3rd Day - Tennessee, Kentucky

While we were driving towards Nashville and as the time approaches midnight we checked in at a motel which was 40 miles away from the city. One of the place that we wanted to visit in Tennessee was Jack Daniel's (JD) distilleries. We had to drive one hour back in the opposite direction the next day because we have missed the exact location of JD the previous night. JD was interesting place, during the tour the guide allowed us to smell whiskey which literally let our brain float for few minutes. During the tour there were some interesting facts shared about JD and one thing which really surprised me was that the Distillery is super simple. Also do you know that the place where JD is located is Dry County. :)

Since we had to do some catch for the 2 hours that was already lost, we did not to stop at Nashville city and decided to camp when we neared the sunset. We also had a plan to cross Indiana state, so we had to take slightly off route than what was initially planned and luckily we were able to find a good camping spot at "James Auduban" state park, KY. This state park was just off the highway and it's easily accessible and also power plug and water supply provided at your camp site. This park also has Cabin's, Golf Course and Museum though we didn't had a chance to check them out I would recommend to stay at Cabin if you happen to be in that place.

After 3 hours of good sleep I couldn't sleep anymore for some reason, so i used that time to plan for next few days trip including camping plan in Yellow Stone(YS) . I am so excited about YS and can’t wait to see Bison's, Deer's, Elk's and hopefully some Bear as well.

Few pictures from day 3,

Stay tuned for more news from St Louis on my next post.

Foliage trip to Maine

More than 1500 miles over 20 hours of drive,

More than 1800 photo’s over 6GB,

More than 10 varieties of apple picking,

First time visit to a desert

As always do, this trip was one of the unforgettable one and now I let the pictures speak instead of my usual mokai…

Florida..

It was a much needed break for me, though I didn’t work hard in past few months. Neither we didn’t plan well nor we didn’t stick with a single plan, but still it was a good trip with most of the plans executed.

We planned to go to Keywest(KW) on Saturday and go for Jet Ski, Scuba diving and Snorkeling. As per the plan we started early on that day and the climate didn’t look feasible for these activities. But we had to go since we don’t have any other Plan except sleeping in the room (Plan B) which nobody was interested in. Once we reach KW we had lunch and it’s stopped raining and we found an agent who helped us to get the Jet Ski and boat for snorkeling which was ok for rest of the day. Jet Ski is one my top favorite activity which I wanted to do it again and again, after the ski we went to snorkeling and on the way back to sore we have seen a nice cloudy sunset. We were lucky that it didn’t rain in the afternoon, after the sunset we were heading towards Miami where Kamal was waiting for us. We managed to reach there by midnight and did spend an hour before we sleep and for the next day morning we went to Everglades Alligators National Park with Kamal’s family. We did see a few Alligators but we were disappointed that we could only see the trained ones. Everybody has enjoyed the Air boat ride which they used to go around the park and it was fun. We really didn’t have any plans for the evening so we decided to go to Naples Beach which is famous for its sunset which is four hours drive from the place where we had lunch. Kamal’s family had to go for shopping and going back to home, and as per the plan we had to go back to his home to spend the next day in his area. While we drove to Naples we took a “Loop road“for some trailing and hiking activities, it was mud road for 15 miles and it took around 3 hours to cross that 15 miles in car. We reached to Naples on time for sunset but again we couldn’t see a nice sunset because of the cloud. Sometimes cloudy sunsets will be so beautiful than the plain sky but on that day it was not good. We had to drive back to Stuart which is 4 hours drive from Naples. We reached around 12 and the next day morning we went for a short ride to the local beaches in Ford Mustang (convertible). It’s a good sports car and it’s not fit for more than 2 persons and I was wondering why they have the back seat when even the kid cannot sit comportably. We returned home at 11 and had superb breakfast with some new combinations like Pongal with Chicken Gurma. Just try this combination it’s delicious. We had to have some space in our stomach to have lunch so we went beaches and spent an hour to digest the heavy breakfast that we had in the morning. We did go for fishing but we didn’t have any luck and we were back home by 2.30 and had wonderful lunch with chicken, mutton, egg and with home made curd. Since my flight was at 6.50 and the airport is 2 hours away from his place we had to rush and luckily we didn’t get any ticket this time and I was on time for the flight. It was wonderful trip and I felt that I have been into my home for a vacation.

