Trip to Grand Canyon

My last post in 2008 was about my trip to Las Vegas. Combined with this trip was a visit to Grand Canyon. So this post is gonna be about my trip down to Grand Canyon.

We set out at around 8am in the morning from Las Vegas. A trip down to Grand Canyon must encompass either a view of the Sunrise or the Sunset. We were planning to watch the Sunset. On that particular day the Sun was to set at 5.32pm. So we were planning to be there at around 2pm..... visit the Rims , watch the sunset and then start back to Vegas.

Enroute we were planning to visit Hoover Dam too. Starting out from Las Vegas , we got stuck in traffic and it was then that i decided that i was not planning any more holidays during the long weekends. The traffic during the long weekends is horrid.... and sitting in the car for hours together makes it even more impossible to bear.

To reach Hoover Dam we had to cross Lake Mead........ and is the largest reservoir in the US.Formed by water impounded by Hoover Dam , it extends 110 mi (180 km) behind the dam, holding approximately 28.5 million acre feet (35 km³) of water. The water held in Lake Mead is released to communities in Southern California and Nevada, via aqueducts. To know more about lake Mead , check out the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mead .

Of the less than 1 hour duration it should have taken us to reach Hoover Dam , it took us almost 2 hours and we reached there at 10am. We spent around an hour there admiring the structure of the Dam... man is it awesome :). As we were planning to start we happened to meet a friend of my husband's who was also enroute to Hoover Dam with his wife. We decided to stop together for lunch and then meet later on at Grand Canyon.

Starting from Hoover Dam we were expecting to travel atleast 3 hours to reach Grand Canyon. At the Nevada / Arizona border is a scenic view point. We had stopped there and the view of the Colorado River running so small was something i did not expect to see. So small but in fact a big river :)...... amazing view...... as the photo on the right indicates.

On the dusty road , i was too tired and fell asleep for almost an hour. We stopped for lunch at McD's..... there was nothing else enroute..... and i happen to love McD's...while my hubby dear hates eating burgers :).... guess opposites attract is an example here.

The traffic was light so we were able to make it to Grand canyon as per plan at 2:30pm. That day the temperature was supposed to be in the negatives and we were all prepared for it. But still when i got down from the car , it was freezing cold. I was decked up in a woollen knit top , a sweater on top , a knee length coat , a scarf and gloves ....and i still felt cold :(.

We met our friends there , parked our cars and decided to use the local tourist bus to visit the various Rims at Grand Canyon. To read more about Grand Canyon check the link...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon .

There were 4 major spots in the Park but due to time constarints we were able to make it to only 3 points. Since the sunset was at 5.32 , my Hubby who has already paid 2 visits to Grand Canyon was like lets make it to Hopi Point , as supposedly the view there is awesome. So all of us started walking..... as we reached Hopi point by 5.10pm and were among the early birds we could grab good seats for a birds eye view of the sunset.

As the time was nearing , the crowds started and i could see people from various walks of life coming up. Among the crowds i could also identify a couple of Indian languages :). D , my hubby , kept telling me that within 5 mins the sun would set down completely , but i hardly did believe and i did believe when i finally saw it :).

At exactly 5.32pm the sun started setting down , and in less than 5 mins the sun was completely down. Within 10 mins the sky started turning dark. Awesome and i am sure ho many ever sunsets i may see in the future , this one will always stay in mind and iam going to make

comparisons always to the Sunset that i had a chance to view here.

The first pic on the right is that of the setting sun at Hopi Point , and the second one below it is within 10 mins of the sun setting down :)

As we were returning back to the base....the cafeteria for us :).... i kept thinking how even a small attraction was turned out to be a big tourist spot here , whereas back home ...even if the place had the best view /attraction , it still would not have been utilized properly either by the people or by the Government. Guess the art of turning everything into a Business proposition is something that we have to learn from people here :)

We were back at the cafeteria by 6.30pm , had a cup of hot chocolate , said good bye to our friends and started back on our journey to Vegas. Luckily gtraffic was once again light so we could make it up fast. But inspite of everything , we reached the hotel at past 11pm that night...... and i just remember crashing onto the bed and falling asleep. The last thought on my mind was that after returning home i should learn driving as then my hubby would also have been able to take a break during the drive :). I did take the Driving test ...but that was almost a year later :).

