Day 6

2nd Jan, Monday

The last day, finally, for the first time I felt that college station was my home and was craving to reach there. But first we went to explore the lakes of the city of lakes – Santa Rosa. Well what we discovered that if Santa Rosa is city of lakes then even Nagpur is. They counted even the puddles. Mind you, the pictures of the lake have come excellent but pictures can be misleading. And it does not mean that we were disappointed. The laugh we had, I guess would even have put Caspian sea to shame.
We went to a restaurant: Route 66 restaurant. The ambience was wonderful. They gave a historical look to it. Well to have anything look historical, they just have to put a Marilyn Monroe and an Elvis Presley. But that was enough for me, as I am a fan of both of them. We ordered plain egg sandwich which came with complimentary chips and onion rings as side dish. I had also ordered tuna salad which was just awesome.
Now we were out of I-40 and route 66 and continued on highway 84 till Waco. (Just 1 hour from college station.) The scenery was so stationary that even a speed of 70 mph was feeling like 10 mph. Absolutely flat landscape with occasional horses in ranches. By this time we had learnt all the songs which we had brought. I was tired of listening to “toota toota ek parina aise toota” and even to the very funny accent for “thandi thandi pawan” by lata dadi in DDLJ song, “mere khwabon”.
We took a dinner break at 9 at a ghostly town of coleman. It was a pizza hut and the waitress, a 80 year old granma took out even the last remaining drop of energy from us by asking us all the typical American to Indian questions like “will you go back to India”, “ Do you have cows on the roads”, “how wonderful is it to see the snake charmers”, “ will you take me to India and show me elephants” and the most intellectual they could think “ what is the significance of bindi”. Well I frankly wanted to tell them, India rather Bangalore is more USofied than even the US.
Finally at two I was back at 122 cherry hollow but not before two more rounds of “thandi thandi” pawan.

Day 5

1st Jan, Sunday

Got up by 12 noon and set to go by 1:00 pm. Due tyo common consensus, we had our lunch again at that wonderful small town of Williams. And in the same place, Pizza Factory. Now we were back to I-40. Let me tell you some significance of I-40 now as I was studying the same thing sitting in the car. I-40 was earlier called route 66. http://www.route66.com/ . It is the highway which connects Chicago to LA and thus it was the heart of the so called westward dream of the eastern people way back in the 50’s. That’s what makes it so special. Later government scraped that name and it was I-40. But later in 90’s they capitalized on it as a tourist attraction. So we have route 66 restaurants, motels all along the way and that’s why above mentioned Hotel El Rancho was so famous. There is also Philips 66 gas stations all through the way.
At around 5 pm, we reached meteor crater, world’s first and I think only proven crater. http://www.meteorcrater.com/ . The rest are still doubtful. It is huge and the adjoining museum is awesome. Well, actually the museum was though pretty hi-fi, the thing that attracted me the most was that all the equipments were working unlike the science centers in Nagpur, Calcutta and Bangalore which I have seen.
We traveled till 12 and finally reached city of lakes Santa Rosa in New Mexico for night halt. We meanwhile had dinner in the biggest city of NM - Albuquerque where we got lost too.
It was another motel6 but surely it wasn’t the bathrooms which we rented here. By this time we were as tired as you are now to have read so far. So we ditched the plan of going to Rosswell.

