US is a beautiful country. The more I explore it the more I love it. I'm speaking of natural beauty. Last week I undertook a 2000 mile journey in an old beat up Accord that took me to Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, all in 5 days.
Yosemite was hot. I really had not expected the mountains to be like oven, yet it was frying hot out there. This summer has been especially harsh on CA, or so our host at Cedar lodge told us. Its dry and hot and prone to Forest fires. Earlier this summer Lake tahoe had one tragic incidence of forest fire, barely a month after I visited it in June. Lack of rains this year added to the woes of Yosemite as the beautiful bridal falls were reduced to a trickle.
Anyhow, after spending a day at Yosemite, I drove to GC. It was a breathtaking journey. I started off amongst the mountains. It was a beautiful, calm and cool morning with the sun lighting the mountain tops as we drove along a tiny stream on I-140 from El-Portal to Mariposa. As we reached downhills, we stopped at a place called Coarse Gold on route CA - 41 for breakfast. Just as we started off towards US 99 the scenary changed. The mountains gave way to hills to hillocks to gentle slopes and the green got replaced with bright golden yellow. California is called golden state for many reasons, but to me its the landscape. As we neared CA-99 the scenary became stunningly bright golden with beadings of trees making it look like some special effects film.
As we drove through CA-99 to I-15 N the scenary changed again. The vegetation disappeared and ugly, scarred scarred hills sprang up. The desert was dry as bone and hot as a furnace. It was quite scary as the signs carried messages like "Next services 50 miles". Goodness, what would happen if my car broke down in this sweltering heat?
As we crossed over to Nevada on I-40 E, the landscape became even more rugged and remaining traces of vegetation disappeared. The land became flat and bare. We finally broke for lunch at a Roadside Steak House in Nevada. They served some wonderful bbq chicken and life restoring lemonade. We then set off towards Az.
As we entered Az, we were greeted by thunderstorms and a mesh of railroad tracks. The silver streak of wagons crawling across the desert and pulled by 4 to 5 hefty locomotives looked like a stream of water flowing through the desert.
From time to time we'd see exits to Historic route 66 and it reminded me of Cars (Pixar Movie). The road was straight as an arrow with Giant trucks crowding the I40 hauling supplies deep into the desert to sustain US way of life.
We broke our journey at Kingman. Tanked up, as Gasoline was a wee bit cheaper 2.79 9/10 per gallon and set off again towards Williams (our base camp for GC). As we set off, the scenary changed once again. The barren land got replaced with green lands, with patchy green shrubs lining the way to Willaims. As the sun set behind us I kept looking up the breathtakingly beautiful sky in my rear view mirror. Shades of blue got mixed with the grey of clouds with pink borders as the sun struggled through the clouds on its way down. We finished our 650 miles long drive for the day as we took exit 163 to Williams. Once again the shades changed to bright yellow with millions of wild flowers painted the canvas with their bright petals.
Yosemite was hot. I really had not expected the mountains to be like oven, yet it was frying hot out there. This summer has been especially harsh on CA, or so our host at Cedar lodge told us. Its dry and hot and prone to Forest fires. Earlier this summer Lake tahoe had one tragic incidence of forest fire, barely a month after I visited it in June. Lack of rains this year added to the woes of Yosemite as the beautiful bridal falls were reduced to a trickle.
Anyhow, after spending a day at Yosemite, I drove to GC. It was a breathtaking journey. I started off amongst the mountains. It was a beautiful, calm and cool morning with the sun lighting the mountain tops as we drove along a tiny stream on I-140 from El-Portal to Mariposa. As we reached downhills, we stopped at a place called Coarse Gold on route CA - 41 for breakfast. Just as we started off towards US 99 the scenary changed. The mountains gave way to hills to hillocks to gentle slopes and the green got replaced with bright golden yellow. California is called golden state for many reasons, but to me its the landscape. As we neared CA-99 the scenary became stunningly bright golden with beadings of trees making it look like some special effects film.
As we drove through CA-99 to I-15 N the scenary changed again. The vegetation disappeared and ugly, scarred scarred hills sprang up. The desert was dry as bone and hot as a furnace. It was quite scary as the signs carried messages like "Next services 50 miles". Goodness, what would happen if my car broke down in this sweltering heat?
As we crossed over to Nevada on I-40 E, the landscape became even more rugged and remaining traces of vegetation disappeared. The land became flat and bare. We finally broke for lunch at a Roadside Steak House in Nevada. They served some wonderful bbq chicken and life restoring lemonade. We then set off towards Az.
As we entered Az, we were greeted by thunderstorms and a mesh of railroad tracks. The silver streak of wagons crawling across the desert and pulled by 4 to 5 hefty locomotives looked like a stream of water flowing through the desert.
From time to time we'd see exits to Historic route 66 and it reminded me of Cars (Pixar Movie). The road was straight as an arrow with Giant trucks crowding the I40 hauling supplies deep into the desert to sustain US way of life.
We broke our journey at Kingman. Tanked up, as Gasoline was a wee bit cheaper 2.79 9/10 per gallon and set off again towards Williams (our base camp for GC). As we set off, the scenary changed once again. The barren land got replaced with green lands, with patchy green shrubs lining the way to Willaims. As the sun set behind us I kept looking up the breathtakingly beautiful sky in my rear view mirror. Shades of blue got mixed with the grey of clouds with pink borders as the sun struggled through the clouds on its way down. We finished our 650 miles long drive for the day as we took exit 163 to Williams. Once again the shades changed to bright yellow with millions of wild flowers painted the canvas with their bright petals.
2 comments:
Wow, sounds like a really great trip. Great photo's as well.
Yup, the trip turned out alright. Photos are just like me ameturish. I have installed the image editing software by Canon and its a great cover up act. Though its not a miracle worker it does spruce them up to look better than original job.
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