Americ-aah

If writing a travelogue for this trip can make one feel over-tired, imagine the number of things we did, the places we saw, the people we met and the kilometers we covered:). It was not an easy trip but sure was an amazing journey. We will live out these memories very dearly for years to come am sure. For now though, I have this epic compilation of parts of the whole experience that our holiday was. 

First things:

So we are going to visit a country I have read and heard a lot about. As v plan and build our expectations on the places and people we'll visit, am super anxious.I think of the awkward introductions..Dad's cousins n their children ! Ppl who I know exist because my mom says so;) n now I will go n stay in their home for a day with my family... As crazy as it sounds to me, it's not unnatural to the parents at all ... I tried to convince the parent tribe that this is not the most spectacular idea.Dad says it's going to be socially awkward for him when he will meet them end of this year if I don’t stay with them while in America, well that awkwardness is what Prash is going to wear on his round face in a few weeks time.

Planning:

The planning for the 3 week long vacation started atleast 3 months prior. The fun part of dreaming, sketching out the details, coordinating with all and sundry and a general cheerful festive mood at home was just the beginning.Educating the little traveler on the geography of the new country we were to see was fun.We talked at length about hemispheres, varying seasons, equator etc. Also on why we needed visa while she actually dint. The visa application process and the anticipation of an interview was daunting. U know the probability of a disappointment not because of anything u r today but because of a country u were born in and hence happen to hold a passport of a nation that they hold a grudge against.Makes one think of the depth of the bias, the effect of the action of some ppl at some point in history. The unwarranted sense of achievement or rather a feeling of relief at having obtained a visa was interesting. It also reinforced the convenience of holding an NZ passport and hence yet another chance for prash to rub it into my face that if not for my jingoistic patriotism, we would have been NZ citizens 4 years ago. Oh well! it takes time to let the emotional go and let pragmatism take over even in matters of changing one's passport-identified-nationality. I'll let that rant be the subject of a different story. Now with Visa, tickets and approved leaves at work we were unstoppable.I, of course brought in a collective ban on all shopping...nothing other than groceries was to be brought into the house. Not even the needs- replacement type trivial items...because of course we'll shop for it in the USA! The details started getting clearer to us as days progressed. Everything was in place, the internal flights, the places to stay at, places to eat at, address of car rental pickups, transfers to and from every point.I had already traveled through the country virtually in my head and with google earth.Twice over actually, before we even boarded the plane :)

Packing:

When we started packing, the idea was to take empty suitcases and bring em back filled. But the real deal was well... not quite empty suitcases. We packed in enough for a family to live on the moon for a month. From carseat to medicines to sunhats to nail clipper to ear buds everything was going in. Prash tried to reason at some point saying u know we are going to a country that is much more developed than the one we live in. So probably we can do away with say ear buds. Err what no ear buds... how do u expect to deal with that emergency we will have at midnight without an ear bud. He tried some more ...if its an emergency its highly unlikely that ear buds are going to come to rescue + we will always be able to find a 24 hour pharmacy.. both Prash and k start laughing at which point I empty all the 100 ear buds on the bathroom floor and we collectively spend the next 10 min of our lives putting them all back together. I still think it made sense to carry non-weight adding, non-space consuming ear buds over say the steamer that prash was keen to pack. Like really while on a holiday in LA or NYC v r going to steam beetroot, sweet potato or broccoli. Can we be reasonable?? such fun and travails of packing with my family I tell u! 

Finally the anticipation was over and show time was on us!

Planes and transit:

The time of day when we fly, the duration and transits. Up until now we had not bothered much

about any of these. Its been typically the cheapest option on the date of travel we want. But with k, there was a huge amount of emphasis on keeping her engaged and happy during the flights. This was quite a dreadful thing since she is averse to watching TV. To our joy though she actually watched an entire movie on the last leg of the flight. The rest of time she found an audio book and some music to listen to all by herself. The transit in Fiji was spent  playing uno cards, meditative coloring-in and making loom-band bracelets for the entire population in the waiting lounge etc. 5 hours went by in a jiffy and I had only just started reading a book i bought thinking I will be bored on the 11 hour flight to LA.The immigration at LA was a thing I had feared. I was expecting to be asked a few more questions, but zilch! he was actually smiling and making a conversation ...err what? u r an immigration officer.. ur kind does not smile! 

It Starts :