Day 4

31st Dec, Saturday

Day of Las Vegas. Till date everybody asks me how your Las Vegas trip was though it was just included in the itinerary just because it was so close from Grand Canyon. We started by 10:00 after a brunch at Mc Donalds. Me and Nikhil observed a truly international integration family there with Black dad, Hispanic mom, chinki looking daughter and desi looking son. Whatever, after a small stop to Kingman, (our return destination after las vegas for the night as hotels in las vegas were too costly for 31st night.) we went to Hoover Dam. It is the most famous dam in the worls (that’s what people say). The construction of dam is huge, but the catchment lake was real small, may be it was deep. But I was a little disappointed as I will never forget the beautiful Maithan dam in Jharkhand. Well this also separated two states. On one side of the river is Arizona, and Nevada on the other side. And to make it even more funny, they had different times. It was Pacific Time in Nevada and Mountain Time in Arizona. And theer were two adjacent clock towers to put finger in your eyes and show you that. I know I am sounding a bit negative here, but that’s what my opinion is though everybody differs. For everybody else, may be the 1000+ people there, it was the best that they had seen. Surely it was an architectural wonder.
We started toward vegas again and in an hour we could see the glittering lights of the city. It was awesome. I was stuck by it. The lights, the hip hop, the buzz I was totally in it. Finally we reached the city. By this time we were tired of Mexican, American or Italian food and were craving for some desi thing. So we found out a restaurant “Gandhi” from the yellow pages and went there. Don’t know why they named that but it was an out and out non veg joint. They had thalis with the names delhi thali, Bombay thali, Calcutta thali, madras thali etc. Who named them I don’t understand but he/she am sure has never seen a Bengali in his/her life. Calcutta Thali was vegetarian. I thought not even the vegetarian Bengalis of Bengal are pure vegetarians. Haha. Whatever, there was no way I was going to show my regional love and eat that veggie food. I took delhi thali instead though most of my friends faithfully stuck to their Bombay thali. Delhi thali was surely the best, because I ate it. It had chicken tandoori, freshly taken off the oven and mutton palak. It was truly very good. The dessert was mango custad which was equally delicious. Finally the thing I was craving for, and miss here daily : Saunf. I took a handful of that.
Then we were off to see the town. I bought a small bell (like we use for puja) but only thing is that it had full las vegas written and painted on it with roulette, dice, cards pictures on all the sides so that If I start praying to goddess with that, I am pretty sure that next year you will find me in place of mahishasura in all the durga puja pandals.
Now started the problems. Traffic was moving at even slower than snails pace and there was jam everywhere. We decided to park our cars at famous casino Aladdin’s parking lot. The parking lot itself was 8 storeys so now you can imagine what the hotel is. Google and find out. After going till 4th floor, we here hushed away saying the parking was full. One car got place there. Now began the hotch potch. We got parking around a mile away at MGM’s parking lot. And thus we got separated. We decided to enjoy in the divided groups only and me parag and mugdha did some gambling at MGM’s. Obviously, how can I ever be lucky. But it was just 2 $ we gambled for.
Then we started off to their place. They were at aladdin’s. After around 2 hours of searching, inspite of the mobile phones, it took so long. As there were 3 similar looking entrances and there was total confusion. Finally we got together in aladdin’s. It was wonderful. They had created a full Arabic town inside and they had cycle rickshaws to travel too. And who else, but a sardarji was sitting on it. We came out to the road, where there were some crores of people. They were having beer in all weird shapes of bottles u could ever see. Eiffel tower, football, hookah, beakers etc etc. All sort of wired make-ups and clothing was common and we were feeling out of place. But slowly it didn’t matter anymore. Opposite to us was the famous Bellagio hotel where ocean’s 11 was shot and next to it was Caesar’s Palace, where Celine Dion, my fav singer was performing that night. I was happy to see it from outside itself.
Racism again: I saw 4 afro Americans in black clothes taking a snap against the black road as background with even their mouth shut. Why can’t they take a blackboard photo instead? J
It was the 100th year of las vegas. And finally at the stroke of midnight, people started shouting like crazy and I saw the best ever fireworks display in my life. I am in love with the place and I am already planning my next trip there.
After that, there was again traffic jam and it took us 1 hour just to get from 7th floor of parking lot to
First floor. Finally after 2 hours we were out of the town and were heading for Kingman, our night halt, at around 2:30 am. We lost another hour at the state border and finally when we reached the pre booked hotel at 5:30 am local time, they said, they thought we won’t come and gave it away. We gave them the worst of shouting. And yes, I shouted too.(Unlike me though). But then we started searching for another hotel. Thankfully, we got some motel, and good gracious, it was an Indian patel uncle ka motel. He agreed to extyend the checkout time till 1:00 pm in afternoon instead of usual 11 am. That’s what Indians are for. He was a great help and inspite of the helplessness, he charged very nominal rates.
Oh I forgot, it was 1st jan 2006 already. But better keep this with the 31st.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Day 3

