Post from Ephesus

Well, guess what! I can post down here in Ephesus! The hotel lobby has a computer and I have 4 of my 5 kids upstairs in a hot soapy bath (with Papa in charge). Our drive down was great. I am continually amazed at how good my kids are at traveling. I guess God gave me that gift knowing how much traveling we'd need to do! We left out after breakfast and started the 11 hour trip. After reaching Afyon ( a good mid-point for many journeys from Ankara) and grabbing lunch to go, we headed not west to Izmir, then south to Kudadasi. Instead, we went south-west straight to Kusadasi. Certainly at this point, all this means nothing to you. Bear with me. We turned off the road to get on this smaller road to go the south-west route. Suddenly, we were in between 2 giant mountains on a narrow, hair-pin curvy road, covered with snow and ice. Evidently, they got the same snow we got on Christmas Eve. Only those roads didn't get enough sunlight to melt it. No guard rails. Just sheer drop off. The kids LOVED it (of course, the ones not driving always do) and kept yelling, "Wahoo! Look how far down it is!" Ross could not even turn around, so on we went. I can say in my 36 years, I've never been on a trek quite like it, even when we used to drive up the mountain to Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. After an hour of creeping in 1st or 2nd gears, we ended up looking down on this sleepy little town. All shacks, all covered in snow, no electricity. I must say I felt like I was in a movie set. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Then I realized, it's Christmas Day down there. A beautiful snow-covered village in the middle of nowhere on Christmas Day, only they don't know why it's Christmas. I so wanted to take a picture, but of course it was so gray it would never have worked. I'll have to save the picture only in my mind. We arrived at our hotel around 8pm. We are enjoying our down time. I am also enjoying that 3/5 of my kids are now old enough to get their own food at the buffet! Benaiah has been held and kissed by all the staff and it is assumed we are German here. Better get back to the bath frenzy, but just had to get that post off about the village. Wish you could have seen it.