Most Expensive trip

Last weekend I went to Las Vegas and there were lot’s of things happened to me, which I will never forgot. It’s started from the top of the world. After I landed in LV we went to the stratosphere casino which is the second tallest tower in US. There were three thriller rides in the top of the tower and it’s really top of the world. For few seconds I felt that I have lost the Gravitational force and it scared me so much, Wow it’s one kind of experience. looking at LV skyline from a tower which has more than 100 floors is one more experience which we won’t get too often.

Next day we drove to Los Angeles and last time when I went there I didn’t see any place except Universal studios. So this time we have decided to visit some of the local places in LA. There is a place called Griffith Observatory from where we supposed to see a good skyline of LA along with the Pacific Ocean. But because of the dust and polluted air in LA we couldn’t see a clear skyline itself and there was no sign of pacific ocean. Then we went to chinatown to have a traditional Chinese food. The china town looks nice and people were preparing for the Independence Day celebration. We had a good food Chinese food and went to the Head of Cinema World cinema Hollywood where we have seen Kodak theater ( place where the Oscars happens) , Grauman’s Chinese theater, Hollywood walk of Fame, and Hollywood bowl. It was nice experience to walk on the walk of fame and we took a photo’s with people who dressed like famous movie stars. Then we went to Beverly Hills where most of the cine field artists own home. Before we leave LA decided to visit MJ’s final rented home and we could get the address and after a too many searches we found and went there too. There were lots of people waiting outside of that house and keeping the flours in the corner of the house.

We have returned to LV on the same day night. Next day morning there was an exiting thing which happened in our life. We went to Skydiving in Vegas which was from 3 mile elevation and the free fall for 20 to 30 seconds was awesome. There are few things which you can’t express instead you have to feel it. It’s one kind of that experience and fall after the parachute was opened was like a breeze after a heavy cyclone. :) The trainer gave the control of the parachute to me and it’s was very easy to ride except the landing. Landing scared me little bit but the trainer landed perfectly. After that we went to casino's and played few games and went to room to take rest (to get ready to play the game during that night). It’s 8’O clock we were heading toward casino’s and it took almost 30 minutes to get the parking place and finally we got it. It was crowded everywhere to watch the fire works but we were only interested in playing the game so we didn’t care about the fire works. We were completely into the game and we were playing in same place for more than 6 hours and finally we decided to leave after loosing all our money. When we came out the casino the sun was so bright and when I looked at the watch it’s 6’O clock.. OMG, we have played more than 10 hours, we entered into casino when the sun was set and we left the casino only after the sun rise. This is what most people do in Las Vegas and I am happy that I have had very good time except that I have lost so much in the casino.. Don’t ask me how much I have lost .. :)

This trip was one of the expensive trip and there were lot's of things to remember..

Smokey Mountain Trip..

I was completely busy in this month travelling to few places and Smokey Mountain trip was one of the best and I have lot’s reason to remember this trip for long time. First of all I was meeting our "US DONZ" guys and its always good feeling to be with them whatever you do or wherever you do. And that too when you are in a mountain it brought me back the Ooty memories that we had in our college days. We have planned this trip few months back and we had to do little bit change in our implementation.

The plan was to get together in Charlotte, NC on Friday night and start towards Smokey Mountain and do the camping till Monday. Unfortunately one of us couldn’t make it on Friday night and he reached there only by Saturday morning. So we had to take a room in Charlotte which was in Holiday inn, near to Airport and we could see the flight landings very closely. The guy who supposed to come in the morning reached on time and we started towards the mountain and went for river-rafting which we booked for 3’O clock and we did on time too. The experience was great not because of just rafting for the first time, it’s because of the fun and few new things that we tried which was very well supported by the crew person and he was enjoyed well as well. At one point of time he asked us to jump out of the boat and swim and all the sudden all of us jumped and within a minute the crew person also jumped and he said this is the first time in this season he is jumping out of the boat and it’s all because how we enjoyed ourselves.  

