Cappadocia

 The Cappadocia region is shown on the map in the previous post.  

 We arrived in Göreme by bus after dark and walked up to our hotel which was less than a kilometer.  The town is old and buildings are mostly built with rocks. But it was uphill on a narrow road paved with stones.  The picture isn’t great, but it gives you an idea of neighborhood.  We’d find out that most of this hill was ‘cave hotels’ built in old houses and even in the strange rock formations that the area is famous for.  

I used the word ‘old’ just now.  Let’s clarify that.

‘Göreme is a unique town located in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. It is known for its fairy chimneys, rock-cut churches, and cave dwellings. The town’s history goes back to ancient times when the Hittites were the first to inhabit the area. Later, Göreme became an important center of Christianity, and many churches were carved out of the soft volcanic tuff rock. In the 4th century, Göreme became a monastic settlement for hermits who lived in the caves and practiced asceticism.”

What does “ancient times” mean? 

The Hittite Empire was an ancient civilization in Anatolia from the late 17th century BC to the end of the 12th century BC. The Hittites provided significant examples of stone masonry. Stone reliefs are commonly found on monumental structures, such as city walls and gates. If you read that paragraph and pulled 4th century out to determine ‘old’, that’s perfectly reasonable.  But go back to “ancient times when the Hittites were the first . . .” (From a Koç University site)

Our hunger got us back down that street to a looking for a place to eat.  The photo isn’t too clear, but under ZUKRA it says “Pasta & Bliss.”

In Turkish, pasta means cake.  But it was in English and it sure looks like pasta on the plate.  I asked J, “Does it mean pasta in English or Turkish?  Looks like English.”  And it was a pasta place, but I was hoping to have lentil soup, which is delicious in Turkey.  I asked the young lady if they had soup.  She said no, but to wait a second.  

She came back and said her mother would make me soup.  So we had dinner there.  The whole family worked there - mom, dad, and the two adult kids.  And no, it wasn’t lentil soup, but it was a delicious tomato based pasta soup.  

The next morning at 5:55am I was supposed to be ready for a balloon ride.  Cappadocia is known for balloons.  I’d decided that everyone should probably ride a balloon at least once and that Cappadocia was one of the best places to do that.  J didn’t agree with the first

They said there were 160 balloons aloft.  It was magical. I bonded with a French Canadian couple as we lifted up in morning twilight.  

It was chilly - about 35˚F (1.6˚C).  Colder than it was that day in Anchorage.  I had several layers on, and fortunately I was relatively close to the propane burner.

Soon we were up and drifting over the many rock formations that Cappadocia is famous for.

The ride was just under an hour and I got back in time for the hotel’s buffet breakfast that comes with the room.  Maybe I’ll do a post on the breakfasts.

Then we were picked up for the ‘Red Tour”.  The next day we did the “Green Tour”.  Cappadocia’s tourist industry is highly organized.  One tour goes to the north, the other to the south.  Big white VW busses (not vans, but busses that hold 20 people or so) come up the narrow streets picking up their passengers from their hotels.  Where we were the street was very narrow and one way, and if a passenger wasn’t out waiting and the guide had to go looking for them, it would lead to seven or more vehicles blocked.

I’m running out of steam here, so I’m going to focus just on the rock formations parts of the tours and combine the two.  I wanted the people in this picture so you’d get a sense of the size of these formations.  People, over the millennia, have carved out spaces inside the formations and lived in them, had churches in them.  

“Geologically, Cappadocia is an ancient region that has been shaped by millions of years of geological activity, including volcanic eruptions, tectonic movements, and erosion. The landscape is characterized by soft, easily erodible volcanic tuff, which has been sculpted into a variety of shapes by the forces of wind and water.

Over the centuries, humans have also played a role in shaping the landscape of Cappadocia. The region has a rich history of human settlement, dating back to the Hittites in the 2nd millennium BCE, and later occupied by the Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. The people of Cappadocia have also left their mark on the landscape, carving homes, churches, and other structures into the soft volcanic rock.” (From Geology Science)

 

One last very memorable visit on the tour was the Nevşehir Kaymaklı Underground City.  This is a city build underground - eight stories underground.  I couldn’t figure out how to take good pictures - I had to keep up with the folks in our tour.  But you can go to the link to learn more.  The public is only allowed to go down four levels.

Besides narrow passageways with low ceilings, there are bigger spaces for sleeping, kitchen areas, and ‘living rooms.’  People lived in these underground cities when they were in danger from enemy armies.  They were down there up to several weeks at a time.  For those wondering, they also had a ventilation system, which was pointed out, but not explained.  

I’d note the first day tour included people from Germany, Italy, Japan, London (originally from Hong Kong), Palestine, and Turkey.  We were the only Alaskans, and the only people from the US.  As we stopped at different places we got to talk to all the folks.  The next day it was just us and three women from Brazil who we got to know fairly well.  The guides were excellent.  

