Mengen, Turkey

Posted on October 20, 2023  •  9 minutes  • 1906 words

We needed mountains and nature in a desperate way, but not a really long drive. We found an area by Mengen that had a bunch of cool places to stay and it was about an hour from a national park we wanted to check out. Our friends, Kelly, Ramsey and their 3 boys, wanted to join and as the search got underway, Kelly found a place where we could stay in hobbit houses. Sold! Friday morning, Sam, Max and I went to pick up the car and grocery shop while Ben tagged along to Dan’s lab meeting.

We were on the road by 1pm and arrived by 3pm. There was a bit concern of how forestry the place was going to be, as the landscape was pretty barren until about 30minutes before we got there. The place, Kora Aura, was so amazing! Kids loved the hobbit house and having Gandoff right outside, but the whole place was spectacular.

Play area, fire pits, open space and trees to run though. I found a hammock to rest in alone, yet still watch the kids run around, having a great time. It was too nice.

Although, all good things must come to an end, they say, right? :) Max cuddles were greatly welcomed, albeit a bit wiggly in the hammock. No falling out though.

It seemed that they were still doing work on the place, but Sam jumped at the opportunity to help water bushes they were transplanting and moving rocks from one pile to another. At one point, Max was lugging CMU blocks to a guy that was building a short wall. Dan and I just sat and watched or read. Sam was best friends with the owner within an hour. Walking around holding his hand. And he (the owner) couldn’t have been more accepting of Sam. Best buds.

We got a fire going, barely, with damp wood collected by the kids. Dan was not super thrilled with the wet wood and abundance of smoke, yet lack of heat, we seemed to be creating.

Pretty soon, I think as a guy there saw what we were doing, we got a delivery of perfect firewood. We had veggies and sausage to grill, as well as some bread that we later found out had cheese in it. Another guy came down with plates and forks for us to use…luxury!!! Delicious dinner and so fun to sit around the fire.

Our friends showed up around 7pm to join us for Turkish smores. First of all, marshmallows in this country don’t really roast the was we are used to. They kinda heat up on the outside, but don’t get gooey on the inside and then catch fire. We all decided this was due to the lack of high fructose corn syrup. God bless America for their ability to make super bad for us, but roast well, marshmallows. I didn’t find bar chocolate (to be honest, I didn’t look hard), but to make our lives one step easier, I found cookies with chocolate on the top and then just chocolate cookies. I opted out from the high fructose corn syrup free marshmallows and stuck to cookies and beer.

It was late and time for kid bedtime/adult wine and fire time. Kids down and we transferred the fire into a small portable fire pit that we could bring close to our rooms incase a kid woke up. Turns out we weren’t allowed to bring the fire by the hobbit houses, so we then carried it back down. :)

Ready to enjoy fire time with wine, but first had to use screws, not a corkscrew, to open our wine bottles as we forgot and the place didn’t have one. Kelly and I chilled and the men went to work with Dan remembering he had a screw driver in his backpack from work! It could have been worse, but we were happily sipping within 10 minutes.

Sitting by a fire, having adult conversations while kids sleep is maybe one of my favorite things. It felt so good to have a family to do a weekend trip with and enjoy nature smells and crisp air.

We were treated to a really nice kahvalti in the morning. Such a bonus to have breakfast included and you don’t have to go out finding food first thing. Only issue was we were up at 7am and they didn’t serve until 9:30am. Kids had each other to play with and we all managed. They all just did what they do best; explore and find stuff.

I joked that we look like we run a camp for troubled young boys, as they are all running around like crazy and there are so many of them. 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, & 8yo boys!!!

They were going to camp the next night, but we all headed out together to Suguksu National Park; a park know for fall foliage and lakes. The plan was to go in through the north entrance, but we missed a turn and realized it too late. No worries, always up for an adventure…and adventure it turned out to be. Meandering through teeny towns, listening to a local talk to us in Turkish where I caught every 20th word, waiting for a cow to move or sheep to get off the road and really crappy dirt roads. We all kind of loved the adventure of it, but were ready to be there.

We finally met back up with a main road, just to deal with zigzagging around downed trees as they were excavating and removing trees for maybe expanding the road.