 

I forgot to mention the other change in the plan, its change in camping ground and go for some cabin (Similar to Resort) because of the weather. Thank god last minute my friend has booked the cabin, if at all if we decided to go for camping then the whole plan could have been screwed since it was raining on those three days. We never expected that the cabin will have all the facilities that we never expected and it’s at the top of the hill with a super mountain view from the Balcony though. Wow it's really nice place and I wish I would go once again. We made some Bar-B-Q and had lots of fun on that night. Next day morning we went to the Clingman’s Dome which is the highest point in Smokey and unfortunately we couldn’t see anything except a fog, we should have seen 4 states from that place though. Mm Bad luck, but on the way back we had some nice view and we went to 3 mile Rainbow falls hiking. It was really nice trail and i had took ton’s of photo’s. After the trail everybody was very tired and decided to head back to cabin. On the way back we went to a ride which was "Sky Scrapper" and the ride was for 3 minutes. We got the video recorded from that ride since we had the high-tech car which has two displays we played that video in car and laughing like hell after seeing our reaction from that ride. It was really really fun though.

May be I should continue this tomorrow.. I don’t want this post to get bigger and bigger… :)

A fine weekend in Boston Part 2

This is the continution of the previous post of my trip memories, Though I didn’t have any dream I got up at 7:15 itself. We had planned to visit New Hampshire but when I looked into some of the state park which is about 80 miles and the park my friend has suggested was 2 ½ hour drive. Just keeping the long journey to my place in mind we decided to just go for a park which was near to our place and visiting the Harvard and MIT and have lunch some where outside and heading back to our home town.

We were ready by 9 and her husband was feeling better than day before and said he will also join in another 15 minutes. In the mean time my friend has started preparing the breakfast which is a north Indian dish Poga (Made up with avul and all). Wow it was awesome and it was one of the best breakfast that I had in the recent times and that too with excellent Bru coffee at the end. As we planned we were starting towards Minuteman State Park which is famous for its history. The place where the first battle of freedom has started against British army. There were huge history behind that and as usual there were peoples who were explaining the story and as usual there was a show too. When I went to auditorium I was thinking why is very old and after the show I understood why. To explain what happened in 1975 April they have built it similar to that with diagrams and wooden maps and villages which depicts those old days. They have told us that in 5 miles there is small wooden bridge where the battle has started and there is a statue to remember that. We went there and took some snaps in the historical bridge and in front of that statue. 

Next we went to the great Harvard University and just roamed inside the campus, and I prayed in front of Harvard statue to give me a MBA a seat in that university. Then we went to MIT main entrance and saw the classrooms and some of the professor rooms it was really a good feeling indeed. It’s quarter after 1 and we decided to leave for lunch and it's in Hot Breads. I had Mutton Biriyani and it was not good and I was little bit hungry since I had good breakfast. Whenever I had good breakfast I used to eat more during lunch but the Biriyani was not satisfactory. Even my friend told me that only Chicken Biriyani will be good here and I thought just order mutton and see how it is. Now I agree to her and don’t eat Mutton Biriyani in HB. One more thing to notice in Boston is that, the number of Churches that you can see from a normal street. OMG, They are having Chruches everywhere like having the Pilayar Kovil in each street of chennai. After the lunch we went back to home and copied the snaps to her laptop and quickly run thru it once and prepared to leave. 

It’s 3’O clock and the two days has passed very fast and everybody was thinking that we will meet again soon and said bye to each and we left her place. I decided to go little bit fast so that i can reach home sooner but the traffic in the George Washington bridge has eaten up all the time that I had saved during my 3 hours drive and had stuck up in that bridge for more than hour and finally reached home at 9’O clock which was not bad. I felt death warm over and decided to hit the bed after I took bath. Since I had the dinner in Burger King on the way back home I have saved little bit of time and slept at 10’O clock.

Two days has gone so fast and thanks to my friend and her husband. I am expecting the next weekend sooner and the overall the trip was one of the memorable which I had in US. 

A fine weekend in Boston..

Boston is a popular city which is know by many people in the world because of it’s uniqueness in many things compare to other cities in US. For an instance Boston is the one of the very few cities which I knew before I come to US. It’s the place which was in top of my list that I wanted to visit after Miami (When I was preparing this list I didn’t know how to pronounce Miami). But it took almost 15 months to just visit Boston, and I have visited all the places which I had in my list before I go to Boston. Though I was keeping in mind that I have to visit Boston, it happened all the sudden. Yes, one of my colleague/Friend who came from India and was just asking about going to Boston and immediately I said yes. The reason for that is we are going to see our friend who we never met after her marriage and it’s been almost 3 years now. Though we didn’t go the next day we were able make it for the week after day we planned. One more person who was supposed to join us from the middle of our journey couldn’t make it because of his high priority work. If he could made it then the long drive could have been with some more extra fun, may be next time.

