President's day solicits visit to Ohio!

We can't believe we are running out of places to visit in the East coast already. Wait, let me rephrase - we are running out of famous places to visit in the East Coast already. So, we started scouting around the web to find places that could be interesting within driving distance. There is, of course no scarcity for remote places in this country, most of them quite beautiful in their own way.

After a little bit of googling, we have decided to do a road trip to Cuyahoga National park in Ohio (about 6 hours drive from Philadelphia) for the upcoming President's day weekenF. In the park, there are a number of hiking trails, a scenic railway, and a couple of waterfalls (which could very well be nothing but falling icicles now, but hey, who cares?!).

The plan is to spend a day at the National park and then drive to Presque Isle (which translates to 'almost an island' in French) in Pennsylvania. There is a state park, cruise rides, shopping district and what not? We have booked a mansion/hotel to spend a couple of nights there. And then on the way back, we'll visit one of the state parks in the Pennsylvania Wilds.

If I sit back and think, my visit to this country started off as a 'short-term work assignment' for 3 weeks, back in 2004. It has transformed into an almost 5 year stay making me learn a thing or two about this country and myself in the due course. Having visited more than 30 states, I still feel there is a lot to explore in this country, or for that matter, any place one lives in. The smallest, the most remote, less visited, less popular - all kinds of places have their own unique style and beauty.

Any time I step out of my doorstep, a whole new experience always seem to greet me! I'm sure any avid traveler would agree with me!

Havasu Falls Hike - Grand Canyon Region

This has been on my radar for quite some time now. And finally, thanks to the perfect company (who else?!), we have decided to do this hike during the thanksgiving holidays. Havasu Falls is located on the Havasupai Indian Reservation, in a remote canyon offshoot of the Grand Canyon. Havasu falls does not belong to the US National park service, it is managed by the Havasupai tribe. The hike to Havasu falls is about 10 miles one way in the Grand canyon region.

Though there are Helicopters and Mules to aid people to reach the falls, we have decided to hike down the trail. After all the hike seems like the main highlight of the trip and we did not want to miss it. There are a total of three waterfalls (Havasu, Mooney and Beaver) in the village, all of them being completely turquoise (google for images till I bring back some pictures! ha!). Being a huge admirer of waterfalls, I decided 'Havasu trail' against the more famous 'Bright Angel trail' at Grand Canyon national park and had to almost force Kavitha into this. But I have promised her that we'll do the 'Bright Angel' hike soon in the future.

We have booked flights to Phoenix and a hotel for that night at Flagstaff. The next day, our plan is to drive to Hualapai hilltop and then hike down to the village. Since we want to experience the nature in a way that we haven't done before, we've decided to camp for the night at the tribal village. We'll try to visit Havasu Falls (about 1.5 miles from the campground) that evening and come back to the camp for the night. Plan for the next morning is to visit Mooney and Beaver Falls (about a 3 mile hike) and spend a few hours there. By afternoon, we should be on our return hike to Hualapai hilltop (we have the option of taking the Helicopter on our way back in case we become tired).

Itinerary for the next 2 days is open at this stage, though I have two books on Arizona sight-seeing from the local library lying on my bed-side table and a google window almost always open. Red rock jeep tours, Apache trail, Grand canyon (north rim), other National parks or a rodeo show look like potential candidates, but we are yet to finalize our plans.

And this is gonna be my first 5-day backpacking trip! Packing clothes, tents, sleeping bag and my camera equipment into one hiking backpack seems like a challenge to begin with. But I'm sure the whole trip will be a fun-filled experience in itself. I'm so looking forward to it!

Now that the cat is out of the bag... Ahem...

Arun has been dying to write about our impending cross country trip for the past month. I've been stopping him from doing so because there were just too many obstacles that could potentially prevent us from making it happen. And then all you lovely readers would laugh at us.

The biggest problem was that I did not (and still don't) have a US driving license. We had a pretty bizarre top-down approach to this problem. Here's a peek into some of our conversations and obsessions about it.

Kavitha/Arun (we're still not sure who): Let's do a cross country trip.
Kavitha/Arun: Awesome! Let's do it.
Kavitha: Oh but I don't have a license in the US. (Nice discovery there, seriously)
Arun: But you do have an Indian driving license, don't you?
Kavitha: Oh yeah yeah, but no international permit (just a teeny weeny lame ass problem)
Arun: That sucks... Hmm... No problem, we still have more than a month, so let's just get you a US license.
Kavitha: Good plan!

I forage the internet for information and find that I need a year's validity on my immigration papers to be eligible for a license in Pennsylvania and in most other states. But I graduate in 3 months (Don't get me started on how much that sucks...). After a few sleepless nights and hours of obsessing, I discovered that my valid immigration status automatically gets extended if I apply for a permit to work in the US for a year after I graduate.

Arun: That's easy! Do it immediately...

Not so easy, as I discovered. I could not apply for it until I had not more than 3 months until graduation. And it was only January. Bummer. Bummer. Bummer. More sleepless nights. Then my luck turned around, deservedly so. It turned out that the 3 month rule was not really a 3 month rule ( I will spare you the minutiae of it). I could get my new papers from the school much earlier than I can actually start working. So I did that! Talk about paper work and rules and red tape... Anyway I got all the papers and stamps and approvals and letters and other paraphernalia prepared and finally got my learner's permit a couple of days ago.

Now the only thing left is the driving test. I hear I have to parallel park!!! So I could still technically fail the test. But then I do trust Arun to get my driving skills, including parallel parking, all sharpened up by next week. Don't I love tossing the ball into his court like that?!

So here's to a trip that we really hope we can pull off. Wish me luck... And will you remind me to drive on the right hand side please?

Cross Country : A road trip across America!

A great philosopher once said "one's purpose of performing an activity in life is achieved to the full extent, only when one advertises it." I live by it and hence this blog.

Anyways, here's the reason for this post: After much deliberation and discussion, Kavitha and I have finally decided to do our long-awaited cross country road trip across USA. It wasn't an easy decision for two people with totally incompatible schedules.

Thankfully, Kavitha has her spring break in March and I am utilizing my yearly vacation, much earlier this year. Luckily, things actually seem to be slowly falling in place.

The plan is to start from Philadelphia and drive all the way through West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California to reach San Francisco. We would be doing this drive in about 9 days, stopping and visiting places as we go.

We have set up the whole itinerary in such a way that our daily driving limit is about 10 hours. We have a one-way SUV rental from Hertz and we will fly to Philadelphia on the way back.

We have also decided to blog our experiences on this blog daily over the 10 days of our trip. Do follow us and be a part of our experience!

The more we plan the road trip, the more we read about other people's cross country experiences and the more we learn about each state, the more our enthusiasm rises on a crescendo.

And here is a map of our planned driving route:


Other trivia: I have downloaded Microsoft Streets and Trips, which I think, is one of the coolest software Microsoft has ever developed or probably ever will. Since we are planning to carry one of our laptops, the desktop version of the software should come in handy, as I trust neither AT&T nor my Jesus with the cellular internet in remote parts. We have my Kaiser with TomTom installed for GPS and directions.

Have you ever been in a situation where you can't wait even a minute longer to do something? I'm that excited right now!

P.S: By the way, that great philosopher at the beginning of this post is me...