sayhitojohn

Wednesday June 15  The kids jumped out of bed this morning at 2:45 just like it was their usual at home 11:00 beauty sleep wake up. There was no jumping but neither was there any complaining, I think zombie mode is my preferred early morning attitude for them. It was ballooning day and the balloon trip was great. I had seen these launch hundreds if not thousands of times as a kid. The Chicago area Windy City Balloon Port was colocated where I spent my summers ski jumping at Norge Ski Club. I can understand the passion now, what a cool experience. This was a big balloon with a 20 person basket, we had about 18 folks and the Huth family had there own section of about 1/5 of the basket. They were able to land that basket right on the trailer. Pretty impressive, but I guess that's the only way, that thing has to weigh a bunch.  This was a four burner beast and when it breathed is was a sight to see. After the ballooning we began to do some replanning as we were thinking the kids n...

Shhh...the Tuk Tuk in it's natural habitat Turkeys in turkey??!! The Huth Laundromat classing up the island Heart failure Lets go Clupping!

Tuesday June 14 Today was a travel day which meant a 6:45 ferry from our jetty off the island to the car park on the mainland. I had budgeted a bunch of contingency time into our journey to the airport which was only slightly used, that is how I like it. Patti had a concern about the boat not showing up, and I wanted to make sure we could get our car out of the locked lot at that early hour. Uncle Google did take us on a completely back roads route for the final 10km to the airport. We are talking barely one lane. I may have left the toll saver on but this was more like the horse and buggy saver. We hit yet another lounge in the airport and then we were airborne to Cappadocia for a 45 minute flight. The flight took a bit longer than expected but I had a good time chatting with some Coasta Ricans next to me. Well, he was Coasta Rican and she was a Canadian and now a newly minted CRican. Our landing approach was, I suppose, not quite as planned. We may have added another 30 minutes to ou...

Monday June 13  The mostly leisure portion of our tour ends tomorrow morning when we will go from living high up on an island with 180 degree views in front and more in back to being entombed in a mountain tucked into a room with no windows.  This was the third morning, tomorrow will be the fourth (math!), that Patti and I will wake as victims of the scarcest bedsheeting we have experience yet. We have a bottom sheet for the mattress and a very thin blanket that is one size too small for our bed. Instead of cranking the air conditioning and snuggling like it's January in the Rocky Mtns we are making sure that our room is as warm as possible, no fan, no open windows, no AC for sure. We will see if we can embalm in the upcoming tomb. Speaking of tombs, on our way to the beach today we visited some Lycian Rock Tombs on the outskirts of Fethiye. These date to the 4th century B.C. and seem to be amazingly well preserved. That they are carved directly into the natural hard rock of t...

Roman rebar? :-) Honey, that wallpaper has to go  Ancient Voldemort? It came for my house... The Ultimate Recreational Assault Vehicle

 Sunday June 12 Patti and I awoke this morning to the sound of the island rooster doing his best to spread his flavor of cheer to Tara and Riley. Today we decided to not leave the island and just relax in our digs and catch up from the first busy week. On our morning walk we discovered more ancient mosaic hiding in the weeds. Between the houses on the waterfront of each side of this narrow island is a rubble strewn alleyway that does not seem to fit with the nice houses that flank it but is literally littered with history. This bay is home to boat-styles of the rich and famous. Not to far to the North in Marmaris sits two super yachts owned by Alexander Abramov which seem to be raising some eyebrows.   International toilet paper felons strike again, this time in the island toilet. Yesterday Tara was the first offender, I would have been right behind her had I not seen the paper in the bowl and tried to give it another flush. Only then did the sign on the wall speak to me. Rile...

Saturday June 11 We made a sleep in deal with the girls, if they rallied yesterday evening to visit Ephesus then we would let them sleep in this morning. They kept their end of the deal, we pretty much kept ours, but we still had to wake them up. We had a light breakfast and chatted with the 10 year old son of the guesthouse host who practiced his English by trying to pronounce our names.  He did well, Patti was Perry, but the others were fine. Turns out John is a name used in Turkey and especially in the region of Ephesus as it is believed that he spent his last days here. There is a church a hundred meters away from our stay constructed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian that once stood in Johns honor.  It is said that at one time it was the 7th largest church in the world. This model in the foreground was assembled by a man from Ohio where the Middle West meets the Middle East.  While there is not much remaining of this church there is still a baptistry which might ser...