car ... car ... car ...

People's love for automobiles is variegated. The so called purists, love a car for its design. The miserly love a car for its mileage. The lazy love a car for its ease of maintenance. The lazy and miserly have all the more to celebrate, now! Then there are the hopeless romantics, who love a car for no apparent reason ... sometimes not even knowing what's cool about the car they love.

I am a hopeless romantic, when it comes to cars. Since childhood, I've been amazed by the gorgeous curves of those two Italian ladies ... nope, I ain't talking about Sophia Loren and Monica Vitti ... I am talkin' about the Ferrari and the Lamborghini. The vrroom...vroom sound, the claims about top speed, the raw power ... just the plain layman attractions of these cars made me drool over them.

When I was old enough to have my own motor vehicle, my parents chose the Maruti 800 that was lying around, than a motorbike, hoping that I'll be safer in that one ;-) Well, when your friends ride bikes at top speeds, you can't really be a sitting duck, can you? ;-) So, I was soon famous in college for how "well" I sped my car. Some infamous anecdotes include a midnight race of mine in the car with a friend on a bike in Bangalore's narrow residential roads and the famous one of my aunt chanting Vishnu Sahasranama in the back seat of the car, even as I beat the clock to drop her off where she wanted to get and get to my tuitions in time. Needless to say, there were numerous funny incidents such as running out of petrol in the middle of nowhere and flat tires at critical junctures et.al. But the end result of all these experiences in the car was that, by the time I left for the US, the car was sounding like a truck and the mechanic asked my dad how could I have driven the car when the engine was barely mounted ... yeehaw!!

When I started my job in the US, it was time to buy a car. I had various choices. I could save money and buy a used car. Something that I didn't want to do, obviously. I somehow felt that my first car must be a nice, brand new car. OK! The next piece of advise that was floated around for me, from well meaning long-time resident desis, was to buy a Honda or a Toyota for its nice mileage and ease of maintenance. I wasn't sure about this, but at the same time, the deluge of advise was overwhelming. Respite came in the form of a good friend of mine, who owned a BMW and told me that I should get something "hatke" like a BMW. Now, that was something beyond my affordability. So, the next available options were Volkswagen Jetta, one of the Mazda cars and the Nissan Altima. The first place I went shopping was to the Nissan store, to do a testdrive. I just loved the rev of the engine and I walked out with my Nissan Altima in tow (remember, I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to cars) ... some quick shopping, eh? That was on 20th August 2001.

The Altima has been like a close pal since then. I've driven the car on some of the coolest rides in and around the area. When my friends were still in school and since I was one of the few who owned a car, it was a very welcome luxury among them. Everytime I went to LA to meet them, it was always a very wonderful time that we had. It was our 'ratha' to go to late night pizza dinners in the 'dark den' and then drive over to Santa Monica beach at 2 am to have a duel with the raging waves to see if we could keep the waves away from us! Even the drive to LA was memorable many a times because of the exhilirating thrill I got out of taking my car to the peak speed possible of 120 MPH and then spend the next chilling 5-10 seconds as the speed came down to 70-odd MPH. Of course, I ensured there were no cops around, enjoying my crazy stunts! On a trip to Yosemite, with the LA gang, the moon roof came very useful, as people took turns to put their head out into the chilling night as we zipped past the valley. The most recent fabulous trip on the car was a 3000 mile roatrip with my sweetheart wife. It was a wondeful trip for many reasons including the moments spent with my wife ... not to forget the memorable but scary drives through snow country in Colorado and Utah.

That reminds me how, my car has saved me despite my rashness in driving. I have had the misfortune of rear-ending my car two times. Though the car did suffer some damage, I was never injured! After this, I had to really re-evaluate my driving habits. I realized that though I had the cocky attitude that I was a safe driver, there was this sense of negligence towards the other drivers on the road and a lack of respect for their safety. Needless to say, my driving is safer now :-)

So my dear friend, teacher and trusted servant ... Nissan Altima ... here's saluting you on seeing me through 100,000 miles of service. Here's hoping a longer time together.

December 2006 Roadtrip

A long, long, very long ... really very long report of our December 2006 road trip

prologue ...

Sometime in early december, my company announced a shutdown in the last week of december, owing to customer site closures, employee vacations et.al. ... simply put, end of year slowdown :-) That meant, a break from 23rd dec - 1st Jan!! Thrilled, I called Ramya and she was just dancing around with joy, 'coz it meant we could do just about anything for those 9 days.

