A Beautiful World

I have heard about Sausalito several times from my coworkers as an excellent place to visit. So I finally for a chance to visit this area. Although its a short distance from Fremont, but it can take some time to reach depending on the traffic in SFO. We reached Sausalito about 2pm after driving through very slow moving traffic around Golden Gate. Immediately after parking, we searched for a place for lunch. This place is known for fine eateries and we finally settled for an Italian place. Got a seat outside the restaurant and enjoyed the lunch with a view of the bay. Once luch was done, we crossed the road and found Bill Dan busy balancing the rocks . This was extraordinary work. Bill Dan Balancing Rocks We walked along the oceanfront and it did got little chilly. Always carry a jacket whenever in SFO or anywhere nearby :). Busy bridgeway blvd. View from the Sausalito Ferry Terminal. We did visit several art galleries in the downtown. All in all, it was fun and...

Although the forecast for the weekend showed a cloudy/rainy weather but it all cleared up on Sunday. So we decided to take a trip to Point Reyes which is just one and half are drive from Bay Area. As it was a spur of the moment decision, we could leave by 11am only. We reached Bear Valley Visitor Center  around 1pm via San Rafael. We took a break for lunch and picked up the park's map. Next stop was Drake's beach where bus shuttles were taking folks to Lighthouse and Chimney Rock point.  It seems this arrangement is for the winter (during Whale migration season). Drakes beach is good 20 miles from Bear Valley visitor center. Paid $10 for the tickets (2 adults, kids ticket was free). We had to wait some 40 mins as there was a long queue. Shuttle service was fast enough and we could get 3rd shuttle after getting in the queue. From the bus, we got to see lot of cows (apparently this place is known for butter) and deer. Our first stop was Lighthouse drop-off point. From here,...

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Previous: Day 5 (part 2) - Petrified Forest National Park Day 6 of  road trip . We packed our stuff and left hotel at Flagstaff around 9am to leave for Sedona. Soon enough we had taken exit for highway 89A from I17. This is truly a majestic drive unwinding road through sea of red rocks. We drove slowly to fully enjoy this beautiful drive. We reached Sedona around 10am. As it was a Thanksgiving day, there was not much crowd in the town. Visitor center was closed but we picked up the map from nearby hotel. Our first stop was scenic overlook near  Airport mesa . Here was a view from this point. Airport Mesa After this, we did a small trail up the hill to get a beautiful view of the red rocks from Airport Mesa. We were little lucky to get a parking spot. This is one of the most beautiful spot in Sedona to enjoy red rocks. After spending good 3--45 mins on top of Airport Mesa, we next tried to see Cathedral Rock but could not find a good spot for the same. Aft...

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 2) - Mesa Verde National Park Day 5 (part 1) of  road trip . Today we had planned to cover Canyon De Chelly (CDC) National Monument (NM) and Petrified Forest National Park. We left our hotel in Cortez CO around 7am and started driving towards Canyon De Chelly. On the way, we came across Four Corners NM but it was supposed to open at 8am and there was a queue already of few vehicles. We decided not to see this place as it would have taken out almost 45 mins - 1 hr from our already tight schedule. As we got closer to CDC, we came across very heavy fog which kept getting thicker and thicker as we approached Chinle AZ. I was optimistic of fog clearing away (based on my experience in last few days) but alas we were not that lucky this time. We reached visitor center around 9:15am and were told that they had no idea how long fog will take to clear up. We decided to do the White House trail  to the floor of the canyon and hoped that fog will clear up by...