Holta Canyon

Like most of the world, a pandemic changed a lot of plans.  Most summers find us hosting college interns and teams from America.  Of course those visits were all postponed indefinitely, but we also felt we needed to stay close to the work site as the building project entered the final stages of construction.  Our decisions have been needed almost daily for choosing ceiling tile, grout color, corner edging, door design, the size of the gravel in the stucco ... and a million other details you don't consider.

Yet after a lockdown that lasted roughly two months, without permission to drive our private vehicles, we have yearned to get OUT and do things this summer while the kids are out of school and before I start classes myself.  We set aside a day this month to visit a new-to-us place just a couple of hours away.  Enjoy these views of a beautiful piece of God's handiwork on display!

I had never heard of Holta Canyon before, but learned about it while visiting a travel company's website, owned by the husband of our architect. When I asked some Albanian friends, they frowned at my curiosity, telling me the road there was terrible and the canyon was too dangerous. (At that point, I had already booked the guided hike! Oops!)

Our reason for booking a tour was two fold: Albania derives 30% of its GDP from tourism and we wanted to do our part to help support a hurting part of the economy.  The second reason was for research.

We want to provide some experiences for our students at VT Albania to see some of their beautiful country and while we realized the particular tour we booked was not appropriate for them, we were curious about the company and its off-road vehicles to see if they could provide an alternate travel experience for our mobility-challenged friends to see the great outdoors.

This canyon is about 2 hours from our home.  Our guide, Doni, told us it's only safe to hike about two months of the year as the water level is lowest then.

The kids had been really reluctant to take the trip.  Obviously, once they got there, they enjoyed themselves immensely.  And the ride wasn't too bad either (see the video near the end).  They were great sports for the camera - yay!

Our friend and colleague, Tiffany, joined us, as well as two sisters who won the tour on a TV trivia contest.

The canyon had stunning views at every twist and turn!

There were lots of places we had to walk through water -- some as deep as our waist.

I bought these shoes (below) several years ago and they have served me well hiking in Albania -- from rocks to water to thorny paths... someone else was not so well prepared!

Again, we were soooo thankful for the freedom that Reni's new legs provide him.  Special thanks again to Shriner's Children's Hospital Lexington for designing something for him so versatile!  He's modeling his Keen's that he finally got to buy when he got his legs with feet.  Normally it might seem frivolous to buy a kid a name brand shoe, but in his case, his feet don't grow! ha ha.  He will get a solid two years' worth of wear out of these. :-) 

Enjoying our jeep ride with Off Limits Albania!

Here's a video of us off-roading in a dry river bed!

Thanks, Off Limits, for helping us make a great memory from the summer of 2020!

We definitely recommend them if you want to make a plan to visit Albania! :-)

Reni Turns 11!

 

One of Reni's best buddies has a birthday the day after his.  Last year, they celebrated down in Albania.  This year was our turn to head up to Kosova! 

After the lockdown, we have never relished travel and a change of scenery more (I'm sure we're not the only ones!). 

We had a wonderful time with our friends there.  They have a wonderful grassy back yard -- a bit of a luxury in our part of the world -- so we brought some plastic for a slip 'n slide. We also played games, watched a kids movie, had coffee in the Rugove (a canyon just outside their town), and enjoyed some yummy local food. Because of the status of construction in the village, we didn't feel like we could be away more than a couple of nights. 

Girls gotta stick together!

Nathan brought some ingredients and an idea from the internet to create this Minecraft inspired brownie sword cake!

For one day they are the same age :-)

https://youtu.be/qCWiDm2O9DY

I had to include this photo of Reni double-fisting the brownie squares (below).  I mean, when there are five other kids competing for a limited number of sweet chocolate bites...

I think he liked it!

Later the adults grabbed macchiatos.  Which I later regretted when I could. not. go. to. sleep.

The art school in their town recently moved into a new building and their neighbor is the principal.  He saw us on the street and invited us into see the last student exhibit.  It was pretty incredible -- unfortunately this is the only photo I took (below).  :-)

Our time flew so quickly. Impulsively, we arranged for our friends' two middle boys (a year older and 6 months younger than Reni), to come back to Albania with us for a week. I used to do "cousin swaps" growing up and this felt a lot like my childhood.  The kids were thrilled!

Because the boys are minors (and we were not meeting half way between Chicago and Peoria but crossing an international border), their parents accompanied us to the border to walk them across.  Just before reaching the border, we stopped in Prizren (about 15 minutes from the border) for lunch at a new shopping center.  Wow!  It was beautiful!  We snapped some family pics with the birthday boys.

Once the boys were across the border and in our car, the fun really started...

We had barely entered Albania when we got behind a slow car in a construction zone driving up a mountain.  Our vehicle immediately lost power and the temperature gauge shot to the top.  We immediately pulled over to let the engine cool.  

We did this twice, with each stop lasting more than an hour.  The two hour trip from the border took closer to five!

The kids were extremely patient.  Thankfully, some kind souls at the second stop had an idea that we might have an airlock in the hose that circulates the coolant (or something like that).  The patiently flushed out all the hot water and refilled it with cold water and we were good to go.  The rest of the trip home was downhill from there (literally)!

We later got the 17-year-old car checked out and the mechanic discovered something wrong with the circulation system and was able to repair it.

Hence, "Camp Waggoner" got off to an exciting start!  We'll post more later!