I love waterfalls!

I find the sound of water flowing truly inspiring and elemental...it really is the sound of life. Maybe that's part of the reason for my fascination with waterfalls. Some of my favorites are Manoa Falls in Honolulu, Akaka Falls near Hilo, Whiskeytown Falls in Redding, and all three McCloud Falls. I like many of the more well known falls too, but these are personal favorites for various reasons that I won't expound upon here. Today we went to a national park in Croatia known for its many waterfall - Plitvice Lakes. Not only are the waterfalls beautiful and plentiful, the lakes are the most spectacular shade of turquoise blue and clear. The color reminds me of Lake Louise in Banff, but the water here is clear whereas Lake Louise has all that glacier sediment to help hide its depth. We began our day with a lovely breakfast at our rental, then took the advice of my friend Leslie Schwerdt to head out early. By 8:30 we were at the park getting our tickets and heading to the buses. Glad we did. Our bus wasn't full on the way up to the top lake, but it wasn't long before we saw more and more people. Not that I mind people, I just want them to get the hell out of my way when I'm trying to take a picture. Good thing I have Photoshop at home and know how to use it as there are a few heads I need to photoshop out of the corners of my pictures! Six hours and about 150 pictures (just mine, Lee has his) and we were out of the park. What a day. For those of you with access to my Facebook page, I have posted 8 pictures from our hike. Once we get home I will post several on this blog and several more on my Flickr account. Google just won't let me upload from my iPad, and that is all I brought. We have one more week total and then we head home. It has been a relaxing and beautiful trip. I think I have heard every European language spoken here. Beautiful country. Again, hope everyone is well. Congratulations to my friend Julianne Franchesci, whose 4 AP Italian students all passed the AP exam. This was the first time it was offered at South City. Very proud of that woman! Laters.