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- Nandu
- Practice Leader at Cognizant. Expert in IT Infrastructure Management. Travel, Photography, Adventure, Books & Social Media
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Showing posts with label Fotos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fotos. Show all posts
Las Vegas trip
This has been one of my longest road trips to date. We covered around 2800 miles round trip during this visit to Vegas and Canyon. I took a couple of days off around Thanksgiving and we did this trip over 6 days. The drive from Dallas to Vegas is a little over 1200 miles and it took us around close to 18hrs for this leg. On the way back we spent a day in Hoover Dam/Grand Canyon West, another day in Grand Canyon south Rim and drove back to Dallas on the final day. We did pretty good time on the return leg, we covered 1060 miles in around 14.5hrs. Its been my dream to do a coast to coast road trip in the US. This is the closely i have come to that so far. Overall we had great fun and both I and Anu enjoyed the trip. For a change i spent a lot of time on passenger seat. I and Anu had split the driving pretty much equally.
During this trip we stayed at the Excalibur resort in Vegas. I didn't do much gambling this time. I and Anu did some slot machines in a few casinos and overall i lost around $50 to $60 bucks. We spent a lot of time going around major casinos and seeing some shows etc. The highlight of the trip is the thrill rides that Anu went on top of Stratosphere. In fact this was one of the main reasons we visited Vegas. Anu really enjoyed these rides. I didn't join her as i didn't want to strain my back. Last time I went on a roller-coaster few months back i hurt my back and was on bed for close to a week. We spent a good half day at Stratosphere. The view of the city from the top of Stratosphere was amazing.
Las vegas has always amused me. I am at awe the way a barren desert has been developed into a sprawling metropolis and the gambling/night life capital of US within a short span of less than a century. Here are some of the snaps from my recent trip there.
During this trip we stayed at the Excalibur resort in Vegas. I didn't do much gambling this time. I and Anu did some slot machines in a few casinos and overall i lost around $50 to $60 bucks. We spent a lot of time going around major casinos and seeing some shows etc. The highlight of the trip is the thrill rides that Anu went on top of Stratosphere. In fact this was one of the main reasons we visited Vegas. Anu really enjoyed these rides. I didn't join her as i didn't want to strain my back. Last time I went on a roller-coaster few months back i hurt my back and was on bed for close to a week. We spent a good half day at Stratosphere. The view of the city from the top of Stratosphere was amazing.
Las vegas has always amused me. I am at awe the way a barren desert has been developed into a sprawling metropolis and the gambling/night life capital of US within a short span of less than a century. Here are some of the snaps from my recent trip there.
Grand Canyon West
One of the highlights of the recent road that I and Anu did to Vegas and Canyon was Grand Canyon West. This place is popular for the Grand Canyon Skywalk. This place is around 230 miles from GC South Rim & around 150 miles from Vegas. In order to reach this place you need to pass thru a stretch of around 18 miles of unpaved road. The moment we left Route 93(Vegas to Kingsman highway) it was as if we had stepped outside the civilization. There were not much vehicles on the road. After around close to 15-20 miles or so you get this right turn for GC West. I was initially a little scared to go bcos i didnt expect unpaved road and we were in the middle of nowhere with no cell connection. What the heck after having driving so much distance I was not prepared to head back without seeing the Skywalk. It took us another hour long minute ride on the unpaved road to reach GC west.
The best place about this place is that it was not much crowded unlike GC south rim. The landscape and the canyon view was very good. You dont get the wide vistas like you get in south rim however it was still very good. We had under estimated the time we will need there. You can spend a good day here. There are quite a few sight seeing points. The Skywalk was very good. Its a little scary to get onto the glass floor looking down at the ground however once you get a hang of it this is that scary.
We went to the Skywalk/Eagle ridge and Guano point. We also met some native indians - Hualapai tribe and we saw a dance performance by them. It was impressive and a good cultural experience. Not too often do you get to see native indians in their traditional costumes and performing their traditional dances. There is a Hualapai ranch there which is also supposed to be good. However we didnt have time and i had to turn back. I had to drive the unpaved road while it was dark. We spent around 4 hrs there at the RIM it was dark by the time we turned back.There were a bunch of cars that was leaving with me so it was not that bad. Once we came back to the paved road the darkness was very impressive. The night was absolutely pitch dark. It was the 3rd or 4th day after new moon so there was not much light coming from the Moon. This place would make an amazing stargazing location. Overall I was very impressed with this place and would definitely go back there given a chance.
Pls see below some of the snaps we had taken during this trip.
The best place about this place is that it was not much crowded unlike GC south rim. The landscape and the canyon view was very good. You dont get the wide vistas like you get in south rim however it was still very good. We had under estimated the time we will need there. You can spend a good day here. There are quite a few sight seeing points. The Skywalk was very good. Its a little scary to get onto the glass floor looking down at the ground however once you get a hang of it this is that scary.
