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From: kedar
Subject: travelogue... cc to others also.

Hello freinds,

Here is an account of our tour to Niagara Falls, Pittsburg and Washington DC. As planned previously, we took off on 4th July at 5 a.m. towards Pittsburg from Durham. Here, we have AAA (American Automobile Association) where you get detailed road and city maps updated continously so that you know even where any construction work or repair is going on on any highway. Equipped with detailed maps from AAA, we were feeling quite confident of making the trip a success from the very beginning.

We quickly left North Carolina and entered Virginia and then West Virginia. This state is one of the most picturesque states in the US. Here we missed owr way a bit but trying to get to our target road, we passed some really beautiful landscape which we would have missed had we not taken the wrong route ! It was like the Lonavala-Khandala ghats with winding roads through mountains etc.

Reached Pittsburg by about 2 pm and headed straight to the Balaji temple, well known over the US. Left Pittsburg for Niagara and reached there by evening. It was Independence day and had fireworks here. Also went to see the falls at night. The rush was tremendous and was very difficult to get parking space. Here, so many desis (Indians) had come that we thought litrally every other person was a desi ! The falls are floodlit by night and looked great. Actually some of us werent very impressed by the falls i.e. no "love at first sight" but they had to wait till the next day !

About the falls : Niagara falls were formed during the last glaciation period when retreating ice sheets scraped of huge land masses. It is a huge fall on the Niagara river and is split through the middle by the US Canda border. You get a better view of the falls from the Canadian side, thats what they say. These falls have been eroding at a rate of one inch per year and there are two seperate falls. The American falls and the Horse shoe falls (So called because of the shape of the falls). The two most enjoyable things here were the Maid of the Mist and Cave of Winds.

About the Maid of the Mist : Here, there is a legend that when these falls were discovered, a Red Indian Maid was sacrificed. Owing to that, the cruise boat which takes you around the falls is called Maid of the Mist. Seems this boat was used to rescue an eight year old child swept into the falls with just his life jacket on. Its more or less like the santa monica launch in goa and takes you right into the middle of the horse shoe falls. Viewing the horse shoe falls from such close quarters is really breathtaking. As you approach the falls, the level of water conspicously rises and lifts the launch up a few feet. In the cave of the winds, you can go right under the falls with water falling on the rocks just a few feet away from you.

That was about it in Niagara. Then, left for Washington in the night and reached by 2 pm, exhausted but still excited about the next day. In Washington, we saw the washington monument, a tall structure built in memory of the great american leader, the jefferson memorial, the lincoln memorial and ofcourse the Smithsonian institution , the air and space museum the natural history meuseum, both well known museums. We have great exibits here including the skylab, first space modules, us and ussr space docking stations etc and lots of wiered named dinosaur skeletons. Also went into the Capitol and also saw the white house and called it a day. Returned home by 10 pm on seventh after spending two days in Washington.

The total journey was of about 1600 miles, spanning 4 states.

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hi, I have written this keeping in mind some friends in India so please feel free to skip the info you already know.

Hello friends !

Here is a short account of our wonderful trip to Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics. The aim in this trip was to experience the Olympics and hence, even if we would have liked to see the India Vs Pakistan or India Vs Spain hockey match better and the the tickets for these events being sold out, we had booked for the badminton semifinals by telephone. The tickets were to be collected in Atlanta after giving proper identification. The tickets themselves were being sold at $16 a piece. We started off, five of us, four Indians from IBM and one American with whose family we planned to stay at Atlanta. Wow ! Staying with a genuine American family was expected to be a great experience. On the drive to Atlanta, we saw for the first time how radar detectors were used. Here, the cops have radars for measuring speeds of cars so that they can give speeding tickets. This device (the detector) is meant to detect radars and starts beeping when it gets suspicious so that you can freely speed up above the speed limits and slow down when there is a cop nearby. By the way, these smart cops nowadays have started using a new device called the "radar detector detector" which can detect radar detectors !

Well, we reached Atlanta at around 10 pm and the first impression was of a big but green city. Travelled on a six lane highway for the first time (i.e. total of twelve lanes, six in either direction ). We got a very warm reception at the American home, they have two sweet kids. At dinner, we (ie. Kedar and Pawan ONLY, rest of the crowd was hard-core vegetarian) had a dish from the New Mexico region, something made of corn and pork steamed together called "Tamala".

