We are staying at the Yunak Evleri cave hotel. It’s one of many cave hotels in the area. The property and the food are very nice. It’s unavoidable, but we got a lesson on why caves aren’t a very good place to live. Not the least issue is ventilation, and the floor stand fan did little to improve things.

Our first regular tour stop was the Goreme Open Air Museum. Early Christians decided this would be a good place to hide out and avoid Roman persecution. It turns out it didn’t take the Romans long to find this “secret” spot. Never the less, Christians dug churches out of the caves and decorated them with frescos, some of which are in remarkably good shape. We weren’t permitted to take pictures inside. Some of the holes were doors or windows, others come from erosion removing the outer wall and exposing interior spaces. There’s a few pics on the website.

We had lunch at a private home, then visited a small town for shopping. We aren’t big on shopping. I found a coffee shop and had a Turkish coffee. Danita relaxed. I didn’t know this, but when one orders a Turkish coffee, the restaurant assumes the customer is probably thirsty. They bring the coffee and a bottle of water, so the customer can quench their thirst after finishing the coffee.

Most of our time was spent driving from Ankara to Cappadocia. We broke up the ride with a stop in the Hittite capital. We know a lot about the Hittites because we can read their cruciform tablets. They wrote contracts for everything up to and including marriage – effectively a prenup. Hittites also “invented” loaning money and charging interest. One thing we don’t know about the Hittites is what they did with their dead. We haven’t found any burial grounds, or descriptions of death ceremonies. The Hittites built with stone footers and mud brick walls. The mud brick is long gone. If I included a lot of pictures, you would see a lot of stones in dirt, which isn’t very interesting. We saw three city gates. Here’s a pic of the tunnel gate, which is kind of cool.

Cappadocia is a valley surrounded by four volcanos. Over the millennia, they blew their tops, creating layers of magma and pith (volcanic ash). The pith is soft. For 3,000 years, people dug their houses out of the pith. This continued into the 1950s, when the government moved people to more traditional above ground houses. The mixture of magma and pith also created many interesting formations.

This is a popular area for hot air balloon rides. Our tour did not include a balloon ride, but they reserved spots for those of us who were interested. We didn’t know about this until after the tour started, but it didn’t take long for us to decide we were interested. We got up at 4 AM and brought our credit card. It turns out Road Scholar reserved spots with a specific pilot. Some pilots go up, then down and that’s it. Ours went up, swooped (swooped slowly, nothing in a hot air balloon happens quickly) back down to the ground, got close to interesting formations, slowly rotated the balloon so everybody could get good pictures, and in general proved himself precision pilot for sure. It was quite entertaining and we had a wonderful ride.

If you want to see some balloon pics, visit the blog.

One of the main reasons I was interested in visiting Turkiye was to see the Hagia Sophia Church/museum/mosque in Istanbul. That will come at the end of the trip. It turns out there are much better reasons to visit. I don’t think I have ever had a single day when I learned more than I learned yesterday (Friday).

Turkiye was formed after WW I. They didn’t want to be associated with the incompetent and corrupt Ottoman Empire, or the Greco/Roman/Byzantium era. So they formed a secular republic and placed the capital far away from Istanbul. To get away from the Greco-Roman history of Istanbul, they emphasize being an outgrowth of Anatolia. The Anatolian Civilizations Museum is a small but important museum, tracing human history from 1,300,000 years ago. If we had just visited, we would have blown through the museum in an hour. Be we had museum guide who has his doctorate in ancient civilizations. Again and again, he pointed out significant firsts that we would have missed.