We went to the Skywalk/Eagle ridge and Guano point. We also met some native indians - Hualapai tribe and we saw a dance performance by them. It was impressive and a good cultural experience. Not too often do you get to see native indians in their traditional costumes and performing their traditional dances. There is a Hualapai ranch there which is also supposed to be good. However we didnt have time and i had to turn back. I had to drive the unpaved road while it was dark. We spent around 4 hrs there at the RIM it was dark by the time we turned back.There were a bunch of cars that was leaving with me so it was not that bad. Once we came back to the paved road the darkness was very impressive. The night was absolutely pitch dark. It was the 3rd or 4th day after new moon so there was not much light coming from the Moon. This place would make an amazing stargazing location. Overall I was very impressed with this place and would definitely go back there given a chance.
Pls see below some of the snaps we had taken during this trip.
Grand Canyon Trip
The below snaps were taken during my trip to Grand Canyon South Rim during the thangsgiving weekend in 2008.As part of this trip we did a short 1/2 day hike into the canyon. We did a close to 7 mile hike in the Bright Angel trail. We went a little past the 3 mile point (just before Indian Gardens), roughly around 2500ft altitude change and returned back. The weather was perfect with a great sunshine, hardly any wind and a temperature of around mid-50's. This was Anu's first hike into the canyon. We really enjoyed the hike. The had amazing views of the canyon during the hike. This is my fifth trip to GC in as many years and this place never ceases to amaze me with its wonderful sights.
With this i have hiked all the key trails in GC. Last year i did the rim to rim day hike along south kaibab & north kaibab trail, This trip i did the bright angel trial, I have done parts of the Rim trail, Hermit trail and Grand view trail during some of my earlier trips. The view from inside the canyon is very different from the view from the top. The rim-rim day hike that i did last year was my toughest hike to date.
With this i have hiked all the key trails in GC. Last year i did the rim to rim day hike along south kaibab & north kaibab trail, This trip i did the bright angel trial, I have done parts of the Rim trail, Hermit trail and Grand view trail during some of my earlier trips. The view from inside the canyon is very different from the view from the top. The rim-rim day hike that i did last year was my toughest hike to date.
Exploring Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
The last few weeks was very hectic and i was really looking forward to the Christmas long weekend. After much deliberation i decided to drive down to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. This place has been in my 'To Visit' list for a while. It's a fairly long drive, around 550 miles one-way from Dallas. Due to my hectic schedule I didn't have much time to plan for this trip. The day before the trip i booked us into a hotel in Carlsbad city. We started driving on Friday aftn and reached Carlsbad, NM around mid-night after a 9hr drive. Carlsbad city is about 28 miles from the caverns and is the nearest city. We had this as our base for this visit. I was accompanied by my wife Anu and my in-laws for this trip.
We started a little late on day 2 and reached caverns around Noon. There are 2 major tours in the caverns, First one is a self guided tour of the big room which is one of the largest cavern rooms in the world the second one is a ranger guided tour to a set of rooms called Kings Palace. We decided to do start off with the big room tour. The big room can be accessed by a mile long hike down the natural entrance of the cavern or alternatively thru an elevator ride. The choice was easy, we chose to hike down. The climb down was fairly steep and the first part of the cave had few formations. Towards the end of the hike is when you start seeing a lot of formations. We passed through devils spring, witch's finger and iceberg rock(200k ton rock that broke loose from the cave ceiling thousands of yrs back!!), Bone yard on the way down. The end of the hike puts you in the big room. One thing that struck me about this cavern was its enormity. Right from the entrance, to whole way down & of course the big room was unbelievably huge. NPS has done amazing work with the lighting and had kept it close to natural. It really accentuated some of the formations in the caverns.
The big room is a very large room with a square footage of around 8.2 acres, You could fit around 14 football fields into this room!! This room had tons of gigantic formations. We saw various different types of formations like stalagtites, stalagmites, columns, Soda straws, drapes, mushrooms, dams etc.. Some of the key structures we saw are The giants, Temple of Sun, Grand chandalier, Lion Tail, Bottomless pit, Mirror lake etc. We took around 2.5-3hrs to tour this place. There is a huge lunch room/visitor cente in one corner of the big room. Here you could eat in the restaurant at 750ft below ground level !!!
