“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius
There are times where we got to push on through, there come times where we'd love to repeat or stop, rewind to do them again and for me, a gift to me was taking a road trip to Croatia and watch this year's World rally championship that took place right over the boarder.
Last week has been heavy on me, but learning that it's not the weakness that comes through mind and negative thoughts that made me feel weak, dizzy, low energy, less connected with the world, but it's the effect of storms, quickly changing weather that has such an impact on my body since my heart surgery.
Today I was dedicated to go on a date to myself, going on a morning walk, took enough water with me, planned my meal the night before with some fresh salad and some home made salami, before going on a 40min road trip over the boarder and watch, listen, feel race cars passing threw.
Early in the morning I went for a walk on one of our nearby castle to get some blood flowing and continued my way to Croatia that is very close to my home. One of big advantages of a really tiny country, two times smaller than New York.
Then I drove threw tiny village Imeno and drove over the border and parked beside the road in village Zagorska sela a location I studied and know where to go now.
It's not too far away, it has beautiful scenery, everything is close and in the mean time, while stage 18 finished I have enough time to go on a stunning location, that fortunately also has a pumping station for the rally cars there.
If someone asks me, it's a perfect combination for a car enthusiast and a nature lover like me. There is also the right length to walk, as some other stages require a lot of walking, before coming to a nice place to watch the race.
When I locked the car and started walking, I met a very friendly local that was also walking to the rally stage. He was the one that told me, this year they changed the starting location, but luckly it wasn't much of a problem, because it was still possible to get to the stage threw the same road.
There was the location with a lot more visible point's than previous years I went to watch WRC. True, there isn't a jumping spot, or a tight corner and it was a safe distance to watch from as I did have one or two close encounters previous years.
Everything can happen in a rally, but WRC specifications are mind blowing, and the faster the car is, the wilder it get's. Even though the drivers are professionals, most are driving rally for majority of their life, there is still a bit of danger and caution to take, in case something goes sideways.
Croatia is 100% tarmac, but it is a unique race, because the roads are old, very tight, damaged tarmac or even concrete on places, therefore rally drivers use the whole road, to keep the car with those speed's on the track.
That means they drive on the edges that keep them in the corner, while throwing mud, gravel all over the place. Making the road all terrain, while the April's weather wasn't dry this year.
The spot was even better than previous years for me to watch, I had a view for well nearly a kilometer, almost from the starting point, threw the woods and threw the bridge where they drove to our side and continued their 14 kilometer or so long stage.
Decided to be in the moment so most of the photos I took, were while drivers were moving from stage to stage. The amazing part of Rally is, that cars need to be street legal, with all the functional blinkers, mirrors, to drive in the middle of the stages.
The race car sounds and feelings were all over me, making all my senses tingling in a good way. From hearing their launch control with all the antilagg, racing exhaust, pops, bangs, to the visual where I see with what a speed they carry threw so tiny roads, mostly sideways and to the shockwave of all the sounds combines with positive adrenalin building inside of me.
This year I've been far away from the road, sitting in the middle of the grass terrain, testing out my new very light chair that I'll be also using for fishing and various other race event's to watch from, I do like it.
The stage started at 8.30 and till 10.20 when started feeling hungry I went on a walk back to the car, where I went to the old, but huge castle on a beautiful location named Veliki Tabor , [//]:# (!pinmapple 46.15484 lat 15.65165 long d3scr).
Took my time to eat, reminded myself to drink plenty of water while enjoying the beautiful view, hearing the race cars driving around in the distance and birds singing at the same time.
At 11.30 the top class WRC cars were coming from stage 19 to get some fuel, so I went to check them out and at 12.00 it was time for me to start heading back to my car, heading back to the last stage, that is the same as stage 18, but this one as stage 20 is called Wolf Power stage.
As it is the last stage and WRC has some weird point system, the driver give their absolute max to the road.
Suddenly the cars got way louder, extreme and especially the ones that needed those points went sideways even on the straight, amazing skills to keep these beasts on the right track!
Drivers get points on Wolf Power stage differently and can even move up on positions, with additional point's. I'm still a newbie in WRC but love the thrill of watching, feeling it.
At 15.00 I started walking back to my car, as I started feeling a bit tired and while there was still road ahead of me, I needed to save some energy for focus on the road. Sounds weird or soft, but that's how it is after an open heart surgery and I love it, feeling grateful and blessed at the same time to even be here. Last year I went to check and was able to stand for two hours of total, because there was still much to get used too with my new chance of living.
Today I'm proud that that I went out and enjoyed the whole day full of pops, bangs, adrenalin, amazingly sunny weather, where I even got a light sunburn and great memories to keep in my 'cookie jar' when ever the heavier days come, to get motivation going onward.
Grateful to have strength, the focus and a chance to go watch such an amazing event. Grateful that I'm healthy, able to walk, drive, talk, to see all of these racing masterpiece's as well as beauty of our mother nature and that my heart is pumping strong, lively and healthy every 'click' at a time.
Thank you for taking time to read, I wish you a good day or a good night and a good life.
― Napoleon Hill