The next day started off with the unfortunate news of a bomb explosion at the centenial park of Atlanta, which was supposed to be a free place with very little security. However as we saw later in the day, the people of Atlanta never let their spirits dampen by the unfortunate incident and kept things moving as normally as possible. The perpetrators still being sought. Took directions and started off for the badminton event though a bit late. Here, every city has a ring route highway around it and is called the "beltline" . By arrangements, cars bound for the events could be parked at parking lots along outskirts of the beltline and people were transported by fast coach services to the underground rail stations called the 'marta' which stands for something like 'metropolitan atlanta rapid transport'. You just had to buy one ticket for 5$ and that worked for any train/bus service. By following the well presented directions, you could reach the area called the 'olympic circle' where the olympic stadium, where the torch was lit, and some other venues are located eaisily. Reached the venue winding through the crowded but beautiful Atlanta downtown a few minuites late. The matches were great and one nice thing to see was Susi Susanti, the barcelona womens gold medalist from indonesia, playing a quarterfinal against the polish girl who had beated the indian , p.v.lakshmi.

After the match, Had a quick lunch and made a bid for the Pakistan - Australia hockey match but drew a blank there as well. Then, winding our way around the cordoned off area of the centenial park, we reached the CNN center, the CNN Headquarters. Had to wait in long security queues and booked for the CNN tour. This tour was one of the high points of our Atlanta trip ! After a quick introduction to CNN, we were shown around the so called "special effects lab" which is used in displaying maps/weather reports mostly. They have a blue background screen and a hardware device which has the maps in it; which superimposes the map/graphic whenever it detects a blue background. Hence, weather presenters have to were contact lenses if they have blue eyes lest the maps dont get superimposed on their eyes ! Moreover, when they gesture around the map for the forecasts saying "thease clouds from here will move here" etc, all they have in the background is a plain blue wall ! All the gesticulations are thus approximate. Also saw the main control room where news keeps pouring from all corners of the world every second of the day, every day of the year. Its just mind boggling how much of information is managed, scanned, edited for the news. Then we drove on towards the Stone Mountains Park.

The Stone Mountains Park is a lake studded green park with an 850 feet high hill with the faces of President Jefferson Davis and generals of the confederate army. We managed to reach there by 9.30 pm for the laser / Fireworks show with the mountain as the backdrop. It started off with the song "Georgia in my mind" (Atlanta is the capital of the Georgia state) and was a great presentation. Returned home late after loosing our way a bit.

The next day started off at a lazy note and left home by 12.30 with a plan of visiting the olympic stadium, the place where the torch was lit. As there was a game to be held there and the queues were pretty long, we managed to get pretty close to the torch from outside the stadium. Took some snaps and bought some souvenirs. A good one was a model of the 'IZZI', which is the mascot of the Atlanta games and started off for the return journey. When we reached home, we found that we had driven a total of arond a thousand miles this time.

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We were totally 7 guys this time, travelled in 2 groups. Our group, consisting of 4 people started around 7:30 in the morning on saturday. The plan was to reach the GrandFather Mountains (will be called 'dadaji' hereafter), a famous spot on the Blue-Ridge range of mountains by evening and cover as many places as possible on the way.

The drive was normal and without any 'incidents' in the begining. Our first stop-over on the way was 'Moravian Falls'. We promptly missed the diversion to go into the road which leads to Moravian Falls and went straight. This was because our navigator (one who occupies the front seat near the driver and is responsible for giving directions to him) was busy in making fun/pun out of everything instead of deciphering the map. Anyway, we realised it after 15 minutes and decided to go back. On the way, we wento into a countryside market called Flea's market. It was almost same as the village markets in India with some signs of modernisation. Here some things were being sold at unbeleivable prices - a old monochrome monitor was on sale for $15!

Finding the way to Moravian falls was not easy. We enquired in 2-3 places and everyone seemed to know the falls! This increased our expectations. At last we somehow got into the road which leads there and followed signs saying 'Moravian Falls =>'. First came a swimming pool and naturally we concluded this can't be the Falls. So went ahead. After some distance, saw a small stream of water (so small that we could have counted the number of droplets if we were little more patient!) dripping down a rock. A regular scene in most of the Indian cities and towns immediately after heavy rains. We really got psyched. Contrary to all our great expectations, this turned out to be totally disappointing - To put it in one word it was a 'Moravian' expeience. We consoled ourselves that this was not a true falls, but a false falls.

After this we entered Blue Ridge Parkway. Wow ! what a great scenery! The speciality of this parkway is that from begining to end, it passes through mountains - ups and downs, winding roads and sharp bends! On all sides we see only mountains, misty and cloudy, elevating our spirit. This road has stop-over places called 'overlooks' where you can pull over to the side and have a good view of the mountains. We enjoyed the sight of the mountains from some of these overlooks.

