We started our day with the hotel’s excellent breakfast buffet on the deck. Millie did us proud and ate SO much: eggs, cereal, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, halva, yogurt, watermelon, apricots, and some of the random fries they placed on our table for some reason.

She’s been eating a ton in the last week, and in a great mood. It feels like maybe our bad week(s) of meltdowns were some sort of developmental growth spurt. These are the types of nuanced things I wouldn’t notice in our regular life. I haven’t felt this in sync with her since she was a newborn, when I noticed every tiny new thing about her. The benefit of spending 24/7 together.

After breakfast we got in the car and drove to the Goreme Open Air museum, which allows you to explore a village of the old settlements that were carved into the side of mountains. We walked around and looked in each one. They were mostly churches and some refectories. As with all ruins, it was fun to imagine them in use.

Since it was Friday we promised a stop at the ice cream stand on the way out. This was probably a mistake since she asked for us to be done the WHOLE time we were there.

Before we left, Millie needed to use the bathroom and we had a big milestone of the trip: first hole in the ground toilet. She did okay, considering.

We washed our hands really well and then it was time for ice cream. The ice cream guy did typical Turkish ice cream guy tricks (google it for videos) and Millie absolutely loved it. She was shrieking and giggling every time he did a new move.

Turkish style ice cream is very very good. I’m not sure what we had at the baklava place but this is different. It’s extremely smooth and thick and stretchy. Nick and I both predict an explosion in the US in coming years of Dondurma.

As we left the museum at about Noon we could feel the heat of the day really starting to be oppressive. Millie wanted to head back to the hotel but we both wanted to do one more stop: hike Rose Valley.

We mapped to it and faced the common experience of not knowing if Google was taking us to where we want to be, or to our death. At one point it literally took us to the cliff side of the valley and we had to turn around.

Eventually we got to what we hoped was the trailhead. There were no signs. We were the only ones there except for some other foreigners doing a very elaborate photo shoot.

We started on the trail and ducked into every area that looked like it might have something interesting behind it. We found nature-made caves and man-made caves.

It was HOT and Millie had had enough. Last night’s late night started catching up with her. Nick impressively carried her for a lot of it.

We found a large set of carvings and decided to climb up into them.

Through a small nondescript opening we were greeted with the best set of interconnected rooms that we had seen all day, including in the open air museum. Being there all alone with no signs made it feel like we were the ones to discover it. It was mind blowing.

I had wanted to turn around since the moment Google tried to kill us, but Nick soldiered on. For the 1794th time in my life I learned the lesson that letting him drag us to things will be worth it. Though annoying at times, my life would be half as rich without his persistence. I tried to explain the lesson to Millie. Someday it will sink in.

We climbed down and headed back to the car to fulfill a promise we had made: an afternoon swim in the hotel pool. After the swim, we played a bit inside the room to avoid the afternoon heat, but grew very hungry.

It was too early (4:45) for most good dinner places so we found ourselves on a casual rooftop playing with playmobil pieces and eating falafel wraps and pizza.

When we were done eating it was still too early to go to bed and too hot to do much else, so we headed back to the hotel and had a non-Sunday movie night (Raya and the last Dragon).