it mulled wine, but had my hopes high that the alcohol would warm me up also being chilled. We went out again, sat on our swinging bench and started to look for the hedgehog (there's the Estonian children cartoon "Hedgehog in fog" where the hedgehog is looking for the bear's house to pay him a visit and the bear is sitting on the window waiting for the hedgehog; goes without saying that the fog is so thick that the hedgehog is searching and searching and searching and the bear is waiting and waiting and waiting). Meanwhile however, the sky has cleared up, sun was out and before we managed to have first sip, the temperature had gone up by at least 20F and was closer to the one that is common on Miami beach.

Scott put together a plate of tapas, poured out more drinks and once not hungry anymore, we went to the public beach. For bigger beach and more people for the mosquito to spread out and attack. We watched the sunset reflection, swingged some (me, that is), walked on the pier and drove back to our hotel.

Lake had become hazy again, we watched the haze moving over the beach and based on the temperature, put on a sweater or took it off again.

Beach Break. Rather many photos than 1000 words

On this picture you can see, how standing on the sand dune, there is water right there on both sides.

The plan was to fly to North Carolina to participate the graduation of Scott's nephew on Saturday. Like it is sometimes with plans, we had to activate plan B that we didn't have by that time yet. Since I woke up with huge migraine that morning, which didn't show any signs of getting any better even by afternoon, it was clear that I will not be able to sit in the car and drive to airport. Not even mentioning flying to another state. We got new tickets for Friday early morning.

We got up on Friday before roosters and dusk and drove to the airport. Since in this part of the world the summertime only means warm weather and not white nights, the sun only started to rise around 6am, once we had already arrived in the airport. We flew to Norfolk, got our rental car, had a quick lunch on the way and in no time, 3 hours later, pulled into the driveway. Mere 9 hours after getting up and 8 hours after leaving the house.

Hatteras is a 50 miles long barrier island, with widest dimension of 3,5 miles and otherwise the self-appointed land surveyor would say that most of the island is just 0,350 miles wide and in southern part there are just thin stripes of beach on both sides of the road. The island is divided in three areas, out of which Rhodante is the most famous one, having hosted Richard Gere for numerous nights. So, those are the educational and entertainment minutes of the day and I'll move to more interesting topics, which are what we did there.

We went to the beach. And I learned that it's totally acceptable to drive your car to the beach, almost to the line of water and take your beach towels or chairs out there to start sunbathing or drinking beer. Or fishing between the surfers.

We went out to eat to Mad Crabber, Hatteras Sol, Dairy Queen and some burger joint. In the Mad Crabber, very thoughtfully they had covered the tables with big white papers and there were also some crayons. While waiting for the food, I draw myself a healthy salad to start with.

And we went to Zeb's graduation. Like in the theater we were given the printed programm, but everything else was like in the movie - after getting the diploma, all tassels were moved from right to left, to notify everyone about the new status and everyone threw the hat in the air. Also the net above their heads was opened and all the graduates flooded with balloons.

We also did some sightseeing - saw the houses on posts (around 90% of the houses on the island seemed to be built on posts), fishermen, an abandoned house and shopped in a souvenir shop.

However - since one picture tells more than 1000 words, I'm going to save the next 10K+ words as well as the precious time of my readers and uploaded a bunch of pictures instead.

Go Blue. Arrived.

In Amsterdam, there was the weirdest document check that I've ever seen. In the gate two airport or airline employees started to move around with their scanners and checking the documents of the passengers originated from India. Some were sent to additional check. And all that took quite a lot of time, because, to be precise, around 2/3 of all travellers were mentioned origin. After it seemed that they had reached all Indians, they randomly checked few more documents, of people with slightly whiter skin. I can also mention that on no flight before I have been fed so much like on Delta. It sort of made up to only having bread joints, fast food restaurants and one sushi place in Amsterdam.

The flight was supposed to arrive 3:42 in Detroit, what it did. We had discussed with Scott that most likely the immigration will take an hour to one and half and it doesn't make any sense for him to leave home before 4:30pm. So, left the plane, registered my visit electronically, walked to the immigration line, in less than 10 minutes was standing in front of the officer, answered few questions and at 4:00pm sent text to Scott that I'd really like to get home now. Worked half an hour next to the baggage belts until Scott arrived and picked his wife up.

Jurmala News. Finishs

We all know that Latvian is easy-peasy - just add "s" to the end of each word and start speaking like native Latvian. That's what we did, for example yesterday we went to Akvaparks, around lunch time reached the finishs (finišs) in adventure park and in the afternoon we passed a farm named Marianne Tuss.