We started planning what to do ... she came up with simple, sensible stuff and I came up with outrageous ideas such as a roadtrip to New York and back (a total of 5200 miles)! We decided on a trip to Chicago via Houston, since all of our friends were talking about meeting up for Christmas/New Year at Chicago. But somehow, that didn't seem to happen. Moreover, I was spooked about the drive from Chicago to San Jose on I-80, given my snow storm experiences. So now, it was San Jose -> Houston with a bunch of stops.

One of the stops HAD to be Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ramya was very excited about this place that I was skeptical about. Her friends had gone there and loved it. But, I was not thrilled much about seeing "New" Mexicans ... I had already seen enough of them. But, remember, I was soon to be proved wrong BIG TIME about Santa Fe.

We started excitedly planning for that and let Savita, my cousin in Houston, know about it. She was thrilled too. She's thrilled and excited all the time, anyways ;-) However, it turned out that Ramya would have to start her job on Jan 2nd and she wanted coupla days of recuperation time from the trip, else she'd walk into work on day 1 with a car steering in her hand ;-) So, Houston fell off the list. Similarly, Phoenix was considered as a stop, so that we could meet Nandini and Mandar. But that didn't work either given our and their schedules.

Phew!! planning the route of a trip is so difficult. The trip is easier. So, we finally settled on San Jose -> Los Angeles -> Las Vegas -> Bryce Canyon National Park -> Zion National Park -> Grand Canyon National Park -> Santa Fe, NM-> Colorado Springs -> Salt Lake City -> Reno -> Lake Tahoe -> San Jose. Think this is the final schedule?? Hahahahaha ... wait ... read on ...

We started trip preparations in the meantime. Ramya went on a big Trader Joe's shopping trip and got lots'a munchies for the trip. I printed directions for the trip. We burnt new audio CDs with a mix of songs of Kannada/Hindi/English/Ghazals. Hotel reservations were made at most places. The excitement was building up big time. We debated a lot about whether to rent a car or drive my car. We finally decided to use my car. The mileage on it is so high that, a few extra miles wouldn't matter. Also, we could save on some expensive rental quotes we got!

In the meantime, our jobs provided interesting twists continuously. I had lots of bugs to fix ... some of them having the same killer effect on me, like their real life compatriots. At times I wondered and shuddered about whether I had to postpone our trip because the bugs wouldn't get fixed. Thankfully my manager was understanding and worked with me on those killer bugs and was thrilled I was going on a road trip with my wife. In fact, he assumed I am going on a roadtrip, given my penchant for road trips.

In the meantime, Ramya's new job folks wanted her to join right after Christmas. Another small jhatka there. However, Ramya pasao'fied them by sweet talking in a sentimental pandribai tone about how she was recently married and would not get such long vacation opportunities with her hyper busy husband et.al. You get the picture, right? End result -- they fell for it and told her that she could start her job on 2nd Jan.

While all this was going hunky-dory, we realized that on one particular day of the trip, Thursday 28th Dec, weather would be a disaster zone with heavy snow in the Salt Lake City area. Even Prasad warned us about it. So, we had to make further adjustments to our already fine tuned trip. Ramya had to use her cartographic skills and come up with a route to Reno from Colorado Springs that avoided snow totally. The result was Voila -- Route 50 aka "The Loneliest Highway in America", where I am sure scores of Clint Eastwood movies have been shot. We also realized that Zion National Park is closed on Christmas day.

I shall refrain from giving out the final trip route because on the night before the trip we came up with one more twist to the trip plan. Damn! Ain't this trip plan a report in itself? ;-) That's what road trips involving me have been like ... Nagi, Shyam and CJ stand testimony for that! On the night before leaving on the trip, we realized that going to Los Angeles may not be needed 'coz we hadn't heard from Ramya's cousin in LA, whom we wanted to meet. So, just going to LA to see USC wasn't much justifiable.

