Road trip to Yellowstone National Park

As planned, we three friends (Myself , Vidhya and Mahesh) took off on a trip to Yellowstone National park which is simply a paradise on earth. This one was very different from rest of my other trips as this was solely a road trip which spanned for a period of five days filled with lots of fun and frolic.

May 16th

We all planned to start at 6 PM on May16th but ended up leaving at 7 PM (Indian stretchable time). I started off driving and our first halt was at Schaumburg, IL.

My sister Prathiba lives there. I wanted to stop by to say hello to my darling sister. This is of course an excuse. I wanted to just have some good food as the rest of the five days I could only see myself having food at the fast food joints. We landed at Prathiba's place at midnight. Just half an hour behind the schedule for which I blame the Chicago traffic and not my driving skills.

Had good food, fried rice and vatha kulambu. Thanks to my darling sister. I have to atleast say this as she had cooked some pretty edible food for myself and my co-travellers. After our regular photo sessions, we took off at around 1:30 AM and this time it was Mahesh's turn to drive and vidhya was navigating.I was comfortably napping in the back seat.

May 17th:

I woke up at 7:30 AM. Refreshed myself. Thanks to the wonderful rest areas on the road sides.

Vidhya was driving now with me sitting beside and navigating. With nice good songs playing and a very nice and warm weather oustide, it was indeed great to drive. While enjoying the pleasure of driving, Vidhya got slightly tempted to speed a little more and there came a cop beside us. Vidhya was blessed with a speeding ticket from the Minnesota state traffic police. We again continued to drive to our first stop at Bad Land in South Dakota. On the way, we stopped near the Misisippi river. We landed at Bad Lands around noon'ish. Badlands has a beautiful scenery of sharply eroded hill-like structures. We went in for a drive in the badlands and stopped at a couple of walking trails to explore the eroded structures and take a few pictures. This place was too windy. No wonder we have this scenery in place. We took off from Badland to our next destination which was Mt.Rushmore.

After a couple of hours drive, we went to Mt.Rushmore which is indeed famous for the four president faces. It was great to see the sculptures of the four Presidents of the United states. We were near the monument to find out the names of the four presidents. But no where near the monument, we could find the names. An audio tour was available. Taking the audio tour would have probably helped us to better understand the history behind this monument. Never mind...we have google to know more about that place. Having covered Mt.Rushmore we had plenty of time before we could end the day. So we wanted to explore few of the other attractions nearby. We drove to Crazy Horse view point and there was nothing great about it. Could see a lot of dears/elks crossing the roads. Had to be a little careful while driving.

It was now time to call it a day and return back to the hotel for the night. Since we had been driving for a long time, a nice nap was really the need of the hour.

May 18th:

We started at 7:00 AM in the morning after our breakfast. We started our drive to Yellowstone National park from Rapid City ,SD. We planned for a slight detour to Devils Tower in Wyoming.

Its a huge monolithic structure of some volcanic eruption. A lot of visitors usually do rock climbing here. We were only interested in taking pictures with this huge structure.

From Devils Tower we now continued our drive to Yellowstone National Park. Bighorn National park is on the way to the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The view of snow capped mountain peaks was breath taking. The whole drive was very scenic. After a drive through the Bighorn National park, we halted at Cody for food. It was around 5'ish and we decided to call this our early dinner break. We continued our drive again to North entrance of Yellowstone National park. We were planning on camping so we went to the camp ground straight and laid our tent for the night. It was quite dark. So had to use the car head lights for some light while laying the tent.

We missed to clear the stones while laying the tent. As a result not a good sleep at night with the stones poking at the back.

May 19th:

Now a little bit about Yellowtone National park. This park spreads across three different states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone caldera is the largest Supervalcano in the continent and you see a lot of volcanism in this region. It has everything to offer like geysers, hot springs ,canyons, wildlife and many more.

