When Croatian road crews hand you lemons, you can always try to make limunada. We were supposed to leave Motovun, which, if you remember, is a hill town, late yesterday morning and drive, which, if you remember, requires a car, to one of the world’s great natural wonders, Plitvice National Park. What I did not know is that the single road up to Motovun, where both our car and we were located, would be closed at 7:30 am to resurface the road. Crud.

We had some warning in the form of a note taped to our door the night before, so I parked the car below the city where I thought it would be beyond the construction. I was wrong – the car needed to be parked at the bottom of the hill, a good mile or so away. Meredith had mentioned that possibility, which is a good reminder to always listen to the wife.

We had multiple reports of when the road would open – 1:00, which came and went, 2:00, which came and went, and then we were told 7:00, which turned out to be about when we did leave, although I think the road was open closer to 6:00.

So, what to do with a day of enforced stay in a small hilltown? We explored the one lane we had not yet gone down (and I do mean down – quite steeply), where we met huffing bus tour groups walking up from the stairs below, groups who no doubt were about as thrilled about the road closing as we were.

That little bit of touring done, we got lunch, which we ate on the terrace of our B and B, the workers of which were very kind and let us hang out there. We went in search of a CD recording of the klapa music group we had heard the night before, which took some small effort and a fair amount of time. Finally, when it looked as if the road was not going to open until 7:00, we walked over to the town hotel/spa and got massages. Lemonade indeed – the spa was incredibly nice, and it only cost about $45 for an hour massage. When we had one last failed attempt to get out (with talking to a Croatian man who told me, “Big machine block road – this is sh**”), we walked back up to town in the rain to get supper. After supper, we finally were able to leave, about 7:00 pm.

It is about a three-hour drive to Plitvice, but ours was closer to three hours and forty-five minutes, since a) we were driving in varying degrees of rain, and b) our GPS once again decided that seventeen miles toward the end of the drive, in the dark, in the rain, would be on the most winding road I have ever seen, given that there are no mountains in this part of Croatia. We finally, happily, got to our B and B around 10:30, where we were very warmly greeted by a young woman who made us feel much better with her hospitality. We got into our room and pretty promptly went to bed.

Meredith’s motto for travel is “Everything is either a good experience or a good story.” Indeed.