Niagara Trip

Hello All,

As I said last time, we had long trip to Niagara, New York and Washington DC. I will be uploading photos of each one separately. Here are the photos of Niagara Falls.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/NiagaraFalls#

This was a long long drive which I was going to do alone. (Total trip miles approx 3000+) So I prayed lord and my Sadguru to bless us with trouble free, safe and enjoyable trip and left Ottumwa on Friday afternoon (3^rd September). My John Deere friends from Moline, Illinois were also going to Niagara Falls that weekend so we planned to meet at Toledo, Ohio where we had booked our night stay motel.

We resumed our journey to Niagara Falls next day morning, and drove down to Buffalo, NY, where I had booked a motel for our one day stay near Niagara. It was late afternoon the time we reached Buffalo. We had lunch and took some rest. Then we went to see the great, so called world famous Niagara Falls. Actually there are two falls - American falls and Canadian Horse shoe falls on same Niagara river.

The weather was not so good. Little rain, cold breeze, cloudy. That evening we took the “maid of the mist” boat tour. This is a tour wherein they give you blue raincoats (as you will see in photos) and boat goes so close to the falls that you can actually feel the mist, drizzles of the water falling in front of you from the great height. That evening we roamed around in the state park and then we waited till it got dark. In the night, they illuminate the falls with many colorful lights. It was awesome experience to see that. We enjoyed the dinner at Indian Dhaba and went back to our motels.

Next day morning, weather was good. Fresh, sunlight, cool, ideal for outing. We went to the “cave of the winds”. It’s a tourist attraction wherein you are taken to the base of American falls. (See the photos with Yellow raincoats) The wooden deck arrangements are made so as to help tourists reach below the falls and experience some portion of water crashing directly on them. They say, there were caves in 19^th century formed by high speed wind and tourist were actually going behind the falls in those caves, but in early 20^th century caves were destroyed by rockfall. I got fully drenched at the “hurricane deck” there. Mom and Dad did not dare to come to that spot but they enjoyed the other portion of cave of the winds decks.

After that thrilling experience, we took the ride in Niagara scenic trolley. We saw many beautiful rainbows at American falls. We also visited the horse shoe falls which actually is a gigantic falls as compared to American falls, but the geographical location is not so suitable for tourist seeing it from the American borders. You won’t get a good view of the falls from America. There I understood why people say you got to watch Niagara Falls from Canada side. It was afternoon now and we were tired and hungry by then. We went back to same Indian dhaba to fill our stomachs with delicious Punjabi food.

We started our journey to New Jersey, which was our next destination close to New York. Mom’s school friend, Uma is at Plainsboro, NJ. Mom and Uma were eagerly waiting to see each other after a long time and that too in USA. The detail description of this friends meeting, how we enjoyed the company of these gem of people and our NY trip will follow in next blog. Oh. Yah, one more thing, from now on, I will be uploading this descriptions on my blog. My friend, Snehal (yes, the Chicago girl, if you remember my last trip description) helped me compile this blog.

Hope you enjoyed the details. Here are some fun facts of Niagara Falls.

American falls – volume of flow – 10% of the total

Horse shoe falls – volume of flow – 90% of the total

Total flow – 100,000 cubic feet per second.

Largest hydropower plant in the world.

Tourists are mainly Indians and Chinese (this is my observation)

Enjoy the photos…. Chao….

http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/NiagaraFalls#

Regards,

Bharat

Colorado Trip

Hi All,
Below is really a long description of our Colorado trip. Those who may not find enough time to read it till the end can quickly grab photo link below –
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/AaiBabaUSTripColorado#

