A Beautiful World

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Previous : Day 5 (part 1) - Canyon De Chelly National Monument Day 5 (part 2) of  road trip . From Canyon De Chelly to Petrified Forest took about 2 hours via highway 91. The fog got left behind somewhere along the way :) From my research done on this park, a time of 3 to 4 hours was given as sufficient time to experience the park. We reached the park around 2 PM and entered via Painted Desert Visitor Center. We had our lunch and then picked park map from the visitor center.  Our first stop was Painted desert. The rocks were more red and light red color. I guess because of lack of sunlight, we did not see any other colors. Here is a picture of this Painted Desert.   .  Here is another picture with more red effect (I disabled some option - I think it was white balance in camera which made the picture have more red than normal). In the park, we came across Painted Desert Inn. It was quite a place in the middle of almost nowhere. ...

Previous : Day 4 (part 1) - Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park Day 4 (part 2) of road trip . We drove for about two and half hours from Monument Valley to reach Mesa Verde National Park . As I was researching about this park, I knew that we will not be able to see all Cliff dwellings in winter. But this potentially could be my only chance to see this place. So there was never a thought of skipping it. Of all the national parks in US, Mesa Verde is only one which is preserving man-made sites (constructed around 1100-1200 AD). As we reached the entrance, I got to know that Spruce Tree house  cliff dwelling can be visited on your own (somehow nps.gov website said that there are ranger guided tours). The cliff dwelling section of the park is at the rear end and we had to drive good 20-30 mins before we reached the museum near Spruce Tree. We parked the car and immediately went on the trail to visit Spruce tree house. Here is the view of this Cliff dwelling from Top of the tra...

Previous: Day 2 - Death Valley National Park Day 3  of road trip . We stayed with our approach of starting early from hotel to maximize our outdoor in sunlight. Had our breakfast in hotel at Hurricane and started for Grand Canyon North rim (had done a trip to South Rim in 2012 summer). Before starting, I was regularly checking for road conditions update to make sure we can go (the park was going to close any day for winter). Here is how it looked outside the hotel as we started. View from hotel @Hurricane, UT GPS showed about 2 hours travel to North rim. As we started, shortly we hit heavy fog and I was little anxious if we will be able to see anything but I continued. After some 30 mins driving, the fog was gone and it was all back to normal. The road leading to Grand Canyon was heavenly and there was no one around to see all this beauty (I'll understand the reason about an hour later :). The whole area was covered in beautiful white snow . Got to see a deer as well in...

Previous : Day 1 - Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park Day 2  of road trip . The weather had greatly improved since yesterday (and will stay nice throughout the trip). From Ridgecrest, Furnace Creek visitor center was about 2 hours drive. We started around 7am from the hotel via CA-178. After few miles past Ridgecrest, the whole surroundings seemed other planetary. There was absolutely no traffic and whole area was left for us to enjoy :) Came across a town in the middle of nowhere (Seales Valley) which had a huge mineral factory. After crossing the town, we came across a turn and were totally blown away by the valley that lay below us. So got out of the car and took some pictures. Here is one of those: Somewhere along the road, I felt that I read a sign of road being closed. This put some doubt in my mind but I ignored it and continued. But as we were about to enter the park (about 10-12 miles before hitting CA-190...BAM, ROAD CLOSED! Talk about roadtrips being unp...

Day 1  of Road trip . We started early (at 6AM) from our home in Fremont. The weather for Kings Canyon was showing as partially cloudy. Along the way, we hit a dense fog which continued for several miles (I thought this is how its gonna be in the park) but it disappeared quite quickly. We had breakfast at McDonald's on the way and reached Kings Canyon Park around 10:30AM. We directly went to the Grant Grove village visitor center and picked up the park guide/map. After that, we were on to our first point which was to General Grant Tree . After parking the car, we took the 0.3m long trail going through amazing Sequoias. Have you walked through a tree? You can do it on this trail. We Walked through this huge tree which must have fallen long back. After spending about 45 mins on this trail, we took highway towards King Canyon Lodge to experience the park from different view points. The road after Kings Canyon Lodge was closed during winter season. Here is view from Junction...