So, here's how our final plan looked on the night of 22nd

23rd Sat Drive to Las Vegas. Stay in Las Vegas (Distance 530 miles)
24th Sun Look around Hoover Dam. Leave for Bryce Canyon National Park and stay there. (Distance 250 miles)
25th Mon Look around Bryce. Drive to Grand Canyon National Park and stay there. (Distance 250 miles)
26th Tue Look around GC. Drive to Santa Fe NM and stay there. (Distance 470 miles)
27th Wed Look around Santa Fe. Drive to Colorado Springs and stay there. (Distance 310 miles)
28th Thu Drive from Co Springs to Green River UT and stay there (Distance 450 miles)
29th Fri Drive from Green River UT to Reno NV (Distance 550 miles)
30th Sat Drive from Reno to Lake Tahoe (Distance 65 miles)
31st Sun Drive from Lake Tahoe to San Jose (Distance 210 miles)

Remember all that ... there's a pop quiz for you further down ;-)

23rd Dec (Saturday)

We decided that since we weren't going to LA anymore, we could start slightly later than the original 6 am start that we planned. But, you know me, "berulu kottre, hastha nungo" types. "slightly later" was 10.30 am on my watch ;-) We started 4.30 hrs later than original plan 'coz I got up late and then we went looking for breakfast and all. We had a slow start from San Jose to Gilroy. We thought the 101->152 drive was going to be really slow 'coz of holiday traffic to LA. But, we were proven wrong ... the slow traffic was because of the Gilroy last-minute christmas shopping crowd! From Gilroy, the traffic was cool. Rashmi, Prasad and Tarun were doing an LA trip too that weekend. So, they were surprised that our "early start" was the same as their "relaxed start" ;-)

We drove from 101 S -> 152 E -> I-5 S -> 46 -> 99 S -> 58 E -> 15 N. I drove the slow first half of 200 odd miles.

I-5 had become a parking lot for some unknown reason, so much so that Ramya woke up thinking I pulled over somewhere. Slow trudging became fast moving eventually. But, I was left with a headache at the end of it. Only pieces of entertainment were Ramya's anecdotes from New York and India. Really gr8 stuff! We broke for lunch around 4 PM in a town called Tehachapi. It is a cute little town, pocketed in the mountains. Surprising part of this area in the desert is that the mountains get snowed heavily. But the town gets none!! After a sumptuous meal, Ramya took over driving and got us to Las Vegas by 9.30 pm.

We checked into a fabulous room at the MGM grand casino. The room had a beautiful view of various casinos, full of amenities, a nice king size bed and a good jacuzzi. All the luxuries one can ask for.

We were late for the 9.30 pm show of "Ka", a very entertaining Cirque-De-Soleil style martial arts musical. We got the tickets for another 10.30 pm show called Zumanity, which is also based in Cirque-De-Soleil. We had to walk to New York-New York casino for this. The recreation of New York city was amazing, even according to Ramya, a New York fan! The show went on from 10.30 pm - 12 am. It was very entertaining with the amazing acrobatics and humor. We walked from there to Paris and looked around. While I clicked around for some good night shots of the strip, Ramya let herself get soaked up with the grandeur of Vegas which definitely beat Atlantic City, which she's been to. She left Vegas saying that she's coming back for more. It was 1.30 am by the time we had pizza for dinner at MGM grand. We just went to our room and crashed.

24th Dec (Sunday)

We woke up around 9 am and checked out of our room. We got some tasty bagels and nice coffee from a local coffee shop, called Einstein Bagel, that brewed their own coffee. We drove down route 93 to Hoover Dam on a bright sunny day. Ramya took some beautiful shots of the blue water, brown mud and clear skies.

Once at Hoover dam, we walked around the dam area. Its amazing engineering, that too in a rapid 4 yr period between 1931-1935. I was surprised that I never even was keen to come to this place once in all my trips! ;-)

We got some nice photographs taken. We headed over to the gift shop and found some Hoover Dam and Las Vegas memorablia. The Las Vegas memorablia saved us a stopover in LV 'coz we had forgotten to get one the previous evening. Ramya also bought a cool t-shirt that read "Over here its one DAM project after another" Sure can't wear that around your manager! ;-)

From there, we headed off to Bryce Canyon. It was around 1.15 pm. Ramya did the driving honors of driving down 93-S and merging to 15-N. The speed limit was a comfy 75 mph, a rarity in california! We kept ourselves occupied chitti chatting ... exchanging anecdotes, capturing the beautiful Nevada/Utah scenery on photographs ...

