An Up And Down Day

I think I went over five passes today: three at 1800 meters and two at 1900 meters!  The valleys between them were spectacular, with both lava flows and eroded sediment strata visible at various points. My new friend Liz would have made her husband Jon stop the car about every 20 kilometers to photograph and exclaim over the rock formations. 

Although the countryside is getting drier the further east I ride, there is still a lot of farming. In the bottomlands where there is water there are orchards and vegetable crops, and up in the hills there are fields of grain, still green, very pretty. At one point, the road ran between fields of green, with low brown hills way off to either side. The green fields and the road met an impossibly blue sky, with a few fluffy white clouds to emphasize the deep blue. I, of course, thought I had miles of such beauty to go, but then I crested a low rise and the land fell away in front of me to a deep valley. General George Armstrong Custer must have felt that same sense of surprise there by the Little Bighorn. Maybe more, because the valley in front of him had a lot of angry Indians in it. 

Besides up and down, the day was hot and windy, with flags straight out and snapping. If I were a Coast Guard Academy grad I could tell you how fast the wind was blowing from that fact plus one other-the size of the flag. It was windy enough to push the moto around. 

The heat also was a factor. Large parts of the road today were brand new asphalt, as pretty as a baby's smile, and as smooth as the baby's bottom. The rest was chipseal, and not all in good shape. In some places the tar and oil were melting/melted, and were on the surface, and slickery. Woo!  I'm still breaking in those new tires, and we slipped around a few times. 

I made it 267 miles to Malatya, where I have found a hotel. The first one I tried wasn't finished (and had a looooong way to go), the second was full (or maybe they smelled me), and the third one was just right. And I will leave you with a photo taken just before I left the Fairy Chimney Inn. I was sad to go, but excited to be on the road again.