Yellowstone - A mix of nature and heart.

Well!... welcome to my first ever blog.

While nation was celebrating the 2009 independence day, we went in search of natures freedom. What started just as a another long weekend trip made me go through a lot of emotions. It made me wonder if humans inherited the emotions from dear mother nature?

Getting started from San Jose, CA on July 2nd we rented a car and finally started at around 6:15pm along with close pals Senthil, Mythili and Swetha... no no.. her name is Sneka. Swetha was the name I thought of giving to my daughter if I ever had one. Sneka is occupying that place, so occasionally I love calling her swetha. We reached Reno, NV at mid night where cop caught me driving with no headlights on. I was lucky to have missed getting a ticket. Thank god. Hey!.. btw I do not believe in god. So, Thank nature.

After couple hours of driving, around 2 am, I handed the captain role to Senthil who took on the huge task of crossing Nevada from west to east. I got up around 6am when the captain stopped for breakfast at a McD in West Wendover, NV. It was a beautiful place with moutains all around. Of course, since it is Nevada, there are no trees either. All brown mountains. BTW.. brown is the color my closest person likes. So, I kinda like it too.

Starting from bendover... oops... wendover, we entered Utah with lot of excitement. on the way we saw so many salt lakes on the road side. Not sure if they are lakes, but it was white all around and it tasted salty. Took few pictures and also had a little hulla with my dear. From there we are en route to Salt Lake City, UT.

My GPS took me right through a housing neighborhood to finally reach at the state capitol around 9:30am. It was beautiful, yet surprising to see it is right in the middle of so many old houses. Temple square was very near to the capitol. Took few pictures at that beautiful places, where every thing was just perfect including the dressing by every one going to temple. We were the only odd ones out and felt some one is always watching us. Why odd one out? we were in casual clothing and shots, while every one else around there is in full suits and neatly groomed.

After feeling out of place, we thought time to start to Yellowstone. I took to the driving seat and eagerly moving towards entering Idaho. It was a beautiful drive with all greenery around with mountains and picturesque locations. Just two eyes were not sufficient to view the entire frame. No camera can capture that wide an angle. It just printed an image into my heart where it will stay for ever. As we came closer to Idaho Falls, we noticed so many fields growing potatoes. Jeez.... these guys are making America fatter. Yes!.. McD frys, comes from there I guess.

Again to make myself comfortable, made Senthil the captain and took the vice-captain role (should I say navigator role). We entered Montana around 3pm. Why?.. we booked our hotel at West Yellowstone in Montana. Checked into the hotel, freshen ourselves and started out.

As you can imagine, we couldn't stop ourselves from going into Yellow Stone national park. At every corner, we stopped to take photos. Every thing around is beautiful and amazing with so many trees and river water sounds. I can say, rest of the day was simply photo shoot and ended up returning as it was getting dark. Hey!.. we did watch a small hotspring before calling it a day at the park.

Back at the city of West Yellowstone, we ordered pizza and fried rice at a Chinese mobile restaurant. Took to hotel room and ate to hearts contents with pulihora, pizza and fried rice. Believe me, eating pulihora was a great experience when you cannot buy it there.

continued tomorrow....

Welcome back... continuing from day before yesterday. I did not realize I could pull in so many folks to read my blog that forced me to write even though I was quite busy with lot of things going on. Please post your comments on this page, along with your calls/emails.

Got up early on the 4th of July with the feeling of independence, and went on to enjoy the freedom along with nature. That's right!... today is THE day to look around Yellowstone. Lot of distance to cover and lot more nature to check out. We are out of hotel around 7am heading towards the park. Of course, I was in the driver seat.

As soon as we entered into the park, it was a beautiful site with fog touching the trees and the sounds of nature: water flowing in nearby river, birds chirping, tiny little dots of water on near by leaves. Wow, it was just amazing. Fog is helping us to watch and enjoy what is close by more and more, than to let our eyes and mind look for the far away mountains. Just visualize, and I am sure you can enjoy the feeling.

This is where I first felt the emotion of nature shared by humans. We always long for some thing that is so far away, we end up taking what is nearby for granted. Just like the fog, I wish some thing forces us to watch what is near by and make us realize the importance of it.
Me being a movie buff, it was nothing short of Manirathnam & PC Sreeram's movie Geethanjali (Idhayatthe Thirudadhe) singing "aamani padave koyila". BTW, That is my favourite movie of all time in Telugu as well.

As we are moving, fog is slowly fading away as the dear Sun started raising in the east. Picture the mountains slowly clearing up and showing its real surface with long trees that shelter birds. It was as if like an unknown power is removing a layer in front of our eyes to make us see the reality, which has the power to create so many positive vibes in every part of our body. There were lot of squirrel's posing on the road side with its head up, Bison's gazing as well as enjoying the warmth of hot springs. It was just great.