The horror of heat, traffic and chaos as soon as we stepped out of the airport in LA was shocking in a bad way.What else did i expect I dont know...but we were wearing turtle neck full arm sweaters coming from peak winter and had luggage towered on our trolleys obstructing eyesight.. yes we are the typical Indian travelers. We even carried idli sambar onto the flight to avoid eating synthetic flight food. Though the food on Fiji airways was Indianised and actually tasty, I could taste class 2 preservatives .Prash on the other hand just rolled his eyes and ate my share happily. And so when we stepped out in LA, the limos dint stop for pedestrians! we dint have any signs indicating where the car rental buses are going to pick us up from. The problem of having lived in NZ started at that point. Stepping out in Auckland is always pleasant. There are pedestrian crossings where the buses patiently wait for u to cross the road and a sign (make that 1 in every direction) telling u where u will need to be.Prash started out laughing at me 'ha ha halli hudgi welcome to America' but in 5 minutes he was swearing at everything in his way and we finally got onto the right bus to be ferried to the nearest car rental place which was a 15 min bus ride. hmm?? thats the time it took for us to get home from airport in welli. The size of the cities started to sink in.So we got to choose our own car from a few of them parked in a row. That was a new experience.We got a shiny red car and off we started ...but no gmaps, no gps no signs! where to now?? So much for choosing to not stay inline to get a new sim card in the airport. Like y ?? yes we r like that when it comes to waiting in queues for anything. Should have started loving the crowd ! too late now.So we just started off in a general go-south-on-some-interstate mode because on gmaps Irvine was lower than LA airport and lets take the first exit to shops, surely its not hard to find ATnT or T-mobile or whichever shop.Prash's confused look, khushi's exasperation at heat and my near-freaked-out state as we entered the first highway definitely was not a good sign... so we kept going till we all reconciled and got back to our senses. The first exit that we were supposed to take came and went atleast 10 miles ago and then when we did manage to take an exit with all the hope and courage, got lucky and sorted ourselves out with an ATnT sim card. The fact that he dint even ask for my ID was surprising.... I volunteered to produce every piece of paper confirming my name, identity and existence but he dint want it! We got down to business as soon as we got home. That business of order being shopping! till 11 PM. My joy knew no bounds... coming from a city where everyone shuts shop at 5 PM, I had started to feel like Alice in wonderland already. The choices nearly unlimited and sale prices jaw dropping.Prash tried his best to make it clear to me that USD and NZD have a conversion rate around 1.5 but he had to choose if blue or white was a better color on me!.

The next day my cousin S and dodamma packed lunch and snacks for the road. Its really humbling to have someone do that for us! As we started driving to Vegas, I was still getting to terms with driving on the wrong other side of the road.Somewhere in the middle desert, in a desolate place was a set of outlet stores as big as a town. One had to stop and shop u see. Like this is the last shop on earth and everything's up for grabs. The shopping did not disappoint us. The options overwhelmed us and choices confused us but that was the experience one wanted so no complaints there. U know how it makes u wonder if we really need to use so much time and mental energy to buy things that we will only own temporarily. Anyhoo hours later, wallets feeling much lighter, shopping bags fuller, we came back to the oven that our car had transformed itself into. For the very first time in my entire life I wished I was in some place cold. I who wont say no to a blanket in a sauna wanted to go to some place where winter was!Prash dint faint hearing that because he was more shocked tasting the cooked apple that we left in the car-oven. The rest of the drive from LA to Vegas:

Huge Cacti by the roads, monster size trucks whizzing by,crazy sun at 7pm.

Zzyzx road:like a town planner gave up and said 'name it abc I dont care' n the clerk incharge said y abc lets use xyz and randomly made this up. Zzyzx road! lol

Hot sweltry desert ...we needed coffee but were almost scared to take any exit...so few people in such a massive desert.Beautiful view of desert roads: shadow play of clouds on rocks. Fish bone shaped clouds, crawling baby shaped clouds. K n I found this very amusing, Prash of course had to keep his eyes on the hand and hands upon the wheel. The rich colors of a desert sunset: blue with strokes of pink, purple n red was calming.After sunset,  emerged the light stringed roads..  it looked like a roller coaster undulating in a straight long line. 2 strips of light, 1 red 1 golden from the cars on the highway of course! .. 

As we entered Vegas, the dramatic emergence of glitter in the Nevada desert was nothing short of spectacular. It was just as I had imagined it to be.

Vegas: Everything was soo staged and even real life felt like a drama. As if we were

willingly or unwillingly part of the circus. I realized the smell of cigarette and alcohol can be intoxicating at times when fresh but can be so repulsive if the carpets reek of that smell! (When i said this - Prash had that da-fuck expression his face I can never forget :) fresh smell of cigarette and alcohol anthe! ). Back to the fabulous casinos ...So many worlds marvelously recreated, but one needs to wonder where the fantasy transcends into reality looking at people willing to do almost anything for money. We, of course danced on the roads and walked till heels hurt, got caricatures drawn, raised a toast to all the beautiful things in this life n we 3 slept at 3 like one is supposed to while in Vegas-night-of-lights. It was also not a place we felt comfortable taking K to may be because v dint want to answer a lot of her questions. Found the city confusing.

Vegas to Grand Canyon

 After spending sometime at Circus circus casino park on carousels and dashing cars we headed off to Grand canyon. Drove past this aptly named boulder city that was surrounded by gargantuan hills.Natural n man made wonders seemed to compete with one another at Hoover dam across Lake Mead - largest manmade lake. The walk across the bridge between 2 states, 2 timezones was a new thing.Word games,strawberries, kodbales n Mysore pak n laughing at all silly kid-jokes.Glancing through windows at vast expanses of table mountains we saw that sunset! the one in every trip which makes u go awww.

K:  in that exasparated tone of hers 'of course I have seen it 6000  times now' when asked if she saw the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious sunset.