We stopped at around 4 pm for a quick bite at a Burger King at the Nevada/Utah border. Ramya was mostly doing fine, so she continued to drive into Utah. We soon took highway 9-West towards Zion National Park. I played the devil at Zion, 'coz I didn't tell Ramya about the steep mountains and the slow drive. To make matters worse, the recent snow was turning into ice. A scary proposition for a first time driver. But Ramya proved tough as nails and handled the drive very well. Needless to say, she didn't accept my request of turning off the lights in the mile long tunnel, so that I could experience AGAIN how driving in a pitch dark tunnel is like ;-) The devil in me shall live on!!!

The drive after the 20 mile Zion road was mostly ok. But another concern crept up. Utah is 1 hour ahead of Nevada, on the clock. By the time we'd reach it'd be 8.30 pm local time. Also, given that its Christmas eve, we weren't sure if anyone would feed us food especially when they would wanna chill out with beloved yesu-christha! We called the Best Western hotel (where we were staying) and thankfully they had a grocery store that'd stay open till 9pm.

We drove at the best safe speed to get there by 8.15 pm. We shopped around for lots'a bryce memorablia including trinkets and magnets for our fridge, which looks like a magnet musuem ;-) We got some fruits, burritos, juices and cereal (for the morning breakfast). We checked into the hotel room which was in the middle of a lot of snow! Called our parents with whatever was the available cellphone signal and chatted for a while. Our parents informed us how a lucky draw in the Bangalore fun fair had Ramya come out a winner ... we were thrilled to hear it but also regretted getting the news a tad late 'coz if we had known this earlier we'd have gambled in Vegas, which we didn't do (if you read the report closely ;-)! Ok, you are now allowed to say, "What? you went to Vegas and didn't gamble?!" Hey! come on, you gotta commit some sin in "The Sin City"! ;-) Anyways, since it was still quite early "our time" in Utah, we watched a movie "The Family Stone" starring Dermot Mulroney and Sarah Jessica Parker. It was a decent timepass movie with good enough laughs. The scene where Sarah Jessica Parker gets drunk is pretty funny!

25th Dec (Monday)

We woke up around 9 am and had some cereal for breakfast and left for the park, after making a quick stop at the gift shop 'coz I wanted to buy one magnet for our fridge museum. The services at the park entrance were closed owing to the holiday but the park was open. We drove first to sunrise point where the hoodoos were beautifully bathed in the white of the snow and were gleaming in the sun. I was recounting to Ramya about my trip to Bryce with my parents and also of the early morning "sunrise nodlebeku" episode when I went with my friends.

We took a few more snaps and drove on. As we continued driving, I realized that I had overestimated the fuel level. So, we drove back to the lodge area and refilled the gas and re-entered the park. Blew a few minutes there :-(

Then we drove to Inspiration point and looked around for inspiration. It was whiter than ever and lot more beautiful.

We took some cool pix of the area. Then I topi'd Ramya into going on a small hike to Bryce point. She was gullible enough to agree, thinking its a short hike. But the snow and the steepness, soon dawned on her. Then she gave in, resigning herself to the devillish schemes of her husband and did the entire stretch barely having enough breath to catch the next breath!! Once back to normal, we looked around from Bryce point which gave a much more elevated view of the hoodoos and was really gorgeous. This is one of those places that one can never get bored of!

From bryce/inspiration points, we drove all the way to Rainbow point, because we wanted to leave the area by 3 pm and it was already 1 pm. The drive to and back from rainbow point was peppered by a beautiful narrative by Ramya of "America America" which started off by me saying that the movie was not much appreciated by Indians in the US, for its inaccurate potrayal of lives of Indians in the US. As a rebuttal, Ramya narrated the story. Now, I really wanna watch it!

From Rainbow point, we drove straight to the lodge. The restaurant at the lodge was open. We had some nice salad, burger and a pot of coffee, that really filled us up. For dessert, we had a local speciality pie made of 5 different fruits that just tasted yummy. Lets not talk about how guilty it made us feel, after eating that! ;-) We started off at 3.45 PM from Bryce Canyon National Park. We were headed towards Grand Canyon National Park. The route was UT-63->UT-12->89-S->AZ-64.