The next to come was Twitsy Railroad. It was a park kind of place where old-fashioned trains take people around. It had a nice flower-garden also. There was a big queue to get into the train, so we decided to ditch the 'railing' experience. Here we met the other group which had the tales of Moravian experience about 'Blowing Rock', a place which we were thinking of visiting. They said that it was a big rock with which some stories about angels etc. are associated. Our friends felt that the name 'blowing' rock was really meaningful beacause they had blown up $4 per head there! Obviously we decided not to go there and proceeded towards our camp-site called Grandfather Mountain Club.

We reached G.M. club, situated in a place called 'Village of Seven Devils' by around 3:30 in the evening. We couldn't help associating us, the gang of seven, to the name of this village - concluded that it was very thoughtful of them, whoever gave the name to the village in the past, to predict future events.

Reached the camping spot. It was a well-maintained place with good facilities. Still gave a wild look of a camp. We put up our tent on the meadows. One of our friends had rented the tent and brought it. It was handy, light-weight, reliable and less-expensive. We quickly joined the poles and connected the sheet as per the 1-page instruction manual given with the tent. It looked like this (side view).

Inside the sheet there was one more layer of net (similar to mosquito net) to protect from insetcts. The tent also had zips for compartmentalisation. We partitioned it into 3 rooms.

The tent was up and we rushed to dadaji. 'dadaji ke pahaad' is a privatley owned and maintained mountain. It is one of the famous bio-sphere reserves (places which have plenty of ecological and biological diversity, and are declared by UN as special places to be preserved) in US. In fact, the hoardings read 'largest privatley owned biosphere reserve in Eastern US' or something similar to that. They charge $9 per head here. Dadaji has lot of attractions - overlooks, nature mueseum, animal habitats, swinging bridge, hiking trails etc.

You can drive all the way almost upto the top of the mountain. We drove upto this and parked the car. Went on the swiniging bridge - it was nice. But the descriptions I had read of the swinginig bridge at Lakshmanjhula, Rishikesh were far more exciting than the actual experience here. It might be due to the skills of the writer who authored that travelogue. Somebody who has seen both these bridges can compare them and comment.

We did a little bit of rock climbing here, to reach the highest point of dadaji. Again the boards here said 'highest point in Blue Ridge Mountains - elevation 5500 ft.' (approx.). Wow ! from this point, the mountains around look REALLY GREAT! Since the day was cloudy and the visibility was low, the one we saw was not the best view. But still we could feel the beauty and charm of the mighty moutains in the fading evening sunlight. This point (top of the mountain peak) was crowded and at some places there were literally traffic jams while climbing up and coming down. Took some nice pictures here.

Came down, took a walking trail. It was also good - some steep climbs, slippery rocks and winding route. There were lot of adventures ahead like descending and ascending through rope. Since we were already trailing behind schedule and had to return before 6:30 from the trails, could not enjoy the remaining part.

Next noteworthy place in dadaji was animal habitats. It had cougars (a member of wild cat family, looking like cheetah), mongoose, plenty of deers. There were 2 American Eagles, shot and wounded. It was very pathetic to see them in that state and to honour them we gave a new name to such family of birds - 'wougles' (wounded eagles). Shot them again through our cameras!

On the way down, there were two famous rocks - Split rock and Sphinx rock. Split rock looks as if two separate rock pieces have been cemented together naturally. Sphinx rock looks approximately like the famous Egyptian Sphinx. These and most of the rocks and stones in dadaji bear name-plates saying '2 million years old stone', 'billion years old rock' etc. Created an impression that there is nothing young in the domain of dadaji other than us !

By the time we returned from dadaji, we were feeling very hungry. Searched for food places. One guy remembered the camp-site owner saying that there is a Food Lion* (* Food Lion is a famous chain of departmental stores in US) nearby. But we couldn't find any. So we thought that the guy actually meant deers, cats etc., which are food for lion by saying that Food Lion is nearby (sic sic ;-( )!

Found another shop and bought enough packets of noodles etc. and came back to the tent. By the law of natural reactions, the other group had also bought the same things. All set for cooking the dinner! Set up the campfire with firewood. It started showing signs of coming up. The first round of noodles got cooked very fast. All of us had our half- dinner and started cooking the next round with some rice-based noodles called 'Rice-Roni'.It was getting cooked very slow. We did all sorts of tricks to make the fire more stronger. Some of us even became ardent 'fan's of fire and fanned it like hell. Still it produced more of smoke and less of fire, causing the illusion whether it is Smoky Mountain or Grandfather Mountain!