During the US Independence Day holiday (long weekend 3-4-5 July 2010) we (I and my parents) thought we will go to Chicago to roam and see the beautiful places there and enjoy the Independence Day fireworks. But it was destined to something else already. My friend from John Deere Pune (Vijay) told that day morning why I don’t try going to any place which are far from Ottumwa and could only be covered in 3 days span. Then thought of going to Colorado came ahead. It appeared that my Dad's friend's son (Prasanna Saundalgekar) is in Denver. We called him and asked if we could visit them and enjoy their company along with Colorado sightseeing. He was happy to receive us and that’s how our journey to Colorado started (quite late actually - it was already 10.30 in the night when we actually drove out of Ottumwa)
Denver is around 750 miles from Ottumwa. It was long and tiring journey to drive alone. We took short nap for couple of hours at rest area. With all stops in between, we reached Prasanna’s house at around 2 pm.
That day (Saturday – 3rd July) evening, we went to Pike’s Peak in Colorado Springs. Pike’s Peak is a mountain in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. It is 14,115 feet high and we drove to the top of it. It was fun drive. We were greeted by beautiful rainbow on the way. The Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway is a cog railroad operating from Manitou Springs to the summit. Mom, Dad and Rutwij (Prasanna’s son) descended downhill by this railway.
The next day, we paid visit to Royal Gorge Bridge and Garden of Gods.
The Royal Gorge is a canyon on the Arkansas River near Cañon City, Colorado. The bridge deck hangs 955 feet (291 m) above the Arkansas River, and holds the record of highest suspension bridge in the world. The bridge is 1,260 feet (384 m) long and 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, with a wooden walkway with 1292 planks. This bridge was constructed in 1929. There are various attractions in vicinity like Aerial tram, Incline railway, Skycoaster etc. we took ride in first two. Skycoaster was too scary for me; forget the case of Mom and Dad.

Garden of Gods contains numerous trails for hiking, walking, mountain biking and horseback riding. The reason of formation of these rocks here as I read from internet is – “The outstanding geologic features of the park are the ancient sedimentary beds of red, blue, purple, and white sandstones, conglomerates and limestone that were deposited horizontally, but have now been tilted vertically and faulted by the immense mountain building forces caused by the uplift of the Pikes Peak massif.” Two of these rocks are known as kissing camels and balanced rock. You will see in photos how Dad mocked Lord Krishna raising Govardhana Parvata at balanced rock.
We did overnight stay at Prasanna’s home. It was really nice to be with Prasanna and his family. We had great time with them and cherished some of old “Nipani (my hometown) memories”. Playing with Rutwij was also a fun which reminded me of my childhood days.
We left Denver the next day early morning (5th July) and reached Ottumwa after a long long journey of almost 13 hours. Thanks to those who read it till end. (might be really patient fellows). The photo link is given below. Enjoy!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/AaiBabaUSTripColorado#

Regards,
Bharat

St Louis

Hi All,
On 17th July (Weekend), we (I and my parents) went to St. Louis. (Missouri State)
Click link, if you are really in hurry and can’t afford to spend time in reading the full description
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/AaiBabaUSTripStLouis#

We left Ottumwa, early in the morning at around 7.30 am. We headed straight to St. Louis Zoo. This Zoo is spread out in 90 acres and is home for almost 5000 animals from 700 species. We saw many animals, birds, insects for the very first time in our lives. My cousin Anup, who is doing his MS in Rolla (near to St Louis), joined us after a while. We saw the sea lion show, took a ride in small train that encircles the zoo. We were tired with long walks in the zoo, as we came out of it at 7 pm almost after 6 hours.
We decided to go to St. Louis Arch and reach the top of it so as to see the beautiful sunset on the banks of Mississippi river. (Yes, the Sun sets at about 9 pm, unlike what we see in India.) But to our bad luck, the tickets were sold out. So we booked next day’s tickets and called our day off. We drove to Anup’s house that night and stayed there. We enjoyed the special dinner prepared by Aai and soon found ourselves in deep sleep (6 hours of walk trails in zoo proved too tiring to keep us awake).
The next day morning we decided to talk a walk around Anup’s University but it started pouring cats and dogs. We changed our plan and choose to go beneath the ground level into the great caves of Onondaga. Onondaga caves are about 30 miles from Rolla. Deep underground there is a world that nature has created using water to form deposits of tall stalagmites, dripping stalactites, active flowstones and many other colorful deposits. We took a cave tour of about 1.5 hours and were amazed to see the cave scenes.
As we came out of caves, Sun was shining bright again, cheering us to go on with our travel plans. We went back to Rolla and had a short walk with Anup around his university. Missouri University of science and technology, as the name goes, has Engineering, mathematics, science and computing study programs to offer to about 7000 students. We were fascinated to see the huge library and Anup’s mechanical department lab.
As time was running short to reach St. Louis gateway arch, we dropped Anup back to his home and with pleasant good bye from him and his roommates, we rushed towards St. Louis again.
We reached at about 4 pm to Arch. The gateway Arch is built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States. This Arch was constructed in 1965 and is 630 feet (192 m) wide at its base and stands 630 feet (192 m) tall, making it the tallest monument in the United States.
There are trams (egg-shaped "elevator") from both ends of Arch which go right to the top of the arch. We had a classic view of St. Louis city and Mississippi river from the windows 630 ft high above the ground level. There is also a small museum which exhibits ancient Native American culture and description of American journey towards west.
It was past 6 pm when we were done with lots of photos in and around Arch and had to resume our journey back to Ottumwa...
Thanks again to all who dared to read it till end. Enjoy the photo link…. Cheers….
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/AaiBabaUSTripStLouis#

