Today is for Fırat Taydaş – Happy birthday!

Fırat works at Starbucks in Seattle with my good friend Tim Waters. Happy birthday Fırat! By the way Fırat, two weeks ago today I reached the river that bears your name (Fırat Nehir = Euphrates River). Another "by the way" — this is a photo of the...

Istanbul Toastmasters meeting Wednesday, 20 February

I’ll be attending the Istanbul Toastmasters meeting the evening of Wednesday, 20 February. If you are in Istanbul on Wednesday evening, come to the meeting. You don’t have to be a member of the club. The meetings start promptly at 7:30pm. I dropped in on...

In Istanbul next week

I’ll be in Istanbul next week. I am planning to arrive in Istanbul sometime on Sunday, 17 February, and leave for Urfa sometime around Saturday, 23 February, to bang out the final 1/3 of the walk. If you are in Istanbul next week and are free to meet up, give me...

AOL travel website covers the walk

Gadling, an AOL travel website, covers the walk. The Outside article appeared in September, shortly after the walk started. Gadling decided to wait and see what happened. When I hit the 68% mark, they decided they could pull the trigger. I like those little “OK,...

A tweet from one of my heroes

Chris Guillebeau, of Art of Non-Conformity fame, tweeted today about my walk across Turkey. I know, calling Chris Guillebeau one of my heroes makes me a total dork, but I’m proud of my dorkness!

Taking a week off to start work on the book

I am taking the week off in Kahramanmaraş to begin work on the book. After walking 68% of the country I need to put pen to paper a bit before I can go on. I’ll be posting photos and other updates to the blog during the week, but with a much-reduced frequency,...

Saying goodbye

Most of the buses today had at least one passenger who was leaving for his military service. These are some people saying goodbye to someone on mine.

Parties at the bus stations

In Turkey military service is mandatory for males. Four times a year the service begins, and on those days the bus stations are overrun with friends and extended family members saying goodbye to their young men. This is a family dancing around to say goodbye to one of...

And Urfa makes 68%

I took this shot while walking into Urfa. I saw the police roadblock and suspected that when I got closer I’d need to deal with that, and should get the photo taken quick.

Today is for Lara Trepanier

Lara is a friend of mine from Seattle. We both worked in the Retail Operations department at Eddie Bauer.

This is what TV stars do in their spare time

Polat is the name of a lead character in the popular Turkish TV series Kurtlar Vadisi (Valley of the Wolves). When he’s not chasing after the bad guys Polat is running a rural gasoline station between Gaziantep and Urfa.

Today is for Thomas and Sara

Thomas and Sara are a couple fellow travelers. This morning they made sure I got up and started walking on time. They also made sure I started out having eaten breakfast. Thanks for the mother henning, Thomas and Sara, much appreciated!

Why ask questions when you already know the answer?

A couple weeks ago a friend asked me why I was asking her a question if I already knew the answer. The other day I stopped for water and a mid-morning snack at a gasoline station on the descent to the Euphrates. I said hello to Mehmet, the station’s attendant....

A farming geek photo

Hi Dad, never mind the phone line cutting through this photo — I was too lazy to walk the additional 30 feet to get on the other side. This scene caught my eye because they were planting crops in long, narrow blocks, and it reminded me of when we were looking at...

Çare Sarıgül

"Çare" means hope, and "sarıgül" means yellow rose. For months I saw this grafitti and thought a lovesick man obsessed with a woman named Sarıgül had criss-crossed the country, spraying this grafitti on bridges, roads, and the backs of street...

Breakfast in the cradle of civilization

I ate yesterday’s breakfast on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river, so I was between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Making it a breakfast eaten in the cradle of civilization.