Erin and I found a stroke of good luck when we discovered a beautiful vacation home was available at the foot of the Turkish Alps. The Ala Dag mountains are about 5 hours South of Ankara, and are the Western most reach of the Himalaya. We arrived two days ago, and plan to stay for three or four weeks. Bali, our cat, came with us and we're looking forward to some time climbing, running, reading, and writing in our little mountain retreat.
The house we've rented is amazing. It's set up for rentals, and has 7 fully furnished bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, an (empty) swimming pool, a cherry and apricot orchard, a huge kitchen, Satellite T.V., a grape-vine covered veranda, and huge Turkish Carpets that Bali adores rolling all over. Since it's just the two of us, they are renting it to us for $200 U.S. a week, which seems like a steal. Hopefully some friends will come and join us, but we aren't holding our breath--we are way off the grid. The closest town is an hour away, and there isn't any bus service to the village we live near. But, more importantly, the climbing area is a five minute drive, and the entrance to the National Park is 15 minutes.
The climbing here is obviously excellent, but we are also going to work on preparing for school next year. I've got 4 new curriculum to plan for, and Erin has a revamped Psychology curriculum to contend with.
I'd post more pictures, but I'm running the internet off my mobile phone, in the middle of nowhere, Turkey. So, it takes a bit of time to upload. I'll work something out and see if I can compress the images to upload quicker.
Okay, ciao, it's time to go climb!
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