postcard 40: fifty shades of blue
Mountain girl summer commences🗻
It’s been less than 36 hours since Topher got home from his solo trip but we’re back in the car and headed north to escape the heat. We hit traffic almost immediately and crawl through the tiny towns and vineyards Maps routes us through. It’s almost become a joke that we only get stuck in horrible traffic when we go to Slovenia. I say almost, because by the time 2pm rolls around I am definitely not laughing. My patience is paper thin as we pull into a random mall for groceries. When I come out Topher has bought us both McDonald’s cheeseburgers and maybe I was just hangry, I decide, as we ascend into the mountains.
“Why is there an Italian flag on that hill?” Topher asks. I check the map and, sure enough, were hugging the Slovenian-Italian border. The thermostat continues to hover around 86°F as we climb. Everyone is sitting outside, shirtless and miserable. This kind of heat is not normal here. We pass through little alpine villages dotted with bee boxes, their buildings looking like A-frames with foreheads. Suddenly we come around a corner and are met with the mostly brilliantly blue river. It goes from blue Gatorade to Bombay Sapphire as we follow it up valley.
We’ve tried a gas station and two grocery stores with no luck finding a bathroom, so when the port-a-potty appears we pull over immediately. I let Hazelnut out to pee, too, and we wander down towards the river. The bed is made up of ghost white rocks and sugar sand and before long we’re all wandering through the shallows, shoes off, sunscreen long forgotten. The water is straight snowmelt, making our toes ache. I can't stay in for more than a minute, but Hazelnut is having the time of her life, relishing the ice cold water. When she realizes it’s not spicy like the ocean, she chugs it and does a bunch of happy zooms in the sand.
Finally the temperature starts to dip as we climb up a pass littered with 180° hairpin turns. Back and forth, back and forth we go. Someone has written “horny” on every single one of the road signs and I’m impressed with the dedication.
“Look!” I cry as we clear the trees and emerge on top of the pass.
“Ooo, souvenirs!” Topher answers and I sit there stunned, waiting for him to process the massive herd of sheep blocking the road and, yes, a souvenir stand. Finally he sees them.
We inch through them to the parking area and leave Hazelnut in the car while we say hello. They’re completely unfazed, lying in the middle of the pavement, browsing the plants on either side, and corralling little lambs. A woman with a Pomeranian poses for a photo with them. A distraught mama starts loudly calling from one side of the road and a little baby “baaaaaa!” answers from the other side of the valley. When they finally find each other, it’s the sweetest little reunion.
There’s a hut up top with a sweeping view of the Julian Alps and we drink beers on the patio, letting the mountain breeze dry Hazelnut’s fur.
We hope we’ve reserved a spot at a campsite back down the valley, but the host ghosted us after our initial exchange so we hold our breath as we check in. The guy behind the desk seems unfazed. I can’t tell if there's actually a reservation system or if they just let people squeeze into the lawn until there’s no more room. We’re both a little intimidated choosing a spot. This is so different from camping in America, where you either have a designated site or you find a chunk of forest a quarter-mile from anyone else. The only Croatians there spot our license plate and move their car so we have a nice spot on the lawn. When Topher starts looking around for a rock to pound the tent stakes in (to no avail) the woman runs over with a hammer. We probably should try to make friends, but of course we don’t and go for a walk instead, wandering down a farm road until the mosquitoes start to get us.
Sandwiches are assembled on the lid of our cooler and we marvel at how we can be camped next to a hundred other people and it’s so quiet and civilized. We’re in between an RV, a camper van and a handful of tents and there’s no music or generator noise. No dogs barking, even the kids riding their bikes play quietly. When we crawl into the tent with our books, the only sounds are the crickets and frogs down in the creek. There’s a strange flash above us and I notice one single firefly has flown into the vent of our tent. We watch him for a moment, our own private show, before he flies back out into the night. I like my head out the door and don’t see any others. How lucky, I think. It’s the most unexpectedly peaceful experience.
Well, that is, until we actually try to sleep. I’ve forgotten anything to use as a pillow and we didn’t pack a bed for Hazelnut. She stands over us panting until Topher acquiesces and gives up half his sleeping pad. I’ve convinced him to give Fourth Wing a try and I’m pretty sure he stays up most of the night reading.
When the morning light finally filters through the tent we’re all groggy. It rained at some point in the night and everything is damp, but it’s almost cold enough to wear a sweatshirt so I’m happy. We get coffees from the espresso vending machine and croissants from the snack one and watch as climbers flake their ropes and bikers adjust their brakes. This valley is teeming with outdoor rec.
The rickety, wooden swinging bridge over the river doesn’t look like it’s from this century but Topher and Hazelnut cross it gamely so I have to follow. We hike down a forested trail following the river as we go. Here, as it tumbles over rocks creating little rapids and cascades, it looks like aquamarine straight from Mt. Antero. We let Hazelnut swim again before reluctantly getting back in the car.
The other side of the pass has cobblestoned turns and we dodge a bike race wobbling over them as we descend. We plug in Ljubljana, our favorite little city, and stop for tacos on the way home. They aren’t great, they might not even register as good, but they are taco adjacent and we buy some Cholula. A random stop for matcha gelato is much more successful.
Hazelnut doesn’t move the entire drive home and we have to wake her up to relocate her to bed. The princess and the pea sleeps for a solid day after our adventures. I tell her she’s going to need to work on her stamina for all the multi-day trips we have coming up.
I’ve officially entered my summer cooking mode which means our plates are 95% stone fruit and tomatoes. Topher remarks on the walk home from the market that it keeps getting harder to walk back up the hill as the heat and humidity increase, but our bags also weigh three times as much. We lug sungolds and peaches, cherries and kohlrabi and zucchini through the city, stopping for impulse granita and hot dogs along the way. We find sourdough (!) at the grocery store, along with squash blossoms and while I’m not a hot weather girl, I live for summer produce.
We’re chasing ants sneaking in through the baseboards and caterpillars eating our basil and air conditioning whenever we can find it.
-Mikaela