First beautiful one we saw was the fountain paint pot. Is this really beautiful? You bet, it is. This has boiling mud, sulfur mixed water flowing, hot springs, geyser and walking trails linking all of those. We walked around the area and felt the amazing wonders of earth. Technically these are the geothermal features, or in short expressions of a volcanism. Is it true that our dear mother earth is holding a huge volcano inside itself, so that we all can live. Earth looks so peaceful from the top, and only if we dare to look underneath, we can realize what is going on inside. Just look at it, isn't the mother earth holding back the negative energy - volcano - and sharing the positive things - water, trees, wild life - with every living being on earth. It is lot more different than what I was looking for before starting from Bay Area.

Can we take a minute relate the key aspect of human emotion here. Same way dear mother earth is holding a big burden inside in the name of volcano, it is very well possible that, every individual is holding so much of pain and anger inside. What we share with others matters a lot, just the way earth is sharing trees, water, wild life, etc with all of us. You as an individual may have a big volcano inside, ignore that and share the positiveness and its fruits with others. Just the way we don't want to keep our feet in hot spring, it will only help to not poke at the person to see if there is a volcano inside or not. In short, do good even if there is huge volcano inside of you. Ok!.. now I made my point of this blog.

Moving on, we went to the old faithful. This geyser erupts almost every 30 minutes and folks gather every time around it. This erupts pretty high and was good to sit there for a while instead of driving around. It was good to watch it and we started from there towards West Thumb.

On the way, we stopped at a small place named kepler cascades. Only after seeing we realized how good and big a water fall it is. I highly recommend folks who visit Yellowstone to make this cascade a must see.

At West Thumb, we parked the car and started out on the walking trails. Believe me, it was so beautiful with hot springs, boiling mud, right next to the lake and water mixing with each other. Interestingly right inside the lake, there is a old hot spring and you can imagine how it would be. At one hot spring, we could not see the depth of the hole in spite of very clear water. It took almost an hour to walk around the trail and I would say it was simply superb. I am glad Gayatri asked to walk around the full trail instead of the short one, failing which we would not have enjoyed it well. This west thumb is right next to a small portion of the yellow stone lake.

After this, our drive for next couple of hours was around the shore of yellowstone lake. Along the way, we stopped and had the fresh meal Mythili and Gayatri prepared in the night. What else I could ask for. In the middle of a forest, having a great indian meal. I feel like eating that right now, forget about eating on that day. Oh man!... what on earth we want, if we cannot have such a nice meal out of no where. I only wish I also had idli with karam chatni too. :-). This is also time to make Senthil the captain of the ship... oops... car.

Watch out this space for the remaining....

Ok!.. back to continue my writing. I promise to the short & crisp this time. :-)

With Senthil as captian, we continued and passed the bridge bay. Lake Village & Fishing bridge that comes around Bridge Bay has post office, gas stations, accommodation, etc. Since we already have room at West Yellowstone and gas tank at 3/4th full, we are only happy to continue, except to take a leak. No elaborations here please. :-)

Our next stop was at LeHardy Rapids. Here first time I was able to learn the differnce between cascades, rapids of a river. Isn't it cool to learn live. It was a good place for rafting, but we did not. However we watched groups of fishes holding together against the rapids, cut throat trout leaping up the river, heard about pelicans catching the fish. Most importantly, against the order of my home minister, I jumped the walking paths and went very close to the water. There I touched the fish holding against the water flow. It was a smooth touch with my fingers slipping on the fish. Isn't it cool. I guess me jumping the fence triggered the home minister; she walked back towards the parking lot through the rough uphill instead of the walking paths and steps. May be every one wants to do it, but either shy, or does not want to highlighted and prefer to be one among the crowd. Why should we be just another person, why can't we be the one playing to the crowd?

Any way, from there we went to the Mud Volcano where it was really smelly with Mud boiling. We had to close our noses for a short while until we cross one that was releasing those gases. This is other side of mother nature, where it can not only hold back the boiling volcano, but also release certain unharmful gases as well. We walked around and found lot of desi junta walking all around. Very near to this place is the Sulphur Caldron. After watching so many of these, I can simply say this is just another one.

Our next stop was at the Canyon Village where Upper and Lower Falls are located over the Yellowstone river. We only went to the Upper falls and it was a great sight to watch. Millions of gallons of water was falling down so fast in a narrow river that turns just before the fall. You have to see it to feel the water falling with rouring sounds. As usual tooks photos and walked back towards the car. Lot of desi junta around. Typically folks tend to get tired by now, and to support that argument, we noticed an Indian lady happily sleeping in the front seat of the car with her legs up the dash board in parking lot. We missed going to the Lower Falls and artists point. I hear the Lower Falls is more steeper at 308ft (compared with Upper Falls at109ft) . So, if you plan, make sure to go down to these two places as well.

From here, the drive was so beautiful passing along the mountains and narrow paths. Elevation at Dunraven Pass was 8859ft and there was snow in the peak of summer at that location. Sneha played around in the snow little bit and I heard few shutter clicks trying to capture those moments. Passing along the beautiful landscape, we came across so many animals, but mostly bysons even standing right next to the road. It was just like Europe (should I say mostly Switzerland, but I had never been there). Had to stop along the way to simply take pictures.