The distance was about 275 miles. It was fairly a good drive with almost little or no traffic. Given it was a holiday, there were no cops either. So I decided "chalo le-dhana-dhan" and cruised at 90-95 mph while Ramya kept herself busy chitti-chatting, listening to music, taking some nice pix, dosing off et.al. Once we got to AZ-64 junction, it was about 7.30 pm and soon we entered the park through the south entrance. At this time, the fuel got nearly empty and there were little or no signs to indicate whether we were on the right track. Since I had driven here before, I was happily driving and Ramya was humming some songs. So, I thought everything was fine. It was only later I came to know that deep down Ramya was freaked out because there were almost no road signs and the fuel was almost empty and to make matters worse, there was no cell phone reception. Imagine getting stuck in the middle of nowhere on a cold night!!! The devil continues to reign!

We arrived at GC by 8 pm with some fuel left. Checked into a holiday inn. There was no cellphone reception in the area but our hotel had internet connection!! So we sent off an e-mail to all concerned about the progress of our trip. We went over to a neighboring pizzeria and had some jalapeno poppers (rather cheese poppers) and pizza for dinner. Back in our room at around 9 pm, we made reservations at santa fe for the following day and colorado springs for the day after. We called it a day after that.

26th Dec (Tuesday)

One of the resolutions the previous night, that we made or more so that Ramya made, was that we see sunrise the following morning. It was a decent time -- 7.37 am. I promised I'd be up and set alarms for 6.30 am and 7.00 am. I woke up at 7 am and told her we had too little time to see sunrise. I interpreted when she said she wanted to see sunrise as seeing "the sun rise" not as the "minutes after sunrise" too! Too bad, we slept off ... Ramya pulled my leg about it for a while and I am now coupla inches taller as a result ;-)

We finally woke up around 8.30 am. I lazily took bath and Ramya, full of enthu, got ready and got the early bird breakfast to the room. We got dressed and headed off to the park. At the park entrance, we bought a $50 annual national park pass that lets us visit all US NP's for 1 yr with no additional fees. We wanted to stop at the first point, Mather point but everyone wanted to stop there too, so the whole place was just full with no parking space. We stopped at the next point, Yavapai point. This was Ramya's first view of the Grand Canyon and she was just totally taken over by the grandeur of the place.

We took a few photographs and continued on. We made similar stops at Powell point, Hopi point and Hermits rest. Here we saw the famous Brahma and Vishnu temple peaks. At Hermits rest, there was a nice memorablia shop and we bought some trinkets and stuff.

On our way back, there was quite a confusion about where we wanted to go. Ramya, who was driving, wanted to go to the Grand Canyon village area. For some reason, I interpreted that as the market plaza and guided her there. Then she said, "this is not where I want to go, I want to go to the village". Ok ... we take the village loop turn and guess what ... we are back in the market plaza area. So now she said "ok, forget the village, I want to eat in the pizzeria" (we went to last night). Again, I misheard her and took her back close to the market plaza but not into it as I realized my folly in time!! They say in Landmark ... "you never listen, you never have and you never will" ... I guess that's true ;-) Anyways, we went to the pizzeria and had some nice pasta and salad.

We shopped for some more memorablia next door and left around 3 pm to Santa Fe. We drove along AZ-89->I-40->I-25.

At Flagstaff, we found the historic Rte 66. The junction of 89 and Rte 66 was an interesting one where Ramya took a beautiful pic of all freeways at the intersection. Cool stuff! To remember the moment, we got a Rte 66 magnet addition to our fridge musuem! We had a quick stopover at a Starbucks, our first encounter with civilization! ;-) Then we continued on I-40 towards Santa Fe. It was mostly a good drive with nice scenery, beautiful sunset and nice conversations.

Along the way, we saw an exit towards Painted desert national park. We were thrilled about this and wanted to do a quick stopover. Unfortunately, the park entrance was closed at 5 PM and we got there at 5.10 PM!! We continued our drive, stopping briefly to switch driving positions. One off the memorable points of the drive was when we drove up hills and Albuquerque's night lights came in view. The city is so huge ... the view was just awesome.

We reached Santa Fe around 8.30 pm. There was enough confusion in store for me, as I thought we had a reservation in an Econo Lodge but poor guy at the reception couldn't find it! Then I realized the reservation was at a Motel 6. So, I go to the first Motel 6 and the person at reception couldn't find my reservation either. She told me that there's one more Motel 6 up the street and that was the one that had our resevation. Phew!! We freshened up and went to Olive Garden for dinner. At the restaurant, we had a very nice waitress named Gloria who served us. She was thrilled that we were Indian. Also, she was an old timer at Santa Fe and was very helpful in us planning our stay in Santa Fe. Once we got back to our room, we spent some more time planning the next day using a local travel guide. We had a quick phone call with Nagi updating him about our trip.