We started our day by having typical American breakfast at a very nice restaurant near the Mammoth camp ground. We then took off to view the breathtaking geysers and hot springs in the Yellowstone area. At Old faithful visitor center, we could find the eruption times for most of the geysers. There are some 5-6 geysers in that area whose eruptions are worth watching. Yellowstone has about 2/3rd of the worlds geysers. We started with the Old faith full Geyser which erupts once in every two hours. We were waiting patiently for it to erupt. Then the moment finally arrived when gallons and gallons of hot water was splashed outside to about a 100ft with lots of vapour. My jaw dropped to see this natural wonder in action. I have captured a video of Old faithful eruption. The walking trail takes us to a lot of other geysers in the area.

The ones we saw erupting after the old faithful was Daisy Geyser, Riverside Geyser, Sawmill geyser and so many others. We could also find a lot of hot springs giving out sulphur vapors and a lot of sulphur deposits around. Hot springs and geysers are something that you don't see everywhere. It was definitely a treat to eyes to watch them all live.

After exploring the geysers, we were driving across the park and exploring the other wonders like the Limestone terrace, artist's paint pot ,sulphur caldron's and etc. After a long day we returned back to the same hotel for our dinner and the returned to the camp ground. It was a little cold .We lit up the fire and went back into the tent for a nap.

May 20th:

The day started again at about 8:00. It was now time to explore the canyons. Canyon village offers a lot of huge canyons and also some beautiful water falls. We drove to this place only to find that its been closed because of snow avalanche. We had to drive back and take a another route. We wear able to spot of couple of bears, a lot of bison's and a lot of elks on the way.

We finally landed in the canyon village. The sight of huge canyons and the Yellowstone river flowing down the canyons was simply great. We then stopped to see mud volcano and also we could see a bison charging a gentlemen. But all it wanted to do was to go across the walking trail.

Our next stop was at Yellowstone lake which was all frozen. But we could still find a lot of hot springs near the frozen lake. This completes our stint at Yellowstone. Our next stop is Grand Teton National park.

Grand Teton is 30 miles away from yellowstone. Grand teton offered a scenic view of snow capped mountain peaks. Snake river runs across this national parks. We went for a drive, had lunch and halted at at couple of view points to get some good pictures. This ends our trip in terms of places to be covered. We are now only left with a day long drive back to Columbus OH.

We started around 7 PM from Grand teton back home. Three of us took turns to complete our road trip. We arrive at around midnight on 2lst back home.

Overall 4100 miles were covered on this trip. It was great experience to see mother nature's work in all the national parks.

~Cheers~

Prabha

Spring time !

Here I come again...After a very long gap of course !!
Haven't been doing much other than watching movies and lazing around.
Weather has finally changed and the much awaited spring is finally here.
So glad that its finally nice and warm :-). I do have some travel plans lined up this summer. Niagara falls, Cedar point and a road trip to Yellowstone National park.
I'm really looking forward to those visits.

There is one thing which I started doing for the first time ever in my life which is playing a sport. And what am I playing??? Racquetball. My friends started playing and I just joined them. And since this is the first sport I have ever played, I'm struggling to learn it. For a person who has never played tennis or shuttle in her life, Racquetball is definitely a tough game to start with. But I'm still learning and my friend is very patiently teaching me. Sometimes she feels good to play against the wall than with me. Will I end up learning this game?? Even I'm curious.
Lets see how it goes!!

And few of my friends are leaving this Dublin town and going back to India . Feels really sad to bid goodbye to those with whom I have really had a good time here. Hope to stay in touch with them forever.

So that's about it this time.More later.

~Cheers~
Prabha

Skiing in Madriver :)

Finally, the day had come when we could experience this winter hobby of Skiing !!After a lot of discussions we finally took off to Mad river OH to ski. We reached this place at around 11:30 in the morning and went straight to the rental office to get the skiing equipment. We were asked to pickup the skiing shoes of our size first. Skiing shoes were so heavy. You really need to make an effort to walk using those shoes. It was as though we were walking on space. Then we got the skiing equipment and went to the spot to get our skiing lessions. Oh BTW, this we includes myself, Vidhya and Gampa.

