Monday, September 6, 2010

Almost Camping

We almost went camping on Saturday.  We packed up, quite a lot of work for the whole family with the dogs.  Well, Jeremy did the majority of that.  We went out to Kalsin Bay where Mom and Tony and a number of their friends camp every year.  It was pouring rain.  We had a dry tent, but there was just nowhere good to go for shelter.  So after all of our raingear had failed us, even though we still had a dry tent, we decided to head home at about 9 pm.

The one exciting thing that happened involved bears and cattle.  We saw three bears upstream in the distance fishing, inland from our camp.  Our camp was along the top of the beach.  They seemed to be getting a bit closer and Tony had just cooked some steaks, so we were keeping an eye on them.  As Emmy and I went down the beach to check on the halibut Jeremy caught, we heard some commotion and realized everyone had jumped in their trucks.  Jeremy yelled to me to get Emmy in our truck, just as I saw a herd of cattle come barreling in from the side - they were chasing off the bears who had been running full speed towards our camp.   I never got to see the bears get close, but the cattle were imposing - they must have developed an instinct to chase bears off when they got too close to their grazing area.  The bears never came back that night, but there were some jumpy campers, rumor has it.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Romania Trip #2

It has been a while since I posted more photos from Romania.  Here is a nice selection.  There were so many great things to see and photos can hardly capture how subjects looked in real life, but these are some of the better ones...

Metalworking detail on an entry gate.
Outside of the house where Vlad Tepesh is rumored to have been born.
The nice lady who made the purse I got for Emmy.
Sign outside of Voronets monastary. Those wearing shorts, including men, were given long wrap skirts to wear inside the gates by the nuns.
"The Last Judgement" painting on Voronets Monastery.