Regards,
Bharat

Iowa State Fair and Moline

Hello Again..
Friends – grab the link below if you won’t get time to go thru my lengthy narration of our short trip.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/MomAndDadUSTripIowaStateFairDesMoines#
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/MomAndDadUSTripMolineJDPavilionAndHeadQuarter#
Last week on Saturday (14 Aug) we went to Iowa state fair at Des Moines and the next day to Moline. Here is how our last week’s travel was –
On Saturday morning, we left Ottumwa early at around 9 am. We went to Koustubh’s home. As you know by now, Koustubh is my friend from John Deere India currently residing at Des Moines.  Koustubh lives at Ankeny with his wife Bhakti and charming little daughter Ramaa. The plan was to exchange my company car at Hertz, Ankeny; so I and Koustubh went to Hertz office and exchanged my Ford Fusion with Mazda 6. The new Mazda is a sparkling blue colored car. After enjoying the delicious lunch prepared by Bhakti, it was quite difficult to get moving soon to rush to Iowa State fair. I took a quick nap, while all rest folks enjoyed Air buddies Movie.
We started at 3.15 from Koustubh’s house and found ourselves buying state fair entry tickets at the gate at around 4.00 pm.  First we went to the livestock section. We saw swines, cattle, horses, rabbits etc. Boars weighing more than 1000 pounds and bull heavier than 3000 pounds were remarkable to mention. Then we went to the agricultural building. We saw different varieties of vegetables, fruits, flowers. The funny part was big pumpkins as you will see in photos. The biggest one was 1323 pounds. Then we visited the cultural center wherein we saw photography section, painting section etc. we were really tired walking so many miles by now so we took a little break. Then we turned our feet to the varied industries and the machinery grounds. We saw the John Deere and the many other competitor company’s agricultural equipments. We, by then, being really tired and hungry, had to rush back to Koustubh’s home to enjoy the delicious  Pavbhaji prepared by Bhakti’s friend Swati (Swati and family came to Koustubh’s house that day late evening)
Next day morning, we left Koustubh’s house early as we had to reach Moline to see the John Deere Pavilion and John Deere World Headquarter. But not early enough to skip our good breakfast though. (Delicious Pohe). We reached JD Pavilion almost past noon. Mom and Dad were mesmerized to see the enormous JD agricultural and construction machines. We saw the combine harvester, seeding planter, 4WD loader, baler and various JD tractors starting from 1912 to till date. My parents were even astonished to see the huge prices these machines were sold at. (One 9000 series tractor would cost more than the cost associated with buying many acres of land in India). Shailesh Ingole, my other friend from JD India who works at Harvester works in Moline joined us at the pavilion. We left pavilion at around 1.30 on the note to fill our hungry stomachs with delicious Indian buffet lunch at the great Indian restaurant. We did a brief Indian grocery shopping there and accelerated our car towards the John Deere World Headquarters. Mom and Dad were glad to see the “rusty palace” as they say to the JD headquarter building. We saw the display section filled with some more JD equipments, John Deere history and short movie about JD business worldwide. We then took a brief walk around the lake in front of the headquarter building and then drove back to Shailesh’s house. Shailesh made a nice tea for all of us before we resumed our journey back to Ottumwa to reach back home before it got dark.
Here is photo link for fellows who took interest reading the whole description….
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/MomAndDadUSTripIowaStateFairDesMoines#
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/MomAndDadUSTripMolineJDPavilionAndHeadQuarter#

Enjoy!
Bharat

Des Moines and Cedar falls

Hi All,
Last Week, we had two short trip.
1. To Koustubh's house - (Koustubh Kulkarni is my friend from John Deere India) in Des Moines. We went to Koustubh's house on friday night. Enjoyed delicious food prepared by Bhakti (Koustubh's wife), played Wii, Ramaa (Koustubh' little angel doughter) reminded us of Shruti (My Dada's cute doughter), we all became children playing with her. Next day (Saturday) we went to Des Moines temple.