Next day....post lunch saw us heading back to CA from Vegas and getting stuck in traffic. The journey of around 5 hours ended up being a journey of 8+ hours :(....

So anyways friends this is it for now...... will be back soon with more updates :)

Thanksgiving at LasVegas :)

Hi All,

Its been a long time since i came blogging....... first been sick :( next my dear hubby was working from home and no access to the laptop :(...... thought enufs enuf and here iam coz i did not want anyone to forget me or my blogs ...... :)

Iam going to tell about my trip to LasVegas.... man the pleasure one faces as you walk thru the strip is amazing...... But it took me some time to get used to the drop in temperature in Vegas when compared to Cal :)

We started around 11 in the am when the actual plan was to start by 8 :) and the traffic on the freeway was awful.... bumper to bumper and this was my first experience with such heavy traffic. After around 1.5hrs the traffic improved and we reached Vegas as per plan at around 7pm. Entering into Vegas , the lights was amazing. But what i luved more was the ride thru the desert. Dry land is in a way a beauty to admire as we admire the greenery.

Had booked into a hotel near the strip so checked in there first and after having a short rest we were back to the "Strip".... parked at MGM and we went strolling thru the strip. The activity at so late in the nite is not something we normally see in our day to day life in our places .... such crowd and man the money spent here is just unimaginable i guess :) 

I just wanted a walk thru in all the major casinos and my dear hubby was ready to please me :).... the grandeur of Caesars Palace is something that still keeps striking me at odd moments and so does the Lion at the MGM :).... btw did u know nearly half of the major casinos in the Strip are owned by the MGM group..... includes MGM Grand , The Mirage , Bellagio , Circus-Circus and Excalibur to name a few :)... wish i had that kind of money to invest... then i guess if i did have i could retire happily for the rest of my life........

As we were walking i did note down the time for the fountains at the Bellagio and we were back in time for the Fountains to light up in sync with the music. That was an awesome sight and something iam going to remember. For the 3 nights that we stayed in Vegas i made it a point to go to the Bellagio all nites to see just the fountains playing :)... we returned bck to the hotel at around 1.30am :) and i was freezing ......

The next day was Black Friday and so we thought we would scrounge around for some good deals in electronics....... we had friends also visiting Vegas and we met up with them. Evening went in for the rides at Stratosphere and the view from the top floor of Vegas was great. The ride in the elevator amde me giddy for a second but then got used to it.... and coincidentally met a friend of mine ... guess being in CA we could not meet bu then we did meet at Vegas :)... that did strike me funny.

Saturday made a trip to Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon ( will talk about that in the next blog) and Sunday after a late breakfast went for a walk in the strip , had lunch at an Indian Restaurant and then back to the hotel to pack up and start back to CA. The return journey was as bad as possible... the trip of 5 hrs took us in total 8.5 hrs and we had news channels standing with their crews to record the traffic :)

And b4 i forget my husband did play at the Casinos and lucky for him...... he did win 500$ after spending 200$ :)... guess i need to thank my stars that my hubby dear does not gamble :)

Will be bck in a couple of days with my trip to Grand Canyon :).. till then wishing everyone a Merry Xmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Desis at Universal Studios

Hi All,
Been more than a week so i thought i would come back with another trip of mine , but this time i would also like to add an experience that i had with our Desi guys :).

To people who have not been here or have not heard about it a brief intro on Universal Studios.
Universal Studios Hollywood is a movie studio in the Universal City
community of unincorporate Los Angeles County, California, United States, and is the original Universal Studios theme park. Woody Woodpecker is the mascot for Universal Studios Hollywood and the rest of the Universal Studios Theme Parks. It is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood movie studios still in use. Its official marketing headline is "The Entertainment Capital of LA," though during the summer it is often advertised as "The Coolest Place in LA."
It was initially created to offer tours of the real Universal Studios soundstages and sets. It is the first of many fully-fledged Universal Studios Theme Parks, along with Universal Studios Florida, Universal Studios Japan, and the upcoming Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Dubai, and Universal Studios South Korea theme parks.