We started here around Friday 6’O clock in the evening as we planned and we had to make two stops to fuel our car and also to fuel ourselves with some coffee and burgers. With the help of Google maps we were able to reach there by just before 12.30 as we expected because I didn’t screw up much in the roads since the roads are pretty straight forward. As I already said it’s been 3 years since we met her and we got a warm welcome from our friend almost from the car door, what else you want from friend whom you are seeing after such long time. There were plenty of things to talk and in the mean time we had to taste the Vegi Pulao which is prepared by our friend with the help of her husband.

Now you can imagine who could have prepared that, I should be thankful to them that I had a good home made food. Don’t think that it’s just pulao, when you are away from home for more than 15 months and you didn’t even have a chance to eat a food from any family, when there’s no relative around you its sounds lot to me. Though we have travelled 6 hours we didn’t feel the tiredness and we were chatting and planning for few places to visit for the next and finally decided we will plan on the next day morning. Its 2 now, I just lied down and went into my dream world and one of it woke me up at 6.45 in the morning. After that I didn’t feel like sleeping though we have planned to start by 9 am. I have decided to take bath and its 7.30, like my own room I made my own coffee after searching for the sugar and coffee powder for few minutes. Its quarter after 9 and we decided to leave with a chit which has the list of places to visit in the Boston Downtown by leaving our friend’s husband in home since he is not well.

Parking is always a big problem when you planning to roam places inside the city and we planned to catch a T (sub way). The city is similar to Newyork with the subways all around and we started catching the T from Alewife station to go to the Downtown station. After we got down we visited our friends office State Street bank which is located in 1, Lincoln Street not in the State Street. This is 15^th tallest building in Boston Down Town. After that we took a coffee from all our favorite DD ( Dunkin Donuts). Then We were heading towards the Mass State House and it’s so special for it’s Doom. Because the doom is completely covered with 23 k Gold and you might have seen this in the Departed movie. Then we just spent some time in the park and walked across the streets and seen some of the historical buildings but couldn’t remember their names. Then we went to the Quincy Market, one of the very crowded places in Boston and as usual there are few peoples who were running some shows in front of it. We just stopped there and we couldn’t leave the show until it ends, it was quite nice though. Next we went to the Aquarium entrance and just enquired about Whale Watching though we didn’t have plan to go and it was just one trip day and it was already over for the day. Decided to have lunch in some Indian restaurant and finally ended up getting some Paneer Roll from Mumbai (mall or something) fast food in Quincy market and had it outside market. It’s nice but I couldn’t eat more than one roll. After that we went to Aquarium to watch the I-MAX 3D show and luckily it was available for the show (Under the Sea) that we wanted to see. Since one of us didn’t visit the Aquarium we planned to go there after the show is over. Before I was entering into the theater I was planning to sleep for an hour since I have seen similar couple of weeks back. But I couldn’t even blink my eyes since the show awesome and it had completely steels my sleep. I would say it’s a must watch show.

After the show was over we were heading inside the Aquarium and we were rushing and we have completed in 30 to 40 minutes since its very small. I would not suggest going to this Aquarium, if you are really interested in fishes then plan for some other aquariums. It’s 4.30 and we were heading towards The Prudential Mall by catching the Orange T. Yes in Boston unlike Newyork the trains are called by their colors and they are also having letters and numbers if they have more than one train in the same route. Nice idea to remember the routes and it seems like they are having four color’s Red, Blue, Green and Orange.

 It’s not too often you will get a chance to view the city from 50^th floor or higher than that. Yes the Prudential tower is 750ft tall with 52 floors in it and the visitors are allowed only till 50^th floor. This is the second time that I am going into the high raised building after the Empire State Building. The elevator was very fast off course you had to have it when it’s more than 50 floors. This is second tallest building in Boston and we got a superb aerial view to see the whole city. 

That too when it was not crowded and when you have prerecorded audios in a player which will help you to explore what are the famous building like MIT , Harvard and the places that you are currently seeing. You will get to know lot’s of information and if you there at night with some high resolution SLR camera you can get very nice photo’s of Boston city.

