Rewinding a Bit

One place we visited in Turkey which I didn't have pictures of with my camera was Pamukkale. Pamukkale means "cotton castle" in Turkish, and if you are a Downton Abbey viewer you will recognize the name of the visiting Turkish ambassador in the first season, Pamuk. 

Mike did take pictures with his phone, though, and I finally remembered to download them onto my computer so that I could share them here. 

Hot springs come up from the ground, and the water flows down leaving calcium carbonate deposits along the way, which harden over time into the travertine terraces. 

There is an area which in ancient times was considered the very gate of Hades because of the heat and gases; above a cave was a space where the poisonous gases from below would kill animals (or people) instantly if breathed. The priests figured out a way to go into the underground space without dying (holding their breath, or finding pockets of clean air) and come back out, seemingly miraculously. 

We came across no such toxic gases, but we did enjoy the lovely view and the history of the white mineral cliffs and warm pools. 

Florida Photofest

We are down to our final days here this summer. Here are some of my favorite pictures from this year...

We have a pretty great family. We are blessed to get to come and hang out with them like we do. It will be good to get home too. We are missing Mike and he is missing us. We'll spend the month of August getting ready for the new school year. What a summer it has been!

Does He Look Like Me or Mike?

I'm afraid I don't have words for these pictures.

Sometimes you just have to let the photo speak for itself. 

It made me laugh, at any rate. Christian can make me feel like pulling my hair out, but, man, he can be funny too. 

Thwarted

Traditions.

We all have them. Our families make so many memories because of the traditions that we establish and make sure to carry on.

Here at the beach there aren't too many traditions; there are certain pictures that we try to take each year, and one night we take the kids to get ice cream for dinner at Frozen Gold. Tonight was Ice Cream for Dinner night.

Once we made the decision to go, we loaded the kids in the car, and I'm not gonna lie: Wendy and I were totally psyched for ice cream for dinner. 

The place is not very close; its location is prime for the traffic leaving the beach. We go there anyway because it's delicious. And it is tradition.

As we neared Frozen Gold, Wendy said,"It doesn't look open. I hope it's open. It doesn't seem very open!" Sure enough, the parking lot was empty and as we pulled in, we saw the big "CLOSED" sign on the door. We had called another day, earlier in the week, in order to find out when they closed, and were told 7pm. It was 6:38pm! We were two sad grown-ups and six sad kids. 

We sat in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to come up with Plan B. There is another ice cream place closer to the condo, so we headed there. It's a small, walk-up-window kind of place. As we turned on the side street to park, though, we could see the line was very long, and we knew the no-see-ums were bad because we had stopped to get a movie from a RedBox and were kicking and swatting while we searched and then waited for a movie to pop out of the box (well, I was, anyway...I don't know that Wendy was looking like a poor excuse for a ninja as much as I was). We decided to head to the small market that was still on the way back to the condo and pick up a variety of Breyers ice cream, some squirt whipped cream, and whatever else we might see fit to create our own ice cream dinners back home. 

The small market had Butter Pecan and Strawberry Breyers ice cream.

Um. Yuck! The other brands were loaded with grody ingredients, which also yuck! Except for the Haagen-Dazs, but we were not about to pay $4 for the pints! We looked at each other feeling thwarted, but we were determined not to be defeated! 

We let the kids pick out two different novelties (ice cream sandwiches and fudgecicles) (which, of course, are not full of grody ingredients) (okay, just not as many) and considered it a win.

The kids got their ice cream for dinner. And never fear...we also made them a side of pasta. 

Here is the best part of getting thwarted tonight, though. We still have a tradition to uphold: ice cream from Frozen Gold. And that is something that we will not not do.

Tradition!

Troy

Our final destination before returning to Istanbul on the Sea Cloud was the ancient city of Troy.

Once just beside the sea, it is now several kilometers from the water, so we rode a bus to the site. 

Again, it was amazing to see such bits and pieces of what was a long time ago a mighty fortressed city.

Above, you can see the strip of blue sea along the top of the land on the right.

Below is a picture of what Troy may have looked like at one time. The city's walls were curved instead of joined at corners, because corners were a weak point in the structure. 

As we passed by these stones, Mike pointed out how much they looked like LEGOs. Ha! 

Archaeologists have discovered many layers of cities, and they are numbered Troy I - IX. 

I think our guide told us this (below) was the King's Road. 

And an ancient theatre area seems a pretty common thing. 

On our way out we took a couple of photos of the famous Trojan Horse. 

Of course, this is just a replica (wink). 

No soldiers inside...just tourists. 

And then we headed back to our ship to get ready for our last dinner on board. In the morning we would be docking and disembarking for the last time. 

What an incredible trip! It seems like a dream still, at times. It was a blessing and an adventure that I will not forget.