Back in the U.S. of A.

What a relief!! I'm back in the wonderful USA! It was the most amazing trip ever and I wouldn't change anything about it but it sure was nice to get back on American soil. Here's the order of locations from the trip.

While in Turkey: Istanbul-->Cappadoccia-->Selcuk / Ephesus / Pamukkale / Izmir
While in Greece: Samos-->Mykonos-->Santorini-->Athens

This is my favorite shot from the hot air balloon ride the we took in Cappadoccia, Turkey. It was such an amazing sunrise from the sky.

Cappadoccia was by far my favorite location of the entire trip. The land was amazing, the people were so kind, and the food was to die for. Everything about Cappadoccia was well worth the extra lira to get there. We hiked through the Red Valley and various other places. I managed to keep my calories burned while treking through the lands.

This picture was taken in Pamukkale, Turkey at the Calcium Springs. It looks like snow but that's acutally blinding, white calcium.
I had no idea that there was a place like this on God's green Earth. It truly was a mountain formed of calcuim with so many levels and wading pools. The calcium actually starts as a gel and over a short time in the air and sun, it begins to harden and form the hard stuff that you see here in the picture. We started our barefooted hike at the top of the mountain and went down to the middle. Then of course we had to hike back up, which got very hard on the feet, but was well worth the journey.

Now it wouldn't be a trip to Santorini, Greece without a donkey ride up an amazingly steep mountain!

This donkey ride was taken just after we hiked up the Volcano that formed the island of Santorini. I actually stood in the largest volcano crater in the world! It was hard to wrap my head around because it didn't seem that large while we were in it. However, when I actually saw the crater from the top of another mountain nearby; it was absolutely huge!!