We found a thin layer of ice crystals covering everything outside this morning. Thankfully the sun soon melted away the frost, showering the Lasithi Plateau with glorious, warm light. As we packed, Tyler said (as he often does at the start of a nice day), "I am thankful for good health, and good weather!"

Camp packed, we headed out over rutted, rocky roads to traverse the plateau one last time.

When we reached the edge, we were pleased to find that our climb over the ring of hills surrounding the area was very short. Indeed, it only took a few minutes to reach the top! Waving goodbye, we coasted away, eager to enjoy our easy Spring day. Flowers bloomed, it was warm out, and we had nothing to do but brake occasionally. Woohoo!

Dotting the roadsides during our entire descent were little yellow flowers carpeting the ubiquitous olive groves.

When Tyler stopped to record the jingling bells of some goats I found this wild sage and picked some to use for dinner tonight. This along with the little sweet apples I found yesterday would make for a tasty sage & apple stuffing!

When our coasting ended outside of Iraklion, we took to the freeway and skirted around the city. Once we'd reached the slightly grungier, less touristy fringes of town we headed back to minor roads. As is so often the case these days, we picked a promising road our GPS, said "we will camp here" and promptly found a perfect spot there a few minutes later.

As we settled into our litter-filled beach camp near a power plant, I made dinner while Tyler worked. First, I crunched up some dry, toasted bread I had purchased earlier. Then, into our pan I chopped an onion, several small apples, and quite a few sage leaves. I added two boullion cubes, a hefty hunk of butter, lots of pepper, a few red pepper flakes. Even before I could light the stove, Tyler popped his head out of the tent to say, "that smells really good!"

With a smile, I sauteed the mix until it was tender, and added 3/4ths of a waterbottle of water (hows that for a measurement!?) to break up the boullion. This I poured over the bread crumbles and mixed, adding a little more water to make sure they were all moistened. For a little more flavor, I added another hunk of butter, some more onion, apple, and sage (raw this time), and added a fresh clove of garlic, minced.

As we ate, Tyler declared that it felt like Thanksgiving. It was so, so, good and we had a lot to be thankful for!