We have seen the MIT from the prudential tower which is residing in the other part of the Charles river and we decided to go to MIT next. We took the Green and Red T to go the Longfellow bridge and walking over Charless river while going to visit the MIT. It was really nice experience to walk over that bridge which was constructed around 200 years ago. It’s around 7.30 and it’s getting darker still we have two places to visit which are MIT and Harvard univ. After enquiring few people we have found one entrance of the MIT and we took some snaps in front of it and decided to head back to home. We had to catch the Red T in Kendall Square to go back to the starting point of our trip which Alewife station. The train was crowded and my friend has told me that it’s because of the people who are coming back after watching the Base ball match of their home team Red Sox.

 I forgot to mention the nice view which we watched from the prudential tower. We had a chance to see the view of Fenway Park (Base Ball ground) when it was fully packed and we were lucky to see that.

Once we get down from the Red T in Alewife station it’s started raining and it’s little heavy though. We drove back home safely by following some car in front of us. And its 9:30 and we (they) were tired to prepare food and a suggestion came from our friend’s husband who was supposed to take rest which he did only after watching the CSK’s IPL match. The suggestion is to have a Pizza from Domino’s and all are agreed to that, he went and picked up the order since the door delivery was about to get delayed because of the rain. Had Pizza and chatting and watching TV while flipping thru the channel my friend was very keen to watch a movie from one of the On Demand Channel. The movie was Ransom casted by Mel Gibson and it seems like he has nominated for the best actor award in Golden Globes. It was very  nice movie and it got over quarter after 12. Since we were tired after walking for so long we decided to hit the bed and I was expecting not to have any dreams.

When I started writing this post thought of writing the whole trip in a single post itself but now when I am looking back it’s seems like bigger one so I am going to continue the next day in tomorrow’s post.

                               

Las Vegas Trip

One of the best places I have visited in US. I had a hectic schedule of covering Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon because of that I couldn’t spend much time in Vegas even though I have stayed there for two nights. Los Angeles is a nice place to live and I really liked it but the place we went was not really worth while you are reaching there in the middle of night and stayed in a below average motel. The place we went was universal studio’s and I had a great expectation before going there but it was not that satisfactory though some of the reality shows were really good. One of my colleagues told me that the Sunset Blvd is a nice place to visit in the evening and he also said that I might see some of the actors and many of the costlier cars. But at the end we saw only BMW’s and few Benz nothing else. On Saturday night we returned to LV and it was 2.30 in the morning and we were really tired so we couldn’t make it to any casinos. Just think for a moment when you left your home key in LA which is 300 miles away your room when you are staying in front of the door at 2.30. Yes it happened and unfortunately nari didn’t have his apartment contact number. Thank god we had the laptop with us and thanks for that unsecured net connection too, we found the mobile number and the apartment guy came after 30 minutes and got 25 bucks for just opening the door. Even at that time we were not sure whether we left the key in motel or lost somewhere in the universal studios. When we called up the motel guy he said he can’t check at 2.30 and asked us to call in the morning. Luckily the key was there in the motel only but when we asked him to courier he wants us to send the pre-paid business reply envelop to courier the key.

For this courier we have spent an hour in the morning and the plan for Grand Canyon got delayed. We thought it will take only 4 hours to reach GC but it took more than 5 hours and finally we reached at 3.30. We had just 3 hours to view all the view points of the canyon and we completed it before three hours since it was looking almost same from all views. When we enquired in the visitor center they said the Sunset will be good but it was very cloudy so there was no sunset at all. Grand Canyon is the place not to see it’s a place where you have to camp for 2 or 3 days and do some hiking. But currently the climate is very cold and it’s mostly covered with snow so it’s not wise to go for camping now. We started in GC at 6.30 and reached LV around 10. There starts the good time of the trip.. Wow I was really amazed with the way the Casino’s were built and it was awesome. We spent 4 hours in few of the casinos and we were planning to go for the ride in the tallest building in LV but it was raining at that time and it screwed up everything. There was one fountain show in front of the Bellagio Casino and it was superb. I could able to capture the show in my camera too. Next day morning we got up at 10 and spend some time in the casinos before the flight departures and I have played the Black Jack in that time. Unfortunately I won few bucks too.. Over all Las Vegas is a wonderful place and I wanted to go again if I get a chance.

Thanks giving trip Third Day..