My day at the Studios:
It had been more than 2 weeks since i landed in US ans so we(me & my hubby) decided that it was high time i started visiting places nearby. We decided that we would begin with Universal Studios , Hollywood. Going into Universal Studios reminded me of our country's theme parks , the major difference being that this was more properly panned out and well maintained than what we had back home.Of course the cleanliness made a lot of difference :)
After the tickets , and security check we made our entry into the studios. As we were walking around we decided we would take it slow as we had the whole day ahead of us. The fact that we had gone there on a normal weekend meant that we did not have the heavy crowds that usually are there during the long weekends.

As we went around we came to Shrek-Fiona standing in a corner and joining the crowds for photos. We decided to join in the queue for a snap. Right behind us were a group of Desis(both boys & girls), 8 in number. All around 25 and it seemed as if they had come as a group for a project from their discussions going on. All of a sudden they reverted from English to Hindi(Guess on the assumption that neither me nor my Hubby would know the language :) but guess they did not know i could speak the language well and my hubby could follow the conversation).
The general flow of the conversation was that - "We(maane me and my hubby) were Indians ,we were before them in line for the photos and hence we would finish ahead of them.So we could easily take photos of them using their cameras and that it should not be difficult for us to do so :) and so on". The same discussion went on amidst them for around 5 mins and none of them came forward to ask me or my hubby if we would take a snap of them together with Shrek and Fiona. After 5 mins i really felt sorry for them so i turned around , spoke to them in Hindi and told them that we would not mind taking their pictures. The whole group was shocked and then gave an embarassed smile :). After we took our pics we were handed all of their cameras(all 8)for us to take their snaps. It would not have been a probs , but i guess the basic courtesy would be that they could have decided that 2 of them could use their cameras and share the photos later on rather than giving all the cameras.They would have done this if it had been someone apart from Desis taking their snaps , so y not extend the same courtesy to us Desis? What also struck me was that - y assume blindly that the person standing in front would not know the language they were speaking and discuss about them?
The whole day the group kept crossing us at various points and everytime they saw us they gave an embarrased smile and walked away. Guess nothing more could have been done.
Apart from this incident i should say that i had a gala time around the studios and i especially enjoied the ride in the Jurassic park:).Coming back home i was so tired and to tell the truth it had been a long time since i had had such masti(fun) after my college days.
In fact the past couple of weeks i have been telling my husband that we need to go out to the Studios once more and have lots of fun.

In the meantime do leave me ur comments on my blog.
Also check out my other blog .........
http://booksaremysecondlove.blogspot.com/

Its getting late for me so iam gonna bid u adieu for now.
Will catch up soon with u people.

My first trip to USA

I dont think it as unwise to make comparisons , but like most women from India i also came here to the US post marriage.I have completed a year of marriage and i thought let me start blogging :) so here iam.

I met my hubby-to-be just a week before marriage for the first time but in between i guess our mobile bills just shot up. My dad was telling me just the other day that he happened to find a bill of mine and that Thank God , i was still working when i got engaged :) as he would not have been able to pay my bills :)

I got married on Sep 16 , 2007 and coincidentally we share
the same wedding day as my parents. Coincidence also that
my parents also got married on a Sunday in 1979 :) and i hope
that i share similiar long years of married life as my parents do.

I left India on Oct5 , 2007 and shud have reached here at noon on Oct 6 ( US time) but Mother Nature played a different role and we were stuck out in Malaysia for 24 hours so my very first trip to the US began with a 1 day delay and i finally did arrive late night on Oct 7 ( Thk God !!!!!!!!!!!!)

Its been a year to date for me since i left home and i have been here in California for the past 1 year.

This is my first post and let me continue with my trips in the US in my later posts.

Till then cya all :)