Greetings, friends.
As a child, I loved looking at photo albums with pictures of people from before I was born. They were my parents, relatives, and my parents' friends. I knew all those photos by heart. Then my photos appeared in those albums.
When I got married, my wife and I started a family photo album, which began to fill up with our photos. Now we have several photo albums.
The first album will soon be 40 years old. For more than 25 years, I have had a large collection of photos and videos on digital media, and my wife and I periodically look through them. Most of the photos were taken by me during trips, travels, and meetings with family, children, and close friends. My wife loves to look at photos and videos of our grandchildren.
Yesterday, we stopped at a photo report about my first trip abroad with my eldest daughter. It was to Finland.




In January 2017, my daughter suggested that we go fishing in Finland. At first, I thought it was an unrealistic idea, but after a few days of contemplation, I decided that it was an interesting concept worth exploring.
So, we chose a fishing spot, and I booked a lakefront cabin for a week.
In early July, we arrived at the destination, which was even more beautiful than the photos on the website www.booking.com - Kaitalantie 323, 47490 Mankala, Yli-Kaitala Resort.




A small house with a full set of household and kitchen appliances, 2 rooms, a sauna inside the house, and a sauna by the lake. The main addition is a motorboat.




This is what the lake looks like in the early morning at 2 o'clock. The nights were short, and the sun only set for one hour before rising again.
We were lucky with the weather, as we mostly had sunny days, but there was also a good rain that we didn't have time to escape from the lake. However, we later dried our clothes in the sauna and lit the stove in the house to make ourselves comfortable.








We walked to the island that was visible from our window several times. Of course, we were surprised by many things in this place - the cleanliness, the availability of tools such as saws, shovels, and axes. And there was a toilet on the island! I even saw two fishermen docking and using the toilet.






Such trips can only be made by private car, so that it is possible to move to other interesting places, and not to be tied only to one place. In this way, we visited the cities of Lahti and Kouvola, and the Repovesi National Park.
It is necessary to be ready to buy food yourself and cook your own food. This can be done on an electric stove in the house or on a barbecue near the house. On the barbecue, we cooked fish that we caught near the house in the lake.










My daughter and I also visited an old paper factory that was no longer in operation. It was a very interesting place. I was surprised to see the old manual production of cardboard. The factory had been operating until the employees retired. During the tour, it was not allowed to take videos or photos.




This year will be 9 years since my daughter and I visited this beautiful place. A lot has happened since then. My daughter got married, and now she has two sons. But for me, time is like rubber - it stretches and contracts. For me, a trip to Finland is a time point that defines the events before and after.
I hope that I will visit these places again with my family.

imagehive1.png

By the way, you can see the location of the vacation spot by clicking on the map link in the comments to the article by @travelfeed and @worldmappin

imagehive1.png



Don’t Worry, Be Happy (C) Bobby McFerrin

Text & Photography by @apnigrich
With love @apnigrich

Good luck and have fun