We’re back in Istanbul, exploring this amazing city.  I’m looking at Istanbul itself as a museum.  We’re learning how to use all the public transportation - which includes busses, trams (on tracks), ferries, a subway, and a furnicular.  I may have missed something.  We’ve figured out how to use and refill our Istanbul Card - which you tap to use the various forms of transportation.  And we’re eating well.  

I’m going to post this now and I’ll proof it again tomorrow and make any necessary edits.  

Rewind - Grandkids Were In Town

 I've got six post started from the press club.  My SF grandkids and their parents were here last week.  The world social, political, legal, and economic foundations are being multiple times daily by the current US president.  

With the press club posts, I took notes here (on Blogspot), but it didn't seem right to just post notes, yet there were so many panels that I didn't really have time to do the panelists or my readers right, so they are just dangling there as 'drafts.'  

While most Anchorage bowl snow was gone when the grandkids arrived, we did find some puddles sealed in sheets of ice, which they had a great time breaking and then holding large pieces.  They also liked bouncing sticks off of a still mostly frozen Goose Lake on bike ride to Goose Lake. Then on along 

Northern Lights, the back of APU, and home.  I knew my grandson would be fine - because he and I did a long bike ride in SF last year.  But my granddaughter was also a champ.  I'd warned them there might be some snow still on the trail, but by it was all gone, which disappointed my grandson.  But he found dirt path that went off into the woods and still had some snow.  And off he went.  (He's 10 and she's 8.)

We also made it to the bead shop in the Golden Donut mall at Lake Otis and Tutor.  There are all kinds of beads and other string able objects like porcupine quills.

At the west end of the mall is the Stars of Alaska Rock Shop.  I'd put it on the list of places to take visitors to Anchorage.  

It's a crazy crowded shop full of, rocks, of course, but also fossils, and amazing things.  

How about a mosasaurus skull.  Actually, I don't think that was for sale.

Owner Martin Warfield was unpacking a new shipment of Amonites - 'an extinct cephalopod mollusk' - that lived 280 million years ago.

Here's a closer look at a half of one.  

  Another big hit was Bosco's, Anchorage's really good comic, games, sports cards, etc. shop.  As was Title Wave used book store.  

And Wild Scoops Ice Cream shop.  

  

And a hike at McHugh Creek.

We saw the eagle on our hike.  

So that's some of what's been going on.  Other silly problems, like not having a port in my newish (late last summer) MacBook Air for my SD card from my telephoto lens.  Which I corrected today.  But that's why I never got up a picture of the April 5 Anchorage demonstration against the Trump administration.  But now that I have the card reader, I may put some up.  It was crowded.  

And I'm still working with my 3rd grader every day as a volunteer at my local elementary school.  He's doing well.  And I've got 200 km on my bike since we got back in March.  So I'm keeping busy.  

Seventy Nine

"79 is a prime number... 79 has 2 factors, 1 and 79. It's the 22nd prime number . . ." from Prime Number fandom

ELIE WIESEL

I have lived here for some twenty years, more than anywhere in the world, and yet I have devoted only a few pages to New York in The Accident and one chapter in The Gates of the Forest. Why? Because I have not yet exhausted my childhood. Words grow, age, die, and I am still interested in that metamorphosis. And the words that I use are still those that relate to my childhood.  Elie Wiesel, The Art of Fiction No. 79

Encyclopedia Britanica

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

"Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

But now my gracious numbers are decayed,

And my sick muse doth give another place.

I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent

He robs thee of and pays it thee again.

He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word

From thy behavior; beauty doth he give

And found it in thy cheek. He can afford

No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.

 Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

 Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay."

Sonnet 79 

79 MILES = 127.138 KILOMETERS

People born in 1879:

Albert Einstein

Leon Trotsky  

E. M. Forster

Paul Klee

Edward Steichen

Will Rogers

Wallace Stevens

"In 2013, there were 79 death sentences handed down across 15 states. At the time, that was the second-lowest number of condemnations since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976." Alabama Reflector

Vesuvius

"In autumn of 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius violently spewed forth a cloud of super-heated tephra and gases to a height of 33 km (21 mi), ejecting molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash at 1.5 million tons per second, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[5][6] The event gives its name to the Vesuvian type of volcanic eruption, characterised by columns of hot gases and ash reaching the stratosphere, although the event also included pyroclastic flows associated with Pelean eruptions.

The event destroyed several Roman towns and settlements in the area. Pompeii and Herculaneum, obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits, are the most famous examples.[4][5] Archaeological excavations have revealed much of the towns and the lives of the inhabitants leading to the area becoming the Vesuvius National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site." Wikipedia

"Rule 79. Records Kept by the Clerk

Primary tabs

(a) Civil Docket.

(1) In General. The clerk must keep a record known as the “civil docket” in the form and manner prescribed by the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts with the approval of the Judicial Conference of the United States. The clerk must enter each civil action in the docket. Actions must be assigned consecutive file numbers, which must be noted in the docket where the first entry of the action is made."  The rest is here. 