27th Dec (Wednesday)

We started off from the hotel at around 10.15 am. We drove to The Plaza, the 'downtown' area of Santa Fe. Santa Fe is a town that has preserved a lot of its quaintness intact. The old buildings of 15th/16th century are still preserved well. Our first stop was the Cathedral of St. Francis. St. Francis lived in the 15th century and was a great social reformer in the area. We looked around the cathedral and took some photographs. Ramya did a very fine job of capturing the beauty of the cathedral on camera, eventhough flash photography was not allowed.

There was even a glass mural of our local Mother Teresa! We made a stop at the local gift store and bought coupla interesting memorablia. Our stay at the gift shop was extended by an overly systematic elderly cashier at the checkout counter. Seeing the delay she caused for the customer ahead of us, I paid by cash and made a quick exit! We were quite hungry by then and decided to get breakfast. We walked through the plaza area which is lined by dozens of gift stores selling traditional native Indian ware. We got some bagels and coffee and started going through the stores.

Our first stop was an interesting one. We went to this store where authentic Indian clothing and paintings was sold. The artist who made them, an elderly native American, was around too, proudly talking about the wares. The place was expensive too ... jackets costing no less than $200! Ramya found an interesting shawl and inquired the price ... it was a cool $1900. Later on, we found a very nice painting of an Indian hunting scene ... that was priced at $2600 ... a bigger one costed $7800. These were made on real deer skin. Seeing that we were fairly interested, the gentleman told Ramya that he's willing to give her a deal ... the shawl would cost her ONLY $1500. Taken over by the generosity, Ramya asked politely if there slightly less expensive paintings. The gentleman said, "Well, next year, when I go hunting. I'll hunt for some Chihuahuas (tiny mexican dogs) for the skin. Maybe that'll come cheaper"! We were convinced that we had sufficiently exceeded our stay in the store and made an exit :-)

We stopped at another gift store, where we found these really cute dolls called "The Storyteller". This is a very important part of the native American culture, where elders make kids sit around them and on them (on their feet, shoulders, laps, head, shoulders et.al.) and tell them stories of the native American culture. This is the only way that the rich heritage can be passed on. We bought some storyteller toys, pottery, t-shirts and a nice looking reproduction of a traditional Indian painted horse. Another interesting thing about New Mexico are the chillies. TThese are hung everywhere, as a sign of good omen. We bought a 24” Ristra (bunch) of that one as well, after looking around for a good deal. In general there's a lot of quaint stuff to explore. We put some more money in the parking meters and took time to explore an Indian art musuem which currently running a display of Innuit culture (Eskimos). The close dependency of the Innuits on nature and how much they respect the environment they live was embarassing for us urban people, given how much we take nature for granted. It was moving to see how closely tied they are, as a community and how much they care for the well being of the world around them.

From the musuem, we drove to San Francisco street, where we had planned to have lunch at a restaurant called Tomasita's. This is a famous Mexican restaurant that is very busy ... indicated by the huge waiting area outside and a 30-45 minute wait! We put down our name and got a pager. We thought we'll shop around a bit and went looking into a pottery store that was atleast 2 blocks away. Ramya found some nice clothes and while we were checking out, the pager went off! That was one good pager which went off even at a range of 2 blocks. The checkout counter was manned by another elderly woman who was thrilled we were shopping there and bought something ... while the pager went "gui..gui..gui". Our empty bellies had a roar of their own too! So, the moment the slow checkout got done, we literally ran to the restaurant. The effort was worth it. Our appetizers were Blue corn chips with some red chilli based salsa and green chilli based guacomole. The spicy taste just danced on our tongues. The main course was quesadilla for Ramya and a super combo platter for me (Enchiladas, Chille Relleno, Tacos and some rice). Very nice stuff. On the side were these sweet puri like bread called Sopillapilla (pronounced so-paya-pia ... reminded me so much of that Puneet Rajkumar song "Pilla ... Pilla .. Pilla .. Telugu Pilla" for some reason ) With honey and butter, the taste was just too good. We had some naughty dessert called nautilla ;-)

