Rafting, Cookies, and Caves

Our friend Tana and her husband Jano run several tourist-related businesses, including a rafting operation, so they've been wanting to set up a time for us to raft down the river Vah! The day after we returned from Italy, the Mráz family headed out with us, thanks to our friends!  

Ivan and Tim ready to get on the raft.

The girls, ready with our paddles!!  

The Mraz younger generation ready to conquer the whitewater!!  

My sweetie and I, all set to go on the raft!!  

And here's the whole group.     :-)

And, we're off!!  (For our Slovak readers, we started near Kralova Lehota.)

Tana's brother was our driver, dropping us off and then meeting us at our endpoint, so he drove to various locations along the river to get pictures of our rafts.   Sweet!!   The scenery was so beautiful!!  

There wasn't really a lot of whitewater, since the river wasn't too high, but there were a few places like this where we had to go over a little rapids/waterfall.  So, it was mostly relaxing, and a little exciting too!!    :-)

The scenery was gorgeous, and the day was perfect.  It had been rainy and cool in the morning, but the weather turned out to be nicer than expected.   :-)

Our trip ended after about an hour and a half, just before the dam ahead.  

It was really a fun time for our first rafting adventure ever, and we were so thankful for Tana setting it all up for us!!  

Next, we all headed over to a barbeque at Tana and Jano's house.  Tim really liked Jano's moveable grill rack over the coals.  

Playing with the puppy!!  

Fun times and good food shared with dear friends after rafting together!  

Checking out the new message board just outside the front of the church on Sunday morning.  

Sunday afternoon was the Drama Club end of the year party.  It had to be postponed from the original date, so not so many kids could be there, but those who came had lots of fun!

We were in Pat'ka's garden house in Liptovská Trnovec, on a lovely afternoon.  

Some of the group enjoying being together!  (And the sign Rivi made, above the wood!)

Monday night we had a 'baking lesson' with our two Slovak daughters, making chocolate chip cookies together with the very last bag of chocolate chips from the U.S.   We brought a lot of American ingredients back to Slovakia after Christmas, and of course we have received several wonderful 'care packages' of baking goods from the U.S.A. over the past two years.  So our Slovak friends have really enjoyed all the American cookies I've been able to bake and share!!  

Janka learning to measure our American brown sugar, packing it into the measuring cup.  (Only granulated sugars are available here.  And measurement is done in Europe by weight, not by volume!)  

Janka's first pan of chocolate chip cookies, ready for the oven!  

Katarina putting the dough on the next pan, while Tim and Janka sample the first batch, still warm and melty from the oven!!  It was Tim's idea to have our daughters over for a chocolate chip cookie baking lesson, and then we'll send ingredients over to them later so they can continue the American cookie traditions!  

We walked the gals over to the bus stop after our fun time together.  For supper, I had made buttermilk pancakes with blueberries and blueberry syrup, and bacon.  This was a rather unusual combination for them, but they enjoyed it anyway.  (After they finally stopped laughing about how crazy it sounded!!)  

Then on Tuesday afternoon, Saška had invited us to see the famous Liberty Cave in the Demanová Valley near us, which we had never gotten to in our two years!  

Saška and Tim heading into the cave.  

Perpetual rain - one place in the cave has a waterfall constantly.

The cave formations were really beautiful!

Huge stalactites and stalagmites.

Enjoying our tour through the cave!

A river flows underground through the cave, and it has a beautiful emerald green color.

Not a clear photo, but you can see the color anyway!

We descended really far down through huge caverns.

Some of the formations were enormous.

Quite impressive!

It's interesting to see these formations that have formed over millions of years.

This is a cross-section of agate - beautiful!

This 'waterfall' of stalactites was something like 75 meters high, and we climbed up forever on stairs alongside it! 

More cave sights

Saška leading the way.

Tim enjoying the cave expedition.

More interesting formations.

Thanks Saška, for our fun trip through the cave!   :-)

Wednesday we were invited to Katarina's house for lunch and the afternoon to spend time with our Slovak family!  The food was delicious, and of course there was much laughter!

A wolf pelt rug down in the 'man cave' in the basement!

This pic is for "Tim's sister, the Wisconsin hunter" --- some more of the pelts and antlers taken by the Slovak hunters, Juraj and Juraj.  

And the other side of the room.    It's like a natural history museum!

Relaxing on the porch with Katarina's parents and grandma.  

And her brother Juraj too when he got home from work.  

And this time Katarina walked us to the bus stop before our ride back from Východná.

We really love the beautiful trip back through the valley, with the views of Kriván' and the Tatra Mountains.  

We had a wonderful time for a few days back in Slovakia after our trip to Italy.  It was awesome getting to spend time with good friends before our next adventure.  This post is actually being finished up and sent from our next destination --- London!!   More on that later, of course!!