In the process of stirring, a plastic spoon broke and went inside the food giving it more nutrients like Vitamin-P (Plastic)! Then we took it out. Even after all these gimmicks, it was not fully cooked. We got vexed and ate it like that. So, the cooking and the dinner part of our first night in this trip was real fun. And naturally and obviously, we weren't for this much fun, so decided not to cook the next day!

We played a short 'antakshari' after this and slept. It was cold at night, but very much bearable. Got ready in the next morning and proceeded towards Linville Falls. This falls was small, but good. It flows in two layers of rock, that's nice to see. There are many views from which you can enjoy the falls. This falls has some geographical significance. Some millions of years ago, it was in a place 12 miles away from where it flows at present. Due to some geographical phenomena like landslides etc. the falls got displaced. For the first time in this trip, we met a 'desi' gang with two pretty girls here.

Very near to the Linville Falls was Linville Caverns. Caverns are deposits of lime-stone or minerals inside caves and due to the continous dripping of water inside the cave, they undergo some changes and take strange shapes, forms and colours. We had to wait in a queue for 20 minutes to get inside the caverns and were well-guided by a guy who explained many things about caverns. There were even deposits of some semi- precious stones inside. It's floor and ceiling are wet always and the guy said the only source of water inside the caverns was rain. If looked with wild imagination, some of the complex structures and patterns inside this cavern may look like some sculptures, symbols etc. I was trying to relate this to the beleif in some parts of India about 'swayambhu' idols - while digging or inside caves/mountains when people encounter some such stones which look like Ganesha, Shiva Lingam etc., they call them as 'swayambhu' (meaning self-sprang), associate some natural divinity with them and install them in temples. Some geology experts can give better explanations on this.

We had nice and filling grub for lunch at a restaurent near our next spot, Crabtree falls. Actually, we saw the photograph of the falls in the restaurent and decided to go there. We had to go down for about 20 minutes, very steep at some places to reach the falls, with the reality of having to climb up the same way clinching our minds. The water was flowing from more height here, not with much force. We enjoyed the falls as well as the hike while coming up. It was around 3 in the afternoon by then.

Got into the highway again. At one point we knew we were on Highway-19, but not sure of the direction. We had to go on 19-west. So we went in one direction for some time looking for sign-boards, found that we're going eastwards and then turned back. At that instant, we realised that we were ignoring the sun, which was coming behind us all the way and we could have immediately turned back had we noticed it!

We went to Mount Mitchell on the way, protrayed as the 'highest point in the East of Missisipi' Eleavation : 6300 ft. (approx.). By this time, we were used to terms like largest, highest etc. and we didn't take it seriously. We reached the philosophical conclusion that if you add enough number of qualifiers, every damn thing in the world will become superlative! Neverthless, Mt. Mitchell was really at a good height and we enjoyed all the surroundings from a watch tower at the top.

And so we went and reached Cherokee, a village at the foothills of the 'Great Smoky Mountains' (that's how they mention it). Our campsite was KOA campgrounds and when we reached this place, we had a totally differnt kind of experience. It was all well organised. The camp-ground office had computers, they issued parking tickets, the whole place looked like a small township with so many tents. We repeated our 'tenting' performance again. This place had electricity near all the tents and so it was all lighted up.

Cherokee is one of the traditional Indian villages. Indian in US by default means Red Indians and not Bharath-vasis. So when we were discussing about these Indian people, we found both the words, 'Red Indian' and 'Indian' unsuitable. Started calling them 'lal-desi's!

We roamed around the main street in Cherokee and saw a lot of lal-desis around. Listened to street-corner music. There are lot of shops here selling things associated with lal- desis. Dolls, leather-goods, arrows- and-bows, gift articles and T-shirts of course. Had our dinner and slept.

It was drizzling when we got up next morning and that made the smokys look more beautiful. These mountains are misty and cloudy all the times, irrespective of the season and that's why they got the name smokys. Smoky Mountains has a nice National Park also. We hiked to a nearby place called Mingo Falls after a short drive. There were many trails in the smokys. one of them is called 'trail of tears' which has some history associated with it. The US govt. ordered a 'Removal Cherokee' operation somewhere in 1860s to wipe out the population of some 25,000 Cherokee Indians. The Army approached Cherokee and the tribals ran for their life. One group of them took a long route deep inside the mountains and hiked for some 108 miles and still got caught. And hence this trail is called the trail of tears. Some of the Chrokee Indians, who survived this massacre were later adapted by Govt. and still live in Cherokee.

The starting point of the famous Apalachian trail, which is one of the longest mountain routes (seriously!) in the world (900 miles approx.) is in Smoky mountains. Since we had very less time in our hands, we couldn't take any trails.

.... And thus our great journey into the mountains during the first weekend of Sept.'96 came to an end.