We were little bit tired since we had a long travel on second day but still we were exited to see the Yellow stone national park. We started little bit early since we had heavy schedule planned on that day and needs to travel more than day 2. There are two entrance to the park, the one from the east side of the park and don’t think that it’s just a park for few acres of land it’s almost 5 to 10% (May be in 1000s of acres) of Wyoming state and we were just 70 miles away from the west entrance. We get into the highway and there was message on the road which we used see in all roads we have been travelling. It says “Road closed when flashing” with two yellow light above that and unfortunately the lights were flashing which we didn’t see on those past two days. Everybody has started suggesting their own idea and finally everyone said the same answer “I am ok for anything” but nobody has suggested that “anything”. By that time we have drove almost 10 miles which is going to be closed soon and we saw one big lake that’s what I said but actually it was a Dam, we stopped to take few photos. Damn it was very cold and we just enquired one person (Seems like an army officer) who was sitting in his car and waiting for someone. He said that the road is closed and asked us to return to Cody (from where we started) and enquire in Visitor center. What to do let’s return and go and catch the Visitor center and get some idea how to enter into the national park. “Turn left and you have reached your destination” says our GPS. We were running towards the door, OMG it’s closed !!!!!! Already an hour has gone and we don’t know how to go there and thought of driving to Rapid City (RC) which is 400 miles away and the place where we supposed reach late in the night. In the previous night when we entered into the city we thought it is a big city but we couldn’t find anyone to ask about the alternate route. Thank god there was a Gas station and seems to there is one person inside it and we asked him the alternate route for the park. He said the northeast entrance is always open and we can enter into the park and inside the park most of the roads were closed. We taught ok why can’t we just drive till afternoon and return to Rapid City from there. The route which we are going now is in the opposite direction to RC. So we had to make the travel as less as possible but there was no way for that. The north entrance is 150 miles away from Cody. Ok lets drive don’t waste time says our Guider/Driver. After we reach the entrance we realized that we didn’t miss anything and we had chance to see lot’s good place from there. Yes it was beauty.. see the photo’s..

Now we are in the entrance and never thought of returning back and decided to travel in the same direction since the place was awesome and the road was fully filled with snow. We decided to go till the Cooke City (has only a few 10’s of home and it’s a city) which is in the center of park. We had to fill our Gas and we had only one Gas station in that city and luckily it was open. We were very happy since we say lot’s Snow mobiles standing outside those few houses and when we saw the board “Snow mobile will available for rent” we were almost into the peak of our happiness. Again our bad luck unfortunately the snow mobiles are not available since the snow was very less and they said 10 feet of snow is needed for that. But for us seeing those few feats of snow itself a huge thing. The Gas keeper suggested that if we still drive on the same road we can see lot’s wild animals and the drive will be so nice. As she said it was wonderful we could see lot’s animals and we have crossed one more state and entered into Montana state area. And we were seeing the travel guide, except one place everything was closed and it’s Mamood hot springs. After 3 hours drive unfortunately the place was not as good as we expected. But the whole drive was awesome and it’s evening we are behind the schedule by 4 hours. We need to drive back to RC and when we checked in GPS its 550 miles, ooo god the expected reach time is 1.30 Am. All the fun that we had in the day time has gone after seeing 7 hours of drive in GPS display. What to do no other go, we had to go yo RC and we drove. When 3 hours of drive is being left I took over the driver’s responsibility and what a bad time it was, it started snowing for an hour. Though the snow looks good the driving was really tough. I had to be very careful and my Co-driver was giving me lot’s tips while driving. Finally we reached the hotel one hour ahead of time that GPS shows.. Tomorrow it’s going to be about Mount Rushmore.. So stay tuned..

I am sorry if I had put lots of mokai on this…

Thanks giving trip Second day

As I was busy with my work I couldn’t continue my trip memories on the next day. I thought today I have worked too much and decided to complete the trip memories.
One of my friend suggested that he wants to know culture and other info for those places that we went. And his comments are really a valid so I am going to add some more stuff other than my memories. The next day we went to Rocky mountain in Denver and people used to say this place is good for skiing and the time when we went was no suited for skiing though there were some frozen lakes in the mountain. Before we go there I heard that there are 150 lakes in and around Rocky Mountain. But we were manage to visit only few in half a day since we had to travel almost 500 miles for the next place. We want to spend the half day usefully and we went to information center and it is really an info center not like a tourism center which we have in India and it was very useful for us. But in India we can stop anywhere we want and get the info from anyone over there and it’s not possible here. As per the map we got from the info center we drove thru some of the roads and the place was so beautiful and I realized it seems like the Himalayas though I just those only in photo’s. Today also we have seen some places/roads which were closed but it’s not because of the holiday it’s because of the snow. We went to Bear Lake which was completely frozen and people were just playing like anything in the corner. I and my friend went to the middle of the lake and people started entering into the middle and this is the fist time in my life I am seeing, standing and playing. The Frozen ice was hard like a rock but it was looking like a Glass. The temperature was below -5 and we couldn’t spend more time outside. Then the long drive begins to Cody (City 70 miles away from yellow stone National Park) and we reached around 10.30 in the night and we were completely tired. Just before we reach the hotel in the middle of road we seen a deer is crossing.

