Lido

Today we took a trip to Latvian Frankie's Fun Park at the edge of town, where bus loads of tourists come in in droves, speaking all different languages. We have seen very few Asian tourists and zero African or African-American people in our time here. There are also very few red-heads (unless you count the fire-engine dye-job variety). Interesting to observe who lives here and who vacations here. Several bus loads of teen campers may have been a youth group. Made me want to pray for Frank and Chad.

There is an enormous buffet at Lido that gave us a good chance to sample Latvian dishes cafeteria style. My sausage turned out to be a meatloaf which was tasty. The kids chose chocolate covered strawberry mousse cakes for dessert, which were good. Standing "in line" with international groups is a cultural experience all by itself, as each line merged into a sea of humanity. This is not unlike trying to feed your family at Disney World without a sit-down reservation.

Hearty meat and potatoes

Then we went to their park to get our jump on. I even took a turn today. Couldn't figure out how to flip in the safety harness.

First couple times around: "I am scared!" in thickly-accented English.

Towards the end: I am not scared!

Standing at the ticket booth line, I remembered why my family never goes to the Sparkleberry Fair at home where you need to pay for each attraction individually. We look forward to going to Carowinds with friends when we return on "bring a large family on your discount friends passes" day.

Even with the cost factor, it was significantly more entertaining than toss the balloon and (Will's favorite) watch the spit fly out of the re-inflated balloon day, yesterday.

Today we are thankful that Edgars came to fix the wi-fi and that the sun was shining. We feel so connected to you! All's right in the world.