The instructor started giving us skiing lessons.We were asked to practice skiing with just one ski first and then with both. We were taught to walk up the slope using duck walk. From there we were asked to practice skiing down the slope. Certain tips were given as to how to maintain the balance and stuff. I was pretty good at this practice session. I could see Vidhya and Gampa falling in front of me and struggling so hard to get up. I was quite proud as I somehow managed not to fall for which I repented later. There was a skiing slope next to us. You need to take the skiing lift to go up the slope and from there ski downhill. Our instructor asked us to spend some more time practicing before going upslope. But we insisted on taking us to the ski lift so that we could ski on the slope where everybody else were skiing. We went on the ski lift and I started to skii down this big slope and there I fell in the middle of the slope. It was so hard to remove the shoes and get up. Somehow managed to get up and started skiing down and again I fell. I fell three times before I could reach down the slope. Now I understood how important it is to fall during the practice sessions. I thought I should give up skiing now and then just sit there and watch others doing it. It was lunch time and we took a break to go have something.

After a lot of encouragement/advise from my friends who were by now able to skii much better than me, I started to ski again on the big slope. I went up the hill again some 5-6 time and fell again and again each time. But this time it was a little easier to get up and skii again. Though I could skii only for a brief period without falling, it was great to skii way down with the chill wind blowing against you. After so many falls my leg started aching and I thought I should stop now before I hurt myself. My friends were now expert. They were doing it so good and without falling. I did'nt want to try anymore so I was quietly sitting an watching others ski. It was evening by then. So we decide end it there and go for tubing on the way.It felt like heaven to remove those skiing shoes and to walk normally. After tubing for 3-4 times, it was time to get back home with all those body aches.

So overall, Skiing is great until you get a hang of it. It is defintely fun once you know how to Ski.

If I get a chance, I would defeintely love to go for it again and try to skii better. Afterall this was my first time :) . Though I was not so good at it, I still enjoyed it :)

~Cheers~

Prabha

Winter weather..Ufff !

Cold weather is something that I'll never forget in my US life so far. For a person who has lived in a place like Chennai forever, cold weather is indeed very challenging. Last winter was good as it was my very first winter here. Cannot definetely forget my first snow. The way we were playing by throwing all those white flakes on each other. Everybody had their first snow pictures taken. I did send my pictures home and my parents were really surprised that I'm somehow able to survive this weather. Specially me as I always used to insist on running the fan at a very low speed in winter.This used to give me a good chance to pick a fight with my sister every night. But anyways.....First snow is always amazing.


But as time goes on, winter weather becomes very depressing. All you get to do is go for work, come back and stay at home (Atleast this is what I do). And not to forget the burden of carrying those heavy jackets the moment you step out. It also does'nt feel any good to see all the lifeless trees around you. But one thing which I look forward to do this winter is SKIING. I think skiing is something which brings life to this otherwise boring weather.I know winter is almost getting over with daylight savings change over the weekend. But its still snowing out here and I could still make it. . To tell the truth, I have already spoiled one skiing plan becoz of which my friend is really mad at me even now. Hopefully we should be able to make it atleast within the next two weeks and then I'll be able to write about my skiing experience. Lets see how it goes.

So...Me signing off for today. Waiting for another chilly snowy tomorrow.

~Cheers~
Prabha

My first Blog....Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well well well.....Here goes my very first blog.

Finally I entered into the blog world. Though I have always been fascinated by the blog world, I somehow felt its not my cup of tea. Why... Becoz this is what I felt.

• Blogs are only for creative people.
• Blogs are only for those who have a very good vocabulary.
• Blogs are for those who are very good at sharing their views with others.
• Blogs are for those who really have good writing skills.

Well..I'm running short of reasons now...Can't list out anymore.

So what brings me into the blog world now? I just read few of the blogs on the net and felt that you don't have to extremely creative or talented to write a blog. Blog is just a nice space on the web to put down your thoughts so when you look back at it later in life, it just feels good. Is'nt it true??

So here I go...I'm going to start writing or rather blogging from now on. Not sure how frequently I would do it.But lets see how it goes !!

~Cheers~

Prabha