And I am tired now and will be continued… :)

Thanks giving holiday trip..Day one

One of my longest trips ended very soon. Still I couldn’t overcome from the tiredness but I have forced to complete one task as soon as possible. Since we drove almost 2500 miles in four day we should be tired. Initially I taught of writing a post each day from my trip at the end of day the tiredness won and I couldn’t able to write it also i was following the Mumbai terror attack news. The climate was very cold and we could able to survive till the end though there was heavy snow and heavy wind while driving.

Day One: Thanks Giving Day
We started with a place called Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado Springs and it was just built for tourism and it’s one of the high suspension bridges in the world. The bridge is just connecting the two canyons and it might be half a mile long but its 1100 feats above from the ground. There was a creek underneath the bridge and the view was awesome and there was railway on the coastal of creek too. There was a sky diving at the top of the mountain and it’s 1250 above from the ground and we had a chance to ride and it was a thrilling experience. After completing the Royal Gorge Bridge we felt hungry and it was very hard to find a restaurant or any food store since it’s a holiday. At last we found one (சாமி சோறு சோறு .... !!!!!) and they were about to close but they didn’t tell us till we were waiting to pay the bill. Since it was a closing time they didn’t want us to pay the bill they just asked us to pay the tip if we really want to give and we gave the amount which we supposed to pay. Due to this delay in finding the restaurant we have missed on beautiful place in a few minutes of delay. We were supposed to enter into the Peaks Pike at 3 O’clock but unfortunately we were late by 10 minutes. (வெள்ளக்காரன் கரெக்டா டைம் மெயின்டெயின் பண்றான்.. !!!!!!! ) Then we decided to go to other places which we had it in our list like Cave of the Winds, Seven Falls.. but everything was closed. Finally before we leave the Colorado Springs we went to Garden of the Gods which should have been closed as per the schedule but it was open and we never find any official people or gate to stop us to enter into that Garden. Finally it looks like it was full of sand rocks in a red color and we don’t the reason why did they named it as Garden of God’s. We could see lots of people in the garden and we taught that they are also same like us. It was almost 5 in the evening and we decided to leave to the hotel having one place (US Air Force Academy) in a mind to visit on the way to hotel. I never thought that they will allow us inside at 5 O’ clock and surprisingly they did. We were very eager to see that place because of this building…

While I started writing this post I taught of completing the whole trip in one post but there is lot to write about the places that we went and I will continue in the future posts..

Planning for the trip..

The term "Planing for the trip" is new to me and this is the first time in my life before starting for the trip I am planning something which is called as Itinerary. But many people won’t accept this since it’s just a list of address of placeless which we are planning to visit. On the other hand this trip is one of the unplanned or the one which don’t have the itinerary in his carrier in US. I am going with a person who wants to be planned and prepared before we go somewhere but unfortunately I am going with him so it might not be as he expected. One of my friend is also joining with us in the place where we are going to start the trip by our itinerary. As I am creating biggggggggggg hype I don’t how big will it be but I am sure this trip will be the different one which I have gone once I comeback. Since we are always going to be surrounded by snow and we have to travel long way and it should be different and hopefully we will cover all the places which we have planned. This trip is going to be four days and the itinerary which I prepared is for only one day…. :-)

இப்பவே கண்ண கட்டுதே !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I say “Planning for the trip” I cannot forgot the trip which I had with my colleagues when I was working in Chennai. The trip started from Plan A and ended with Plan Z since we had too many intelligent people who planned that trip

Grand Canyon of PA

Grand Canyon of PA is a camping site and it’s of one the State park of PA state. It is a good place to see in the fall season which we did. It’s about 4 hours drive from our place and it was worth watching it. We were lucky to be there at this time and the climate was too good for hiking. Before I see this place I was thinking that the photos which are shown here are possible only by computer the graphics. Now I accept that the nature has its own beauty which can’t be reproduced. There was a high tower on top of the hill from there we can see around 100 miles and it was a great feeling to see from there with the color changes. I am thinking fall is one the season one should feel when they are in the upper part of US.