The morning had an optimistic start. After all, we were located right next to the main street and 8am sharp the ties were ironed and hair done, so we walked to the mentioned street to choose the best one from all the brunch places there to have some pouched eggs, oatmeal and freshly baked waffles. Thought, not executed. Turned out that at 8am we can only see the still dark restaurants through the windows. We were already ready to give up and go back to find some store to grab  few yogurts when we noticed a hotel, which clearly had thought about owls like us and opened their buffee just 5 minutes ago. Since the English level of the service wasn't very good (yeah, for English just adding "s" is not quite enough), they weren't able to argue with us and in addition to Saskia also Robyn got the kids price. We grabbed some coffees and ate pancakes, donuts, oatmeal, sausages, eggs, croissants and everything else that looked good.

We rolled back to the hotel, where right after opening the door it was clear, why they had used the "air freshener". The room smelled like 8 rats would have left their lives there weeks ago. We packed quickly and started our drive to an adventure park in middle of Latvia.

The adventure-amusement-dinosaur par had carousel area, tubing, moving dinosaurs, adventure trail (that ended in the already mentioned finishs) and a lot more stuff. Everything except wifi. We made few rounds on the carousel with Robyn, went tubing with Saskia, acted as adventure trail cop while Saskia was on the trail, because clearly most of the kids and their parents couldn't read Latvian or English and climbed  constantly on the same sections, where Saskia was currently and did a lot more things.

Since the local eateries didn't look very appealing, we planned to eat on the way, thinking that there must be dozen on towns on the way with fancier bars or cuter cafes. Well planned, travellers. We couldn't even spot a grocery store. Around Cesis there was finally a sign that pointed out gas station and cafe. All that was left from the cafe was a table, two chairs and an empty fridge. At least there was a store in town, where we could get some Pringles, dairy desserts and string cheese.

We drove home, where mom had made chicken soup :)

Prague Diaries. How Gerli visited the water park with two criminals

In the morning I had a short walk to the DM and the Dancing House and walked back to the apartment. We packed our things, called the cab and went to airport. It seemed that we went there with plenty of time left, but still the boarding started before all of our group made it out of the toilet. Since we didn't have any time to eat in the airport, we ordered few croissants. In the menu they had those lovely fluffy coissants filled with ham and cheddar. So I shared with you the picture of expectation and of what we got. Otherwise the flight was uneventful, until there was a light sidewind when landing that made the plane flap from side to side like the urban pigeons. While Gerli was getting somewhat pale, Saskia was clapping her hands and voiced her delight verbally. Obviously it's a girl who appreciates the rollercoasters.

We drove to Jurmala and moved into our "two-stories" hotel. Turned out that what I assumed was second floor from pictures, was balcony and the stairs to it. We had quick snack in Lido next to our hotel, called the water park to get it confirmed that they are open and made our way there. We parked in the completely empty parking lot (assumed that everyone else was enjoying the great weather on the beach) and went in. Inside it became clear that yes, they are open, but the outside area and all the slides are closed and for yet the full price (which wasn't cheap at all) we can use all the pools (yep, all three of them), kids area and SPA (saunas and two jacuzzi). Since Gerli had sold the water park to Saskia earlier like the mother of all other waterparks, we clearly couldn't just pick up our bikinis and go to hotel and enjoy sunset on our balcony. We went in and spent the next 1,5 hours there almost alone, besides us there was one Estonian family, one local couple and few life guards. At least there were two little slides on kids area and I started to use one in rotation with Robyn and Saskia. The fun lasted until a lifeguard noticed it and told me that as an adult I'm not allowed to use it. Oh, well. We went to the wave pool that had some railings on the sides and Robyn swam to those to hold on, while the waves are coming out. Again, the lifeguard whistled and Robyn was forced to let go the railings. Gerli wasn't all too happy to share the pool with so many criminals.

We walked some in the beach, watched the sunset and went back to Lido for dinner. We had almost the same amount of food than earlier, but instead of 20 EUR like earlier the bill was 30 EUR. Checking the bill it turned out that the dry steak Robyn took, was 12.90 piece. And they very cleverly had put the price tag further away from all the other price tags.

Back in the room, we smelled that Ajax flower odour again, but since we didn't manage to find any "air-freshener" anywhere, we just assumed that they had cleaned the room with Ajax and went to bed. However, every now and then the smell got stronger. Me and Gerli got out of the beds and smelled basically all the walls and suspicious places until finally found the plugged in "air-freshener" behind my bed. I unplugged it and just to be sure, threw it outside on the balcony.