Most of the pieces are original finds of archeological work in the area. The era spans from Homo Erectus to the late stages of the Hittites. I was amazed at how much we know of our ancient history. Anatolia had as much impact on human civilization as did Syria and Egypt, Babylonia, etc. Exhibits started with the first tools (basically, rocks) and showed how they became smaller and more specialized over the millennia, finally leading to early cave paintings. From there we “visited” the earliest villages, where homes had entrances only in the roof. We saw Obelisks from the Gobekli Tepe site that show a strong hunter culture long after most humans had switched to agriculture. One of the people in our tour asked our guide if we could ever recreate Neanderthals based on ancient DNA. The Jurassic Park question? Really??? It turns out there really are no dumb questions. Scientists have created Neanderthal stem cells. They learned that Neanderthal DNA replication error rate is much higher error rate than most other species. It turns out Neanderthals had their own serious problems.

I wish I could go back for a day, carefully photographing, and comparing my notes to what the placards say. But it’s time to move on. Our next stop is the Hittite capital. In the meantime, enjoy this wine cup. It doesn’t have or need a stable bottom. The cup is passed around and around the room, each person drinking in turn; refilling the cup as necessary.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It was a long but uneventful flight from Dulles Airport to Istanbul. The flight statistics screens were interesting. They included the time to the next prayer, and direction to Mecca. We didn’t see anybody visibly praying, but it was a big plane. The airline dinner was inedible. Breakfast was slightly better.

Danita didn’t sleep well and I didn’t sleep at all. We had a several hour layover to catch our flight to Ankara. I enjoyed the safety of not missing the connecting flight. But I was literally falling asleep with my eyes open. When we finally got on our second flight, I was wide awake and unable to sleep.

Our hotel is gorgeous. We were lucky to get a suite. Two bedrooms share a private sitting room. We “only” got one bedroom, which includes a shower and a soaking tub, and of course a bidet.

Danita and I were trying to stay awake until at least 9:00. We chose to do that by getting under the covers and read. It wasn’t the most successful strategy. With 20 minutes to go, Danita suddenly said she almost fell asleep. She woke me up, Our dinner and breakfast were both amazingly good. We get more food than anybody could possibly eat.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We’re going to Turkiye for 20 days! We’re quite excited. Below is a map of where our stops are. The numbers on the map below are day numbers. If you are interested, I’ll include the day number on my Turkiye posts.

If you want to contact us, use the normal emails. If you want to talk to us, the phone numbers you already have for us should work while we are in Turkiye. If we don’t answer, we will get the voice mail within a day or so. The time in Turkiye is 7 hours later than the time in Baltimore. If it’s 3:00 PM in Baltimore, it’s 10:00 in Turkiye.

Here’s the map. (To see the entire map, click “Travel Map” below the picture). Here we go …

Lots of nice things happened this week. We had a lovely Memorial Day. Rick and Suzie were up getting Rick’s new house set up. Ed and Lynne invited them and us for hamburgers. It was a perfect, relaxed evening.

Danita and I went to the BMA to see their mosaic art. There’s plenty of mosaic art in Turkiye. This visit should put is in the mood, so to speak. When we were done, it just happened to be lunch time. Why not have lunch at Gertrude’s? They aren’t cheap, but they’re worth the money.

Mom has good news. Charlestown decided she is eligible for in-home PT, fully paid by Medicare. Mom has had two sessions so far. She has improved enough that she is now sleeping in her bed.

And … we had a Grillin’ and Chillin’ event at the club house Friday. Our events coordinator has been at loggerheads with the SO board. He quit this week. But this event survives the disruption. We went over with the Jonse’s. We had bad hamburgers, good sides, good deserts, and a fun time.

In spite of all those lovely events, I still have a hot mess. We use a Level 2 charger to charge our electric car. The car stopped charging. The first thing is to figure out whether the problem is with the car, or with the charger. It sounds easy. There’s charging stations near Walmart. Unfortunately, these are all high speed chargers. I needed to test the level 2 charger. I found a level 2 charger near Trader Joe’s, but I couldn’t test it because that charger doesn’t accept credit cards. I finally found a level 2 charger at the Nissan dealer. The level 2 charge port in the car works! Now I know that I have to repair or replace our charger. Unfortunately, we’re leaving on a trip Wednesday. The issue will have to wait until we get back. In the meantime, we’re using the trickle charger.

