Turkey - Even Better With Gravy

After 4 wonderful days in Istanbul, we spent the last 3 days in the beautiful Cappadocia region in Central Turkey. This area is like no other place we've seen. The rock formations were created by a volcanic eruption many, many years ago, and have been preserved and incorporated into the small developments that have popped up. It also helps that our hotel, the Anatolian Houses, is out of this world (thanks for the reco, Team Siemon!).

Here's a picture of us somewhere along our hike, as well as a picture of Annie and Pallavi trying to figure out which way to go as we hiked through one of the valleys. I should note that we thought we had a trusty guide in a stray dog (who we named the Blue Mosque), until he faked an injury and abandoned us right at crunch time.

The best panorama of the region was from the Uchisar Rock Castle. Here are a few pictures from that vantage point - Pallavi high atop the rock castle, on the phone with her mom high atop Edison, New Jersey.......Mike and Annie not at all phased by the precipitous drop about 12 inches to their right......and me staking claim to the Turkish flag, which I took a liking to, for some reason.

Here's a picture of Pallavi and me on the scooter that we rented on the last day to tool around the area (I like using the phrase 'tool around'). Good times!

As we close out our Turkey experience, a big shout out to Annie and Mike for being such fun travel partners and for sharing their awesome pictures with us. Here's to you Team Jacksonville (in song, of course...)......sherefe (that means 'cheers' in Turkish)!