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Philip K. Dick

Newyork Not for me...

Last week I went to Newyork and the city never sleeps as the same as I went before except few changes in the subway schedule. This time I went to Newyork for few my colleagues. This trip resembles my first trip except that in my first trip my friend has guided me and this time I did the job. I had a chance to meet some of my Ex-Colleagues that too in Saravana Bhavan with a great lunch. It was full of fun till the bill came into my head. I didn’t mind in paying that since it brought my old memories in Chennai where we use to go out for lunch. Those days are still remains on me from Murugan Idly shop to Chinese restaurant. Ok Back to NY …The food was awesome and that too the Rava-dosa with the Tomato chatni makes me to remember the days where I used to eat in Peterson’s road in Chennai. Except that I have missed the coffee. After the lunch we had to head towards the place where the person who comes to NY first must watch, like Wall St, WTC, Brookline Bridge and the time square. We had leave soon from there so we have missed the Madame of tussauds and the Empire state Building. It didn’t make any difference to me because I’ve already seen those places… It was good trip that too when you are meeting with your friends it’s always good. I forgot to tell one more thing this trip has been planned and executed in few hours. Thanks to all the online application and I am proud that that we as software engineer to makes things easier at any time.

On way back to home i got a chance to take a

picture of city hall from phili...

License - NJ trip

Getting the license in PA is a big deal and I am quite happy that I could able to get it. I had to spend some extra money since I took the car from the driving school. Lee who is the person who taught me the necessary steps that are needed to get the license like parallel parking, obeying the traffic rules. Now what … just rent a car and drive in a highway for the long weekend. First time in US I am driving the car in highway and the experience was too good. We took the rental car from Phili airport and it’s Dodge Avenger Black. We didn’t have the exact plan for this long weekend so we had to make the trips on the fly.
On Saturday we went to Sea Side Heights beach it’s in NJ. It’s almost 100 miles from our place and I drove the whole distance. I didn’t expect the beach to be crowded like it was. It’s almost like Besant Nagar beach except that the water is good. Lot’s of Bikini’s were there in the beach and we had nice time over there. There was a fire show in the beach for 10 minutes and it was over around 10 PM. Now it’s night time drive for me till the place where we had the dinner (White castle in I-195). I am happy with the trip and now I am confident enough to rent a car by myself. Still there is one more thing which is stopping me to get the car for rental and that’s credit card. I don’t have a credit card and here people won’t give car for rent if we don’t have credit card. I am planning to get the credit card and I can rent a car and we can plan trip every week without depending on any one.

Niagara

It’s just a falls where we can take some photos in different angles and that’s it. There is one major fun is missing in this big falls which is available in most of the falls. Yes you can’t enjoy the water fall by taking bath and jumping into the water... The only thing which is possible is that we can go near to it and there will be some water drizzling on us. Even you can’t feel that fully since they are giving some rain court (Plastic cover) to protect you from being wet. When I compared to other falls this is the only place where people are protecting not to getting wet in a falls (Yena koduma sir ithu). Here the purpose of visiting the falls itself is getting defeated. People can say “it’s a big false so you can’t take bath” But I don’t thing so… When they are able to control the water flow somewhere inside the country why can’t they make some arrangements to enjoy the water fall. One more thing which I don’t like is people are coming as a family that to with just 3 or 6 months old child and standing in a queue more than 3 hours. I don’t know what those kids are going to do over there. Is it a pilgrims or something like that you must go and visit the place at least once in your life time? It’s just a falls where you should have some enjoyment. Then there is big park over there and people are use to take rest and have their food and chat since most of the peoples are more than 50 years old. Who knows that’s why they have named it as “Niagara state park” instead of falls. Almost 90 % peoples are Indians and I don’t know how many parents are really happy after coming to Niagara.

I would like to say to all the Indian’s that “We have lots of good place in India than Niagara and we have lots of places over there where our parents really want to go”. So don’t take some foolish decision of calling your parents here and to stand in a queue to just see the falls. Instead go to India and take them to the place where they want to go in India and stay with them for some days. I am sure that will make them happier than all the way coming to Niagara.

At the end my comment about Niagara is “We are just allowed to see it, instead of enjoying it”.

The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it. - Dudley Moore