Sunday, February 1 Back to Ankara

Up at 6:00 to load up the car, eat breakfast, and head back to Ankara. We waved at the Artemis Temple on the way out of town (there's only one column left of the temple and a big ditch) and started the long drive back inland.

A few rounds of 20 Questions to pass the time, then Maren started getting tricky and using Turkish words for her objects. It made it more difficult, but also easier, since I know most of the words she knows, but Brian doesn't!

As we moved further to the east and higher in elevation we hit some snowy areas (the roads were bare and dry though), and saw some cars pulled over with families outside making snowballs. More people tasting a bit of the life they don't normally lead.

Some through-the-windshield shots required of all road trips:





A beggar woman at an intersection. She's wearing the common "MC Hammer" pants that all the women were wearing out on the coast. They wear skirts in Ankara, no Hammer pants.


Burger King for lunch in Afyon. Aeden loves coke bottles and other gummy candies, and just one will buy about 5 minutes of quiet if he's crying. He also is really enjoying the Richard Scarry books we have and has spent at least a few hours over the last few days studying just the covers alone. Lacey finished Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator today. She just started it a day or two ago. She started James and the Giant Peach last Sunday and finished it on this trip, then went straight to Charlie. She is really enjoying Roald Dahl right now, and also enjoying not having a Reading Log to fill in at school (ironically, when she has to do a log she only reads the minimum 15 minutes per day. When she has no log, she'll read for an hour or 2. Was the same way at home in Olympia, too.)

When we got home Aeden had one last turn driving our rental car (when we would arrive somewhere he'd yell or whine until we unbuckled him, but then immediately walk to the driver's door, open it, climb in, close the door, and then "drive" the car for as long as we let him.) I think he could have passed the whole vacation just sitting in the driver's seat of the car. He might have opted for some of the tractors and trains he got to sit in for a break from the car, but I'm not sure.

Coming back up our road in Ankara


Aeden: "Cheese!"


We came upstairs and dropped our bags and immediately started in on "normal" stuff...the laundry, unpacking, etc. Aeden went to his room and hugged his big puppy and then played in his bed with his cars for quite a while. I think he was happy to be back to his toys and bed, if you could even call it that (it is two hide-a-bed upholstered chairs--you'd use both together to make one twin bed--one folded flat and the other backed up against it to make another side to the bed. Works for him and us, so I can't complain).