Traffic Curse of LA

Started off early 7:30 on a long weekend vacation to LA. Was hoping to get there by 1:30 pm and spend the evening touring Kodak studio and Sunset Blvd Strip. Did pretty well till about 30 min to LA. And suddenly the flood gates opened. Cars of all shapes and sizes spilled over the road and covered every square inch of it. It was irritating and exasperating. It took us 2 hrs to wade through the traffic to reach our hotel.

After cleaning up, armed with GPS and traffic meter, we went back out to fight the zombies on the road. Trust me, in a place like LA there are no empty roads any time of the day. Traffic sensors, forecasters etc. are all worthless when the Zombies are flying in all directions. In the end we could see just 2 spots. The Hollywood sign and Kodak Theater. We'll try and cover other places on Sunday.

Sometimes it feels like a cluster of mosquitoes hovering over your head on a warm summer evening. They follow you whereever you go and they find you however hard you try to dodge them. LA traffic knew all about our plans and whichever route we took, they got there before us.

With a population of just 4 million(Mumbai is 5 times more populated) LA has managed to choke itself. Its convinced me of need for mass transport system for every city thats more than a million people. It just does not make sense to broaden the roads. I was driving on 10 lane highways( 5 lanes each side) and yet they were all chock-a-block.

Crater Lake Oregon

Sharing their habitat

Who Moved My Cheese??

Inverted Icicles

Stitched Crater Lake

They call it the purest water lake in the world. Perched at 7000 feet in the cusp of the volcanic mountain its the bluest lake I've ever seen. May be the lakes in Leh would match the beauty and the purity of crater lake.

We stayed in a Log cabin in the wilderness with deers frequenting our room. Saw a few in the chill of the morning mist.

I've been trying to leverage Stitch feature of my camera and the results could have been good. Its a great feature which allows you to take multiple snaps and then merge them in a single picture to create a panoramic view.


The weather was misty on the day we arrived, but fortunately cleared up the next day. Another attraction there are amazing columns of solid lava that have frozen and look like upside down icicles.


The falls in the vicinity were too cold to enter. We were happy just to click snaps.

Here are a few of the snaps from my latest adventure.

NYC trip has been a strangely redeeming experience. All my life I'd heard abt the great city and blessed are the ones who get a chance to set foot in heaven...
So assuming a favorable planetary alignment and that this was our calling we planned our maiden trip to the east coast two months ahead. We even got a great deal at Travelocity and were set to dig into the big apple.

On the d-day, we stepped into winding check in line at American Airlines counter at the airport wondering how popular AA is amongst travelers. While other check in counters wore a deserted look, we had about 100 passengers ahead of us in AA check in queue. One look at the departures screen and mystery of AA's popularity was unraveled. 3 AA flights were cancelled and guess what, ours was one of them. Ouch!

Travelocity 1-800 numbers landed me in the hands of a eager representative in India. I explained my predicament and pleaded for help. The lady confirmed that mine was indeed a precarious situation with hotel and car bookings likely to go down the drain. The best she said she could offer were her prayers that I got onto the very next flight.

In the mean time AA circulated another 1-800 number to all the hapless passengers to call and negotiate the passage to their destinations based on availability on other AA flights. The 1-800 lady I narrated my misfortune to, put me on hold for 30 min before confirming that the earliest she could plant us on a flight to NYC was 2 days later. Well at least our assumption of AA's popularity was right!

Next step, call the hotels and plead with them. Last remember I pleaded my case this way was when I proposed to my wife. At least I was rewarded for the hardwork, but this time I just could not break the ice. The hotels refused to relent. Well two days rent down the drain. Boohoo!

But I get thats when I hit the bottom. From that point on I started bouncing back and the clouds started to lift...

Note: To be continued...