On Day 3 we accidentally bumped into one of my old friends Deepak & his wife Priya. It was a big surprise as this place is very remote and is one of the last places i would've expected to meet a friend. Anu and I hiked down the natural entrance again with Deepak & Priya. All of us went for the Kings Palace tour. This is one of the most ornate rooms in the whole caverns. This was a ranger guided tour. It was a very different experience, All the lights were turned off and each of us carried a lantern to give us a flavor of how the initial explorers experienced the caverns. There was one point in the tour we were asked to turn off all the lanterns to give us a feel of the darkness. It was so pitch dark and we couldn't see our hands placed 1 inch from the face!! On completion of the tour we did some more sight-seeing of the big room to finish the day.
On the final day of our tour we decided to go for a short scenic desert loop near Carlsbad caverns. The drive was on unpaved road and you could see lot of desert vegetation & wild life along the way. We sighted couple of musk deer & few birds during the drive. On completion of the drive we headed to Guadalupe mountains national park. This is about 35 miles south of the caverns. The drive was across a vast stretch of desolate land with no civilization. Guadalupe mountains national park is one of the least developed of the national parks. The best way to see the park is by hiking. There are very few roads in the park. We did a short hike(2.5 miles) at smith springs trial in the Frijole ranch. The hike was very scenic and provided a great view. We were able to see almost up to 50+ miles. The park also hosts the highest point in Texas - Guadalupe peak at some 87xx ft. I had done this hike couple of yrs back.
All good things come to an end :-( . We started the long drive back to Dallas around 5pm and reached home around 2am in the morning. Overall this has been a wonderful trip. We really enjoyed the sights & scenery of both Carlsbad caverns and Guadalupe national park. If you like solitude and you want to get away from the maddening crowds, nothing to beat western Texas & new Mexico in the continental US !!!
We started a little late on day 2 and reached caverns around Noon. There are 2 major tours in the caverns, First one is a self guided tour of the big room which is one of the largest cavern rooms in the world the second one is a ranger guided tour to a set of rooms called Kings Palace. We decided to do start off with the big room tour. The big room can be accessed by a mile long hike down the natural entrance of the cavern or alternatively thru an elevator ride. The choice was easy, we chose to hike down. The climb down was fairly steep and the first part of the cave had few formations. Towards the end of the hike is when you start seeing a lot of formations. We passed through devils spring, witch's finger and iceberg rock(200k ton rock that broke loose from the cave ceiling thousands of yrs back!!), Bone yard on the way down. The end of the hike puts you in the big room. One thing that struck me about this cavern was its enormity. Right from the entrance, to whole way down & of course the big room was unbelievably huge. NPS has done amazing work with the lighting and had kept it close to natural. It really accentuated some of the formations in the caverns.
The big room is a very large room with a square footage of around 8.2 acres, You could fit around 14 football fields into this room!! This room had tons of gigantic formations. We saw various different types of formations like stalagtites, stalagmites, columns, Soda straws, drapes, mushrooms, dams etc.. Some of the key structures we saw are The giants, Temple of Sun, Grand chandalier, Lion Tail, Bottomless pit, Mirror lake etc. We took around 2.5-3hrs to tour this place. There is a huge lunch room/visitor cente in one corner of the big room. Here you could eat in the restaurant at 750ft below ground level !!!
On Day 3 we accidentally bumped into one of my old friends Deepak & his wife Priya. It was a big surprise as this place is very remote and is one of the last places i would've expected to meet a friend. Anu and I hiked down the natural entrance again with Deepak & Priya. All of us went for the Kings Palace tour. This is one of the most ornate rooms in the whole caverns. This was a ranger guided tour. It was a very different experience, All the lights were turned off and each of us carried a lantern to give us a flavor of how the initial explorers experienced the caverns. There was one point in the tour we were asked to turn off all the lanterns to give us a feel of the darkness. It was so pitch dark and we couldn't see our hands placed 1 inch from the face!! On completion of the tour we did some more sight-seeing of the big room to finish the day.
On the final day of our tour we decided to go for a short scenic desert loop near Carlsbad caverns. The drive was on unpaved road and you could see lot of desert vegetation & wild life along the way. We sighted couple of musk deer & few birds during the drive. On completion of the drive we headed to Guadalupe mountains national park. This is about 35 miles south of the caverns. The drive was across a vast stretch of desolate land with no civilization. Guadalupe mountains national park is one of the least developed of the national parks. The best way to see the park is by hiking. There are very few roads in the park. We did a short hike(2.5 miles) at smith springs trial in the Frijole ranch. The hike was very scenic and provided a great view. We were able to see almost up to 50+ miles. The park also hosts the highest point in Texas - Guadalupe peak at some 87xx ft. I had done this hike couple of yrs back.
All good things come to an end :-( . We started the long drive back to Dallas around 5pm and reached home around 2am in the morning. Overall this has been a wonderful trip. We really enjoyed the sights & scenery of both Carlsbad caverns and Guadalupe national park. If you like solitude and you want to get away from the maddening crowds, nothing to beat western Texas & new Mexico in the continental US !!!
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