From there, we did a quick stop at the old railroad station and bought some toy trains (for Tarun and ourselves) and took a picture in front of the train. After that, we went to a store, called The Spanish Table, that apparently sold Spanish and Portugese cookery ware. Ramya was very excited to see this store. Somehow, it didn't live up to our expectations. We bought a Spanish water jug and left. We drove through, from there, an area called Canyon Road which is very all the high profile art galleries are. The stores itself screamed big dollar signs. So, we didn't bother to stop. We drove back to the Plaza area, did some more shopping and started off to Colorado Springs at 5 PM. The drive from Santa Fe to Colorado Springs is along I-25 and a short one of around 250 miles. I drove the distance and we reached Colorado Springs by 9.30 pm. We called our parents along the way and updated them about our trip progress. We were quite concerned about the weather the following morning. So, right after we arrived at Colorado Springs and checked in at the Econo Lodge, we inquired about the weather, the following day and the receptionist, an elderly gentleman said he didn't want to comment about it ... that told, how unpredictable weather was. He however, gave us a helpful tip that if we saw clouds the following morning, there was no point taking the cog rail up the 14000 feet high pike's peak 'coz we wouldn't be able to see much. We picked up food at a next door diner. While I was parking the car, the elderly gentleman was telling Ramya that he too was from San Francisco and then moved to Las Vegas as a civil engineer and lived there for 10+ years before moving to Colorado. We had dinner in the room, talking to Rashmi and Prasad. We soon slept off by 11 pm.

28th Dec (Thursday)

We got up at 9 am and looked out of the window, first thing in the morning and found it very cloudy. As we stepped out of the hotel room, snow had already started falling and it was already 10 am. So, we ditched the plan of looking around Colorado Springs and decided to head to our destination for the day, Green River in Utah. We also, took another debatable decision. We decided to take a local Colorado Hwy Rte 24, instead of I-25 to Denver and I-70 from Denver because Denver was supposed to be hit by a storm from the west and a blizzard from the Dakotas. So, there was a very good chance of us getting stuck in a snow storm in Denver. This was debatable though 'coz Rte 24 was a local road and hence may not be plowed well. But our idea was to join I-70 as far away from Denver as possible. So we decided to go on Rte 24 and then on Rte 82 and then join I-70 because it was sufficiently west of the storm.

Ramya started the drive on Rte 24 and it was quite an intense drive because she had to keep her attention on the road constantly. We had a good group of traffic sticking to one lane for a long distance, this helped make a path in the snow and so we could pretty much follow the tracks.

At some point, we noticed that the snow was fully plowed, so we got a beautiful stretch to drive at normal speed. However, after we passed some major towns, the traffic reduced and the snow increased on the road, though there were little showers coming in. We had to again reduce our speed. The interesting thing is that, when we reached the Rte 24 and Rte 82 junction, we were surprised to see that Rte 82 was hidden under 2” of snow and hence we felt that it is better to drive on Rte 24 which was much better than 82 and 24 also would join I-70. So, we continued on our drive. Thankfully things improved further down the road with lesser snow on the road and some sun. We reached I-70 at around 1.30 pm, taking almost 3.30 hrs to cover a distance of 150 odd miles! Once we got on I-70, we stopped at a gas station to clean the car windshield and the vipers which were a mess by then. We inquired at the gas station about Denver and he said that I-70 East towards Denver was shutdown! At that time, we were convinced that our debatable decision of taking Rte 24 was a good one.

From there, we drove on till about 4 PM and stopped for lunch at a town called Rifle, getting a sandwich from Subways. We then headed over to a Starbucks where Ramya got a hot chocolate and I got a green tea latte which looked like green goo ... Ramya didn't even want too have a look at the thing and wouldn't let me get more than a sip of the hot chocolate she was having ... imagine my plight Though she soon took pity on me and gave me the hot chocolate ... phew!