2. To Dr. Anand's house - Dr. Anand is our "Gurubandhu" from Shendur. He lives in Cedar falls. we did Rudrabhishek Pooja at his house on Sunday on the occasion of Shri GuruPornima. Mom and Gayathry (Dr. Anand's wife) chanted Shri Durga Saptashati. Special "Mahaprasad" (Masala rice, Huggi etc) prepared by Mom and Gayathry was really delicious. we left from Cedar falls after offering evening prayer (Sayam Aarati).

enjoy photos at below link,
http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/DesMoinesHinduTempleAndGurupornimaAtDrAnanSHouseCedarFalls?locked=true#

regards,
Bharat

Chicago

Hello All,
We recently had a long trip to Niagara, New York and Washington DC, photos of which I will be uploading soon, but before that we had short but sweet trip to Chicago on 28th and 29th September. Here is the link of Chicago tour photos.
 http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/AaiBabaUSTripChicago#

As always for those of my friends who take interest in reading the trip details here is short summary.
We left Ottumwa Friday evening (27th Sep) starting our journey to Dubuque (Iowa). My friend Snehal from John Deere India was on business trip to Dubuque and she joined us for this Chicago trip. We reached Dubuque right about dinner time and found delicious food (prepared by Snehal and her friend Kalyani) waiting for us.
We did some planning of what we need to see in Chicago for next two days and then rushed to the beds to take a sufficient sleep before we get up early next day.
Satuday was Sankashti Chaturthi (auspicious day of Lord Ganesha on which usually Maharashtrian people observe fast), so Snehal and Mom prepared special “fast food” early in the morning. We started our journey to Chicago after having “fast snacks” (Sabudana Khichadi ani Babatyachi Bhaji).

We reached Chicago at around noon and parked our car at private parking area. We walked towards the Willis Tower (formerly known as Sears Tower. This is 108 story building and held record of world’s tallest building since 1974 to 1998) to see the beautiful view of Chicago city from special skydeck. But we only found that there is already a queue of about 1.5 hours ahead of us to get to the skydeck. Then we decided to come back after some time and cover Millennium park meanwhile. Millennium Park is a public park in Chicago and a prominent tourist attraction. This park features the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, the Lurie Garden and other attractions. The cloud gate sculpture is designed by Indian born British architect Anish Kapoor. After taking lots of photos at Millennium Park, we again turned our feet to the Willis tower just to find it still crowded as we left it. We then decided to drop a plan to reach the skydeck and instead preferred later John Hancock building observatory (100 story tall skyscraper) to sooth our eyes with classic view of Chicago city and Michigan Lake. The beautiful sunset, the night view of the Chicago city including the lakeshore drive from the 94th story of John Hancock building proved worthwhile. Before going to John Hancock we took architectural boat tour. The tour guide was talking continuously for about 1 hour describing each and every building standing tall on the shores of Chicago River. We strolled for a while at Navy Pier as well before going to Hancock. (Its 1 km long pier along the shoreline of Lake Michigan in Chicago, build in 1916 and busiest attraction in Chicago). We also visited Buckingham fountain which was beautifully decorated with night lighting. We then watched the fireworks, and took a cab to reach “India Garden” where delicious dinner helped us end our sankashti charuthi fast. Trouble to find our parking spot and traffic on the way to our night stay motel added little frustration to end the day.

The next day, we visited the “Shedd Aquarium”. It’s a indoor aquarium built in 1930 and is a house of many aquatic animals including beluga whales, White-sided dolphins, reef, eel, turtles, Anaconda, sharks, sting rays etc. etc. etc…. Special things to mention about Shedd Aquarium were 4D movie and whale and dolphin show. It took us almost 6 hours to cover that big aquarium. Also can’t forget to mention, we got a chance to see the “Granddad”. It’s an Australian Lungfish who is atleast 86 years old and deserve the name “Granddad”. We wished him long life and started our journey back to Dubuque. We reached little late in the evening to Dubuque so decided to stay there in the night. Next day early dawn, on a goodbye note to Snehal we drove back to Ottumwa. It was really a nice trip with Snehal and Mom and Dad and we all enjoyed a lot.
Thanks again for patiently reading it till end. Enjoy the photos…. Cheers….
 http://picasaweb.google.com/bharat7480/AaiBabaUSTripChicago#

Regards,
Bharat