Some days...

Some days, you are the statue. Some days, you are the pigeon.

So I woke up in Zadar, and am now in Zagreb. Between the two is Plitvice National Park. It's up in the mountains between the two cities. It has some lakes, some waterfalls, trees, etc.

By all accounts, it is worth a visit, so I get off of the bus where they tell me to. Mistake. They let me off at entrance Two, instead of entrance One, 2.5 kilometers (1,5 miles) away. I walk to the entrance proper, and find it snowed in. I go to the bank across the street, and they can not tell me how to get into the park. I meet some people in the parking lot who inform me that I must go to the other entrance, but they think there's a bus in 30 minutes.

I have my pack and day bag, and some food. Probably about 40 pounds of stuff. We're in the mountains, so it's cold, there's snow on the ground, and it is lightly snowing. So I'm not in a hurry to take the walk. I wait, and have some lunch. I came prepared after my "little fish" incident. No bus 45 minutes later. Four had passed going in the opposite direction.

OK. My feet and hands are now cold . I know that if I just start walking, those will at least warm up.

The bus didn't pass me until I was 3/4 of the way there. I feel vindicated.

I finally arrive at the other entrance. Despite what Lonely Planet had indicated, there was no place that would hold my bag. After some prodding, the woman in the ticket office said that she would hold my bag until 2 PM, another 40 minutes. Deciding that timespan wouldn't be long enough to see anything but pavement and lots of snow, I elected to cut my losses and move on.

I walked to the bus stop. There is one for this entrance, so I did not have to repeat the 1.5 mile trek. Just as I get to the stop, a bus appears at the bend in the road. I think, "Wow. My luck is finally changing!" and wave it down.

As it flew by me, I realized that the vehicle contained Japanese tourists instead of being a harbinger of my good fortune.