I took over driving from Rifle to Green River. The drive was really gorgeous with bright sun and sparse traffic on I-70 west. After a while, in the middle of a clear sky, we saw a dark cloud in the direction we were headed. I asked Ramya if we needed to be concerned about the weather ahead. She said she wasn't sure. I was checking weather updates constantly on my cell phone and it said that beyond Green River till the next town of Salina, in the San Rapheal valley some snow was expected (60-70% probability). I wanted to go beyond Green River to Salina so that we had 100 miles lesser to drive the next day. We stopped at Green River at about 7 pm and asked at a gas station about the weather ahead and he said he had no clue, which is quite surprising, given that those guys are quite informed about weather. Anyways we took a gamble and headed on towards Salina. Initially the drive was ok, but soon the wind started picking up and it started snowing big time. The snowflakes came at the windshield like tiny white flies. It was quite a distracting sight. We turned on the lights inside the car and it got better to drive. Thankfully, there was a van in front of me and I just followed him. After a while, the snow stopped and I was on my own again. Unfortunately, this was only a short lived thing 'coz it started snowing again. We just wanted to get to Salina ASAP. We reached finally at 9 pm, after almost 2 hrs of driving. Salina, like Green River, had almost no recent snow. We checked into a local motel and headed off to dinner at a neighboring Denny's. Once dinner was done, we called it a night and said bye-bye to a very challenging day of driving for both of us!! We had a great day ahead of us.

29th Dec (Friday)

We started at 9.30 am from our motel on what was a gorgeous and sunny day. Today we were driving almost 550 miles to Reno on Rte 50, famous as "The loneliest highway in the US". We had breakfast in a nice little diner called "Mom's Cafe" that has been around since 1917. We bought some memorablia from the store and left Salina at 10.15 am. Ramya drove from Salina till Ely, NV, a distance of about 220 miles. It was mostly barren land where I am sure Clint Eastwood shot a lot of his cowboy movies.

We reached Ely by 1.30 pm. It was the first in sequence of those old cowboy towns. At Ely, we looked around for the famous "I survived Route 50, America's Loneliest Highway" T-shirt. Along the way, we found a gift store where they were doing an interesting "game" where you need to get a memorablia card stamped at Ely, Austin, Fallon and Eureka. If we mailed it in, then we'd get a certificate from the government of Nevada state. But soon we found that to be boring thing to do. We found one t-shirt in the sizes we were looking for but we still needed the other one and this formed an interesting part of the trip.

We continued on our trip and stopped at Eureka but had no luck with the t-shirt. We reached Austin around 4 pm and had some burgers for lunch in a local rustic diner called “The International Café”. After the lunch, we looked for the t-shirt in the local stores there as well. One had the t-shirt but the size was XXL!!! Unsuccessful in our search, we drove on to Fallon and reached there by 7 pm. We searched for the t-shirt in gas stations, casinos and walmart (per a Gujju motel owner) ... but no luck man ... just no luck ... how frustrating!! We got to Reno by 9 pm and checked into the hotel. Ramya was exhausted since she drove most of the 550 mile distance, thanks to her Devillish Husband We ended up ordering room service and just slept off -- no gambling!!

30th Dec (Saturday)
Following morning, we woke up at around 9 am and left for Tahoe after a hearty breakfast. On the way to Tahoe, we went through Carson City and took time off to do what?? yeah ... you guessed it right ... looking for the t-shirt!! Ramya was mostly done looking for the t-shirt and told me to give up as well! We reached Tahoe and parked at one of the casinos. We looked around the casino and wanted to take the Gondola skyride that gives us a cool view of the Tahoe area and surrounding peaks. But the ride costed $30 per person, so we gave up the idea. Instead we drove to Nevada beach to get closer to the lake. We took a few pictures there. After that, we decided to head home. It was almost 1 pm by then.

We stopped closer to Sacramento for lunch, at around 2.30 pm. We saw a sign for a “Subway” and wanted to eat there. But we couldn't find it. Instead, we found a Chinese restaurant and decided to eat there instead. In there, we had some sweet and sour soup, fried rice and mixed veggies. The food was absolutely delicious, with the fried rice tasting like the ones made in India ... just yummy food. We started off at 3.30 pm. At Sacramento, Rte 50 merged onto I-80. The traffic started crawling on I-80 and it was getting really bugging 'coz we were so close to home and were being tested!! Soon 680-S came up and we were on way home ... phew!! We reached home by 7.30 pm and well, that's it ... a 3314 mile trip was done!! The car looked like a dust/dumptruck ... all dirty.

epilogue ...
It was really a fabulous trip for various reasons. We discovered a lot of different places. Our snow adventures were really cool ... not to mention cold ;-) Lots of cool pictures got taken and awesome memorablia collected. But the nicest thing about this trip was that I and Ramya got a chance to spend a lot of time together ... laughing, joking, talking and me irritating her to the core ... that for me, was the very best part of the trip ... every moment ... just so memorable.

Thank you so much for reading this ... comments, brickbats and boquests are welcome :D