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.

We spent Sunday with the Reeds. Our highlight was a visit to the UNC botanical garden. It was a hot and sticky day. They had a Titan Arum (AKA rotting corps flower) in bloom. This plant blooms once every few years. The bloom lasts for about a day. The flower was in a small part of the greenhouse. Several small groups of people were in line to take their picture and smell the stink. I felt closed in. I stayed for the picture, then moved outdoors. I spent the rest of the time admiring the gardens and “sticking” to the shade. There’s more pictures in the blog.

Earlier, Liz spent a week with us at “cooking camp”, Bryon was busy with scouts. So we will spend a couple of days with Bryon in Fayetteville.

We had an uneventful drive to Jul’s house. We took the kids to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles followed by some ice cream. Both kids enjoyed the movie. Elizabeth couldn’t understand why Danita and I didn’t care for it. We’re staying in Monroe tomorrow. I’ll try to get some pictures then.

We had a marvelous morning. We visited the Frontier Culture Center, just outside Staunton. The Virginia Board of Education contributed a ton of money. They got a first class facility. For example, they disassembled historic houses in Europe and meticulously put them back together so we can see exactly how certain people lived. I knew that the Irish burned peat. They didn’t have wood, and peat was plentiful. I didn’t know the disadvantage is that it peat makes a lot of very disagreeable smoke. Below is a picture of a early settler’s house with a push-away chimney. It’s push-away because if when it catches on fire, they could push it away and save the house. It only takes a day to build a new push-away. If you decide to go, you should call first. The board of education is going to get their money’s worth. They have students from around the state visit. Sometimes they have 600 kids running around. We were lucky. There were only a few visitors. We had a blast, including a picnic lunch in perfect weather.

We had such a good time at the culture museum that we didn’t have time to play mini-golf. Don’t worry, we didn’t totally lose our priorities. We still had time to get some Hershey’s ice cream at the Pink Cadillac diner.

After that the day kind of fell apart. Our next stop was Blacksburg. There was an accident on I-81. One of the two lanes was closed. Traffic was extremely slow. After we got past the accident, traffic was still heavy and slow. Our plan was to eat at a downtown restaurant followed by the movie Oppenheimer. When we got here, downtown was closed off for an annual fair. There were heavy crowds and more very slow traffic. After we got out of the downtown area, we found a deli for dinner and went to CVS for candy bars. We went back to our hotel watched “Ticket to Paradise”. Today we will (eventually) make it to see the Reeds.