Sunday, January 20, 2008
Trip to Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Park
Well, Christmas holidays were round the corner and sitting at home was not an option. So Arun and myself planned to head somewhere and finally came up with a plan to visit Death Valley National Park and Joshua Tree National Park. If someone likes photography and wants to visit Death Valley then one should surely not miss the morning sunrise because the scene would just sway away your mind, its just breathtaking!
So we planned to leave San Diego in the night and reach Death Valley by early morning. We reached our destination by 6 in the morning and Arun started his photography session from the Sand Dunes capturing the early sunrise. People from all over the world come here specially to see the sunrise from these Sand Dunes. There were so many other places to cover in the Valley so slowly-2 we covered all the important places. Moving ahead from the Sand Dunes, we covered Zabriskie Point. This location is featured prominently on the cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree and is famous for its erosional landscape. From Zabriskie Point we went to Dante's View and then to Artist's Drive and Palette. Finally, we reached Badwater Basin. Badwater is a salt flat that contains the lowest elevation in North America at 86 meters (282 feet) below sea level and the massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. I have uploaded some of the trip's pictures at the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/karambirkalsi/TripToDeathValleyAndJoshuaTreeNationalPark
After roaming around in Death Valley, we went to Joshua Tree National Park the following day which is famous for its trees called 'Joshua' and huge structures formed by massive rocks. Many years back some mormon prophet by the name of Joshua was crossing this place and he found that the shape of the tree resembled Jesus Christ's position with arms wide open and so he named the tree after his own name. The link above also consists of pictures from Joshua Tree National Park.
While heading back to San Diego we made a brief stop at Palm Springs and took Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which takes you to San Jacinto Mountain. This Tramway is one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and can take upto 80 passengers a time. Moreover, it has a rotating floor which gives a 360 degree view while traveling in the car. It was a great experience and finally the same night we reached back San Diego. Rest laters!
So we planned to leave San Diego in the night and reach Death Valley by early morning. We reached our destination by 6 in the morning and Arun started his photography session from the Sand Dunes capturing the early sunrise. People from all over the world come here specially to see the sunrise from these Sand Dunes. There were so many other places to cover in the Valley so slowly-2 we covered all the important places. Moving ahead from the Sand Dunes, we covered Zabriskie Point. This location is featured prominently on the cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree and is famous for its erosional landscape. From Zabriskie Point we went to Dante's View and then to Artist's Drive and Palette. Finally, we reached Badwater Basin. Badwater is a salt flat that contains the lowest elevation in North America at 86 meters (282 feet) below sea level and the massive expanse of white is made up of almost pure table salt. I have uploaded some of the trip's pictures at the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/karambirkalsi/TripToDeathValleyAndJoshuaTreeNationalPark
After roaming around in Death Valley, we went to Joshua Tree National Park the following day which is famous for its trees called 'Joshua' and huge structures formed by massive rocks. Many years back some mormon prophet by the name of Joshua was crossing this place and he found that the shape of the tree resembled Jesus Christ's position with arms wide open and so he named the tree after his own name. The link above also consists of pictures from Joshua Tree National Park.
While heading back to San Diego we made a brief stop at Palm Springs and took Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which takes you to San Jacinto Mountain. This Tramway is one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and can take upto 80 passengers a time. Moreover, it has a rotating floor which gives a 360 degree view while traveling in the car. It was a great experience and finally the same night we reached back San Diego. Rest laters!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Keep moving on!
"Keep moving on son, that's how life is" well these were the words that I heard from my dad when I was about to move from College Station to San Diego. I have always admired my dad and tried to follow his foot steps. I have not seen much in life but I always try to observe whats going on around.
During my high school days I used to always hang out with my friends, laugh about things, do crazy things and used to think this phase will never get over but for my engineering degree I had to move to a hostel life where I made new friends and relationships. I was fortunate enough to meet friends like Satwinder and Aman with whom I was able to build such a relationship which can go forever and these are people I don't have to even think before calling them because we share from the most non-sense talks to the sensible ones between us.
I would say those four years of my engineering college were the best days of my life so far. I still remember those initial days when I used to be a reticent guy afraid of starting a new venture, feeling uncomfortable mingling with new friends and living a very isolated life. Then eventually I developed new friends, acquaintances and came to know about the value of friends in one's life. I would like to mention the names of my friends here that have left imprints but the list is a bit long so I will leave this for some other day. And during all of the four years I never thought that one day this phase will also get over and one has to keep moving on relinquishing our habits, usual activities and to some extent few of our friends. Then I had to come abroad for higher studies leaving everything behind, my family, my friends, my home everything in hope of establishing a better career for myself. Obviously there was so much of excitement and enthusiasm in me as I was about to see America and enter a entirely new culture but somewhere there was a slight fear also of leaving my family and friends behind. Coming to College station, by God's grace I came into contact with people whom I can never forget throughout my life. Friends like Homarjun, Abhishek, Greg, Baski, Razesh, Jagdeep have helped and given me so much in one way or the other that no way I can repay them back. Slowly - 2 I started enjoying my new life here and two years during my stay in College Station I learnt so much and by the time I got used to the life style, I again realized that once more its time to move on ahead and leave everything behind and build new acquaintances.
Well, I am an optimist and see at the brighter side of things. When I see now I feel that at each phase whatever friends and relationships that I made I kept on collecting them and preserved them in my bag of memories. Whenever I want I can look back and cherish all the memories and moments that I have spent with my family and my friends. That gives me a feeling of immense happiness and satisfaction. Rest laters!
During my high school days I used to always hang out with my friends, laugh about things, do crazy things and used to think this phase will never get over but for my engineering degree I had to move to a hostel life where I made new friends and relationships. I was fortunate enough to meet friends like Satwinder and Aman with whom I was able to build such a relationship which can go forever and these are people I don't have to even think before calling them because we share from the most non-sense talks to the sensible ones between us.
I would say those four years of my engineering college were the best days of my life so far. I still remember those initial days when I used to be a reticent guy afraid of starting a new venture, feeling uncomfortable mingling with new friends and living a very isolated life. Then eventually I developed new friends, acquaintances and came to know about the value of friends in one's life. I would like to mention the names of my friends here that have left imprints but the list is a bit long so I will leave this for some other day. And during all of the four years I never thought that one day this phase will also get over and one has to keep moving on relinquishing our habits, usual activities and to some extent few of our friends. Then I had to come abroad for higher studies leaving everything behind, my family, my friends, my home everything in hope of establishing a better career for myself. Obviously there was so much of excitement and enthusiasm in me as I was about to see America and enter a entirely new culture but somewhere there was a slight fear also of leaving my family and friends behind. Coming to College station, by God's grace I came into contact with people whom I can never forget throughout my life. Friends like Homarjun, Abhishek, Greg, Baski, Razesh, Jagdeep have helped and given me so much in one way or the other that no way I can repay them back. Slowly - 2 I started enjoying my new life here and two years during my stay in College Station I learnt so much and by the time I got used to the life style, I again realized that once more its time to move on ahead and leave everything behind and build new acquaintances.
Well, I am an optimist and see at the brighter side of things. When I see now I feel that at each phase whatever friends and relationships that I made I kept on collecting them and preserved them in my bag of memories. Whenever I want I can look back and cherish all the memories and moments that I have spent with my family and my friends. That gives me a feeling of immense happiness and satisfaction. Rest laters!
