August 16 Rijeka CROATIA to Guče Selo CROATIA 92 K / 57 Miles, First Visit to my Paternal Grandfather's village in Gladloka SLOVENIA

Today is a very exciting day of this bike tour for me and one of the main goals of the entire trip; to venture into the land of my ancestors and hopefully locate and visit the villages of my grand- parents. My Father's father and mother came to America from Slovenia in 1900 and 1903 respectively. The delay for my granmother was waiting for their second child to be born and for the girls to be old enough to travel. My grandmother went to America with my Aunt Katherine and Aunt Mary in tow. My Mother's father and mother came to America from Croatia but they were Serbian. (The Serbian people had lived in Croatian lands for centuries.) My maternal grandparents did not meet and marry(1912) until after they were in America.

I climbed for 24 kilometers to get from the seacoast in Rijeka to the interior. I stopped in Delniče, it was actually raining a little. Now begins a series of divine appointments, meeting people, that can only make you think you are being led by God Himself. I came out of a market in Delniče knowing there were no campgrounds or hostels in the area of my target town of Brod Na Kupi Croatia. So the first people I spot I ask if by chance they speak English. They do, they are from Holland. We discuss the lack of campgrounds then the wife tells her husband to get me the name of a pension that they are headed for near Brod Na Kupi in the village of Guče Selo. Turns out Guče Selo is adjacent to the Croatian village Gerbajel (seperated only by a very small stream). I had foreknowledge that Gerbajel is the village DIRECTLY ACROSS THE KUPA RIVER FROM MY GRANDFATHER SIMONCIC'S FARM in Gladloka Slovenia.

After arriving at the pension (apartment or private-room hostel) I cycled the 4K back to Brod Na Kupi where the border crossing is between Croatia and Slovenia and crossed into Slovenia and biked along the Kupa River 4K to Gladloka, my grandfather's village and where his farm had been.