One Big Adventure

Everyone is happy and excited for our big excursion with the rental car. 

If we only knew how big.

Crippled and Preggo had to stop for a stretch. 

Beware of falling rock! They really mean it hear. The road looked like this for a couple of hours. And we actually went over one of the stones and it hit the under panel of the car creating a large dent and causing a great grinding noise in the gears. Good thing we got insurance on the car. 

Then it began to snow as we went up higher in the mountains.

Then it kept snowing, and our little rental car could go no more.

We had to stop in this little village and stay in a guest house. The man who owned the house was nice enough to track down some snow boots for us. 

The next morning we woke up to the sun shining over this beautiful mountain lake. The snow was melting, but the roads still wouldn't be cleared for several hours.

We decided to go for it after the roads had melted some, but of course with our city tires we got stuck after about a mile and a half. 

Then later, we really got stuck, and had to dig the car out with hands and a crutch.

We finally made it safe and sound to Velingrad, but discovered that our favorite pizza place was closed for renovation and our contacts would not have apartments to show us until the following week. We made up for it by enjoying the beautiful, now warm, sunny day and drinking some fun drinks at a nice cafe. We needed something relaxing. 

And in the end we got to explore some neighboring villages and find the Gypsy village and Turkic village that we had visited two summers before. 

This was one crazy trip, but overall we had a good time and our team grew closer from it all. We experienced Bulgaria in a whole new way. If you want to check out more photos of the entire trip check out our teammates site www.michelleinbulgaria.shutterfly.com/action/ and click on "Crazy Roadtrip". Also Gabe, Donna and Michelle will be returning to Velingrad this week to view some apartments. Our friend called the day we returned to Sofia to say they now had found apartments to show us. Funny how things work out.