Mom has been having problems with her phones. Sometimes the phone will go “off hook” and nobody will be able to call her. I thought we had the answer, but she had the problem again. Mom has been using four cordless phones. Yesterday, I took them all out and replaced them with a single simple old fashioned land line telephone. That should let her reliably receive phone calls until we get back.

My bike has two wheels in the front. Both wheels are connected to the bike with tie rods. These ensure that both wheels are pointed in the same direction. One of the tie rods came loose. When both wheels don’t point in the same direction, the bike does unexpected and extremely exciting things. It was impossible to ride the bike, or even roll it down the street. I was several miles from home. I called Danita, but she was at the pool. So I knocked on a door and begged a ride home. Fortunately, I have a brand new trike rack for the car. I hooked up the rack, drove back to the bike, loaded it up, and drove 45 minutes to the dealer where I purchased the bike. Parts are on order. They should arrive about the same day we are leaving for Turkey. There’s another issue that has to wait.

In addition, I got my feet banged up in the most exciting bike ride. It was nothing more than a minor inconvenience — or it would have been, if I wasn’t scheduled to leave on a tour of Turkiye that requires a lot of walking. I’m taking it easy and hoping for the best. Ah … life’s little troubles.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The big focus these days is our upcoming trip to Turkiye. We have our packing lists set. We have watched several travel videos. I purchased airline seats with extra leg room. That is $6,500 cheaper than upgrading to business class. We leave on the 13th.

We visited Tony and Donna. Donna has moved out of her house and into Oak Crest (an Erickson community on the north side of Baltimore). Their house is on the market. Tony is still in rehab, also at Oak Crest. Tony’s keeping a positive attitude.

Bill & Tina threw a party. Bill is 80 years old. We got a tour of their new house, saw several people from circle, and also a ton of people we don’t know. Bill’s looking forward to his own travel, to Seattle, where he will visit with his daughter. He’s even flying first class!

Mom had a fall and sprained her back. All her chairs were swivel rockers that are hard on the back. Mom got a new lift chair. It made a big difference, letting her sleep in comfort and get out of the chair without pain.

Mark, Jiajia, and Mira visited us this week. We spent some time at home. We had breakfast with Mom. One reason for the visit was that Mark and Jiajia wanted to see a show in DC. While Mom & Dad were taking their break, we took Mira to the Robinson Nature Center. Mira had experienced a lot of excitement by then. She fell asleep on the short ride over. We decided to turn it into a long ride and drove around the area to give Mira a nice rest. It took Mira a while to warm up to the Robinson center, but in the end she had a good time. Then we went home for dinner and ice cream. After that was the big test. Because Mark and Jiajia wouldn’t be back until late, we decided to sleep in the guest room with Mira and let Mark and Jiajia sleep in our room. Like any 2-year old, Mira sometimes fusses about taking a bath and going to bed. But she didn’t fuss for us at all. She had fun in the bathtub. We had one goodnight book, then 5 minutes until lights out. She fell asleep in 3 minutes flat. She woke up one time and complained she was hungry. She ate half of a cashew and promptly went back to sleep. Mira had such a good time she didn’t want to go home. Here’s a couple of pics.

The excitement is over. We’re back to being retired old folks. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Dani and Gayle came down to visit Mom. I provided transportation to the airport and for shopping. The five us had a wonderful dinner at Catonsville Gourmet. I didn’t get a pic of all five of us, but here’s a pick of Gayle and Dani. We have more excitement coming up, starting later on this week.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We took Bryan to Fayetteville and didn’t do much … just Go Carts, Bumper Boats, Mini Golf, Mission Impossible movie, Escape Room, and tour of the Edgar Allen Poe house (the business man, not the author). The drive home had some heavy traffic, but no bumper cars. We got home in plenty of time to pick up Dani and Gayle from he airport. They will be visiting Mom. I volunteered to provide local transportation.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.