Road Trippin', part 1

This past weekend, Geoff borrowed a car (a HONDA no less...that's for my Dad) so that the Howards could get out of town for the first time since we arrived.  Our plan was to drive to Mostar on Sunday, but we were so excited to finally have a set of wheels to ourselves since we left the USA, that we decided to take a little drive Saturday evening.  (Geoff has taken two very short trips since we've been here, one to Mostar...thus our planned trip there, and the other to Banja Luka, which is in the Republic of Srpska.)  On his travels, Geoff got to learn a little bit about ways out of town, so on Saturday he treated Liam and me to a drive toward  Bjelašnica, the mountain that hosted the men's alpine skiing events in the 1984 Olympics.  The drive was lovely and mountainous, but it's also along a "fault line" of the war in the early nineties.  Thus, the drive was littered with these signs.  (No, dear family, I did not get out and take a picture.  I borrowed this from another blog, which I have now hot linked so I can't be accused of plagiarism.)  

It was unnerving, to think about mines being to our sides.  Bosnia, in teaming with the U.N. and NATO, has a great program to educate people about the mines as well as remove them, but still, it was my first encounter with them, and it made me sad.  The lives lost during that war haunt me in a way I don't know that I will ever be able to describe (but I will try later, when I am able to post about the war).


Once I was able to stop staring at the periodic mine signs, I was able to view the beautiful scenery.  The trip was spontaneous, so we didn't grab the camera, but trust me folks...if there were no mines, I would have jumped out to Maria Von Trapp in those mountains!  It was breathtaking!  Luckily for us, the trip was not so spontaneous that Liam was unable to grab a toy.  His toy of choice?  A large, washed out yogurt container that has a handle, in other words, a bucket.  After a good 40 minutes of driving, I heard a strange sound from the back.  Liam was gagging.  I scrambled to unbuckle, climb in the back, and grab said bucket.  I (kind of) made it in time to help Liam aim his carsickness into the bucket.  It came as a complete surprise.  Liam has never gotten sick on any car, airplane, or boat ride before.  I guess this particular curvy, mountain road in a bumpy old-school CRV was just too much for him.  I had to laugh at the situation (it was that or cry).  We were in a borrowed car, along a road with land mines to one side and a drop-off to the other, and our son was vomiting.  All I could do was assure Liam everything was okay and hold the puke bucket for him.  We eventually found a safe place to turn the car around and head back to town with our poor little man.


After we got home, gave Liam a bath, and put him to bed, we realized how fortunate we were that 1) we decided to take an impulsive drive and 2) that Liam wanted to bring a bucket.  If that hadn't happened, we would never have known he got car sick, and we wouldn't have been able to protect Geoff's buddy's car.  The Lord sure works in mysterious ways!  More on Mostar later!  Love to all!