Grand canyon

Such a namesake this truly grand canyon was! The vastness of it all.... the canyons twisting , turning and colored in hues of burnt orange, red and brown and white, we were wowed by the sunrise at the various view points that dotted our drive from the south to the north rim. Yaki point, Moran point, Grand view point to name a few that we stopped at and stared in wonder at these multi layered colorful pyramid cakes for as long as the eye could see .

Neither photos nor words can truly capture the magnificence of this place.People look so tiny against the backdrop of these spectacularly stacked-pancake rocks.

That morning we had checked out at 4.30 am. I was groggy eyed and still clueless why I needed a perfume bottle at 4 am but i just took it in my hand and it slipped! All the yummy smelling 100 ml of my new bottle of perfume spilt! I needed to see that beautiful sunrise to get back in the groove after that loss. What we saw before sunsrise was a bunch of deer on the way at Tusayan .surprise! surprise! moving gently across the road on a pedestrian crossing. The deer i expected was spotted-short-doe-a-deer type of deer. But these with their big antlers and spotless brown hairy bodies were so not the deer I knew.I first thought it was statue placed aesthetically in front of the lodging huts. but they m o v e d ! v jumped with joy!

Antelope canyon : Upper canyon tour.

We had booked to be on a tour at 10.30 am so we could get to see the best angles of the sunlight making its way into the slot canyons. We stopped at so many places to see the grand canyon that now we were racing against time to make it  in time for the upper canyon tour. The heat on that day! in that place! it has to be the worst things ever to feel. Sand and hot air  blasting on to our faces while we drove in an open jeep .. it must definitely feel like that to be on a flame grill i bet! Funny these first world problems of mine.. too hot, too cold, suncreen, sunhat, hand cream, lip balm type crisis! The various shades of brown and red and burnt texture and color in the canyon was wonderful. The sandstone carved slot canyons and sunlight throwing in beams was a sight to behold.

I thought the name was because of the shape and color of the antelope's horns/antlers but the Navajo story had a different one to tell. The pronghorn antelopes grazed in this area 100s of years ago giving it the name.K was upset she lost her sunhat to the desert wind, I was only glad she dint melt away herself.The stay that night was the one we had high hopes on and guess what...as with every damn thing with high expectations, it turned out to be the most disappointing one. Glamping for the convenience of a shower and a bed is what we had hoped for... an oasis of comfort in the middle of Arizona desert in Navajo land, what we were offered was a badly pitched tent with sand blowing in with wind and a meager 1 bucket per person rationed water and the most unfriendly host to boot.  We were sleep deprived and all we needed was the comfort of a bed and ironically that was the day we had the worst of it all.The seats in the car seemed a luxury so we gave in and slept like logs for a couple of hours before heading out to see the sunset at horse shoe bend.

Horse Shoe bend.

I swear this is the place where fear was born...out of the depths of the slowly snaking, heavy, unforgiving river.The steep rock cliffs, the way the forces of wind and water have carved the horse shoe out..as if to parade along this path. By God this was the place where the heart stopped and that eerie feeling lasted for as long as we were there. It was a combination of the time of the day + the lack of a barricade around this whole place.So open yet so concealed till u just pop ur head down! We stood there for the longest time to just soak in the fact that nature is truly most the powerful one and can zip ur mouth up with such surprises. If we were to pick a single place that would draw us back, it would definitely have to be the horse shoe bend. The desire to trek down and reach the bottom of it and look up. In a few years we will do exactly that.

Page

Street full of churches for a city that size seemed crazy.Life without cellphone signal is revealing. I have no idea how we managed before mobile phones/GPS took over life. Though we tried not to spend too much time on it while on holiday, it was essential for a few basic things and lack of it made us feel helpless in a way that only the truly addicted will understand.

Wahweap- Glen canyon:We walked down to see yet another breath taking view of the canyons. A lone hawk n it's shadow circling over the same creepy deep Colorado river provided some movement in that otherwise breath-stopping kind of stillness and silence.

The drive from Page to Vegas was iconic. In some ways we were acclimatized to the weather, got some sleep and were generally better prepared on what to expect. The rock formations and colors were nature's own art display.Like a natural Hampi at every turn. Like carvings on the temple walls of Belur.Ship shapes, dog faces, lion faces.. We saw many things on those red glacial rocks n mountains and were only limited by our imagination. Prash was now using paper napkin to stop sweaty fingers slipping on steering wheels :D. Rest of the drive to Vegas:

Monochromatic buildings blending with the rocks.

Small sand tornado somewhere on the sideroads in Arizona.

Virgin River canyon and Hurricane valley view.: looked Milford-sound-isque 

Long trains carrying more than 150 bogis of cargo against the backdrop of the mountains was so cool to look at.Highways with lot of space between the 2 sides n greenery to divide the 2 sides were so neatly done I thought.

The canyons alone needed not 2 days but atleast 2 weeks...to kayak along the river, to raft in the rapids, to mountain climb, to rappel down the crevices and actually soak in what's on offer. What we saw felt like a trailer of a brilliant movie

(more to come)