Psalm 79

A psalm of Asaph.

1 O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance;

    they have defiled your holy temple,

    they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.

2 They have left the dead bodies of your servants

    as food for the birds of the sky,

    the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild.

3 They have poured out blood like water

    all around Jerusalem,

    and there is no one to bury the dead.

4 We are objects of contempt to our neighbors,

    of scorn and derision to those around us.

5 How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever?

    How long will your jealousy burn like fire?

6 Pour out your wrath on the nations

    that do not acknowledge you,

on the kingdoms

    that do not call on your name;

7 for they have devoured Jacob

    and devastated his homeland.

8 Do not hold against us the sins of past generations;

    may your mercy come quickly to meet us,

    for we are in desperate need.

9 Help us, God our Savior,

    for the glory of your name;

deliver us and forgive our sins

    for your name’s sake.

10 Why should the nations say,

    “Where is their God?”

Before our eyes, make known among the nations

    that you avenge the outpoured blood of your servants.

11 May the groans of the prisoners come before you;

    with your strong arm preserve those condemned to die.

12 Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times

    the contempt they have hurled at you, Lord.

13 Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture,

    will praise you forever;

from generation to generation

    we will proclaim your praise. From Biblegateway

"79. After 45 years of travelling and teaching, the Buddha had reached his eightieth year. Although his mind was strong, he felt that his body was getting weaker. He realised that his life was coming to an end. So he decided to go north to the foothills of the Himalayas, the region where he was born. He wished to enter the final nirvana, or freedom from suffering. On the way north, the Buddha and Ananda stopped in the Bamboo Grove Village, in the kingdom of Patali. The Buddha decided to stay there for the rainy season."  From Buddhanet

Bike Ride To Rocky Beach

 Biked over to Manitou Beach today.  

Downtown Seattle in the distance

Here's that picture again, cropped.  All of a sudden, all the gulls in the area took flight.  

Click on image to enlarge

Saturday Trip To Portage

 

Our first stop was Bird Point, to get a little beach time.  The weather was cooperative and I found I nice big flat rock to get a short nap in.

xxx

View from my rock.

Some lichen friends were enjoying the sun too on a nearby rock.

And the trail was full of pink clover and white yarrow.

There's a trail that goes along much of the road going to Portage Glacier. Here's the map.

The trail has different kinds of vegetation along the way.

Where we started, we were on the edge of a lake and there was a hanging glacier up on the rocks.  This used to be a key view point before they put the trail in fairly recently.

Here's a quiet stream with a rock garden above it.  The plant world just needs water to get a foothold, even on this vertical rock wall.

And this part of the trail has spruce trees hanging with moss.

A picnic table along the trail.

  

A faster running creek with mossy edges.

While I am a graffiti fan, this is not a place where human efforts add to the beauty.  

The angle of these grass seeds far outshines the paint on the rock.

Then we drove the little bit more to see what Portage Lake looked like that day.  

When we got to Alaska nearly 50 years ago, the glacier extended well into the lake and there were always house sized icebergs floating in the lake.  But it's been quite a few years since the glacier retreated out of the lake and back up into the mountain.  

But there was a 'tiny' iceberg floating on the other side of the lake.  I say tiny because way over there it doesn't look that big.  And compared to the old icebergs we used to see, it's pretty small.  But you can also gauge it against the snow poles on the road in the background.  They're there to help drivers see the road when the snow gets really deep.  I'm guessing they're about 15 feet high and the iceberg appears to be longer than the poles.  

Any day you get out of the house and leave your screens behind for the natural treats of Alaska is a great day, and it was.  

Beach Walk on Rainy, Cloudy, Rainy, Briefly Sunny Anchorage Day

Had a morning meeting at Kincaid Kaladi Brothers.  Healing Racism in Anchorage is finally ready to come out of hibernation.  (That means the three of us who have been waiting for a time when we were surfacing from deep commitment dives are all now back on the surface and ready to reach our for more members to make this a working organization again.)

Clouds were threatening and so I didn't ride my bike, like yesterday when I got soaked (enjoyably) coming home from another meeting.  And since I was close, I drove to Kincaid Chalet and walked down the path through the gnarly birch trees and and the yellow devils club.  (Not a typical Anchorage landscape.)





Then off the paved path, along a dirt path and finally to a path down to Anchorage's main salt water beach.

Looking south.

Looking north.

Lots of great garden rocks, but no way to get them back to the garden.  

And a good patch of mostly sand

Here's looking out to the lowering tide and the water.  Fire Island is in the distance on the right.  The resolution on this picture is too low to see the windmills on the island, the only sign of humans (other than the footprints) as you walk along here.

Come mid September and one is reminded to get out into the natural wonders all around here beyond the bike trails in town.  This beach is still in town, and I need to overcome my anti-driving bias and get out of town while the weather is still relatively warm and the roads ice-free.