Right at the crest of a pass where you could look down giant valleys both ways, we hopped out for view and street side corn and a jar of local honey.

Couldn’t stay long as there was a sleeping kid in the other car. Back in the car and the kids managed to not make a mess with the corn, which was a huge hit. Always a hit with Sam, but the 2 others were stoked too.

It started to get really crowded, like Yosemite summer levels, but with not as much space. When we got to the lakes, it was a constant stream of cars, cars kinda parked on the side, people walking on the road in both directions and a loud speaker announcing license plate numbers of cars that were parked illegally. It was actually kinda terrible. Nature gets a bit ruined when there are that many cars and people. We found a place to park, finally, and then walked back to a lake to have a quick sandwich.

Kelly and family continued just a bit up to where they wanted to camp to steak out a place. To be honest, the lake was pretty subpar. I know I have been spoiled with all the nature I have seen, but even so, not awesome. Kids didn’t care as usual, just so happy to be in nature.

We drove ahead looking for them and I realized it might be a bit harder than expected with ALL the people. A minute later Ben goes ‘there they are!’ We parked and walked up to where they were going to camp. Kids were in heaven with friends and sticks and rocks and Ramsey and I started setting up the tent.

Not going to lie, I think it was a good thing we were there. I love the puzzle of setting up tents…it’s NEVER straight forward…and this one took it to a new level. You had to set up the full, giant shell first and then you constructed the inside after. I guess if it’s raining this makes sense, but it was confusing…but fun.

They were by a lake and once the tent was up, we took a stroll around the lake.

It was kinda boggy, but made for really cool mushrooms hunting. Pretty sure we found a 100% poisonous one. It almost looked cartoonish.

Seriously, so many mushrooms/fungi of all sorts! Just a few of what we saw…

And Sam insisted we document this worm thing.

We took our time, but wanted to get back to the hobbit place for dinner at a reasonable time. We said goodbye after letting the kids have a little more friend play time. It was such a trek to get to where we were, I couldn’t mentally turn around and drive 2hrs back that way…assuming the traffic would be terrible. Dan was a bit concerned that with out dodgy our drive was, the more windy less traveled other entrance might not be passable. I wanted to try. It was a beautiful drive!

No cars and the road meandered along next to the river with so many places we would have loved to have stopped. Almost too few cars that we were worried it wasn’t a through road…and it almost wasn’t. The road was all dirt and had a detour where a bridge was out, but we made it. As we pulled in, the owner was on his ATV with his son and held his arms out to pick have a kid handed to him. They are so unsafe, but I was very hopeful he’d be overly cautious. We wanted to take all 3 (plus his son) but my mom safety alarm was one kid at a time so they were actually on a seat, not the side/back rack. Sam went first and then Ben.

They loved it and Max cried because he couldn’t go. It’s tough being the little guy, but he survived.

Yummy dinner at our place of kofta and salads, that Sam literally shoveled into his mouth.

Some Harry Potter reading and an early bedtime.

Lazy morning of sipping chai in the hobbit house, between the kids playing outside until breakfast.

Such a spread and a tradition we were really loving about Turkey. Giant breakfast and lots of chai.

Kids ate pretty fast so they could go out and play.

Max took a last few bites with him outside and was trying to keep it from the puppy.

Our table had a view of where they were (part of the time) and we sat and sat and sat. We didn’t want to leave, but finally at noon we packed up with the goal of finding a nice place along the river to play. The first place we tried, it looked like someone was living there and looking at the map, we really didn’t see a better place. We decided to find a restaurant up in the mountains a little higher that was outside. It had had a playground and swings for the kids, as well as chickens, cats and dogs. AND we saw our first turkey in Turkey! (not pictured)

We continued our sitting and drinking coffee and tea as the kids played…for over an hour. The only time we had to interfere was when they were starting to make a dam in the small canal.

We decided to stay for lunch, thinking it was a good idea as we saw good food continuously being brought out to other tables. Soups, fish and meat.

Everyone was happy.

Finally finished up and headed back. Lots of Harry Potter reading with some yelling at kids for poking and laying on each other. My back was killing me and with kids that were just being butts, I needed to get home faster than the 2hrs drive.