30th December, Friday


We got up very early by 5:30 am as we had to see sunrise in the Grand Canyon. People said it’s a sight to watch. Sun rises at 7:30 there and so even after 1 hr drive we reached there dot on time. There are some 10-15 view points on the Grand Canyon. We got into the one nearest to us. There was tremendous rush there but a little later only we knew why. As the sun rose, the shadows fainted and each rock slowly started showing its true colors. It was an awesome sight. One of the best landscapes I have seen in my life. Far below we could see only a peck of the Colorado river flowing. It was very deep. Let me not go into the statistics and the name jargons of the places because simply you have to come here to feel what Grand Canyon is. As the sun came up fully and more and more rocks got bright, we clicked individual pics. The crowd mainly consisted of the chapti aankh (chinki) people not necessarily all Chinese. I always wondered that all these chinkis look so similar. So I just cracked a joke “ why do all of them click pics when all of them look just the same?” J Anyway, there were lots and lots of desis too. Rather I should specifically say I heard telugu, gujju, marathi and benagli. And a huge part of the crowd was Hispanics too.
There are minimum two day hiking trips to the bottom and back but we didn’t have the time or gears to do that. Frankly, I didn’t have the enthusiasm also of adventure also. Zindagi jitni saadi ho, utni hi achchi hoti hai. Whatever, I bet not even 10% of the people with agree with me.
So next we went to see the points on west side and then east side. All the points had different stretches of river showing but the maximum was at pima point.
Then we went to the east side and there the end point was dessert view. It was an awesome point with a huge watch tower and telescopes and mirrors to have a grander view of the Grand Canyon. There was also a shopping place to get some souvenirs but I took nothing. On the way beack, we saw some dears on the road and we went to usayan Indian Ruin and Museum and saw a small 12th-century ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) pueblo. This was some ancient civilization (merely 800 years old). What was most funny about it was that the people used a ladder to the roof to get out of the houses instead of building the doors.
Finally by 3:15 we were back to our original point in grand canyon but we waited for the sunset. Everybody fell asleep. Me and Nikhil took a long trail along the grand canyon. It refreshed our minds and we got wonderful view. But the most funny part of that was a group of 5-6 desi girls were just behind us and they were no different. Constantly chattering and gossiping like the girls back there in India. I found it real funny. And they were discussing the same thing of seeing too many desis in the place. Later we were joined by Harsha, Chetan And D. we went for a trail on the other side and took beautiful pictures of changing colours of canyon with sunset. It was really cold. I forgot to mention, in the morning, the temperature was 16 degree Fahrenheit when we came.
Now the best part. When we came back, we saw angry mugdha waiting for us as she and parag were searching for us the whole time. Finally we all got together and just when we were about to go back, into the cars, one of the cars was locked accidentally and the key was inside. We could absolutely do nothing. There was no signal to call for help and all the tourist centers were closed to make some landline calls. So D, chetan and parag went away to the maingate 7 miles away to call for help. Meanwhile we 4 were stranded and it was getting real dark and lonely. Within 10 minutes it was pitch dark and absolutely lonely. Everybody was a bit scared. But I knew atleast this won’t continue till next day morning as we were in so called USA. For the first time I believed in USA. A car came in sometime, we thought for help. But they just asked some directions and went back. In another 2-3 minutes, the cops arrived. Two cops who were very very helpful. They called a towing company for us which would open the lock for us and then stayed with us in the pitch dark till the other people came back. They were really great help. Finally it was all done. All I wanted now was some hot steaming coffee and pizzas.
And my wish was granted. Back in Williams, we went to a wonderful pizza parlour called Pizza Factory. It was awesome and awesome ambience. Then we went for local sightseeing in 1 road Williams town. It had a wonderfully decorated Vintage railway station, chariots with huge horses and a skating rink.
I skated for the first time. Don’t know whether I was standing most of the time or was falling down. But it was worth an experience. Somehow I am not fed up of it even after no results. For that matter, that was the maximum time I gave to learn any sports/games, be it cricket, football, hockey or pool, bowling or TT, Badminton or even chess or for that matter. I didn’t even like loosing in NFS, AOE, or even
minesweeper. That’s why I am so good at all of them. ;-)
That was the end of day 3.

Day 2

29th Dec, Thursday

We heard that there is nothing special in the town except something called plaza. Actually we had the misconception that it has a Disneyland, but there are 3 Santa Fe’s in USA. But we got up and by 10 we were out to see the city. But first there was a complimentary breakfast at the hotel and for the first and hopefully last time I had ice cold boiled eggs. It seemed a normal city as we went out but scenes chaged as we went near the place called plaza. The architecture changed drastically. Buildings were “Indian” ( From now on, Indian will mean, the American Indian and I will use “desi” for bharatiya) style which resembled to some extent with the mud houses of rajasthan. Finally we went to the place called “The plaza”. It was too good. It had wonderfully decorated churches and everywhere Indian people all around. They were selling their traditional togas, but as a student, I should never even think about them. There was a bhelpuri style “fajita” ka thela and people had queued up for it. We laughed at it but these Americans are crazy. Tap Tap (Read Asterix ). As suggested by the hotel owner we went to the most high demand restaurant of Santa Fe, the plaza café. It was historical, they say. For Americans, 50 years is history. Whatever, the ambience was pretty good and food tasted excellent. I had shared A plate of Burrito with mugdha as I was almost full with the ice-cold eggs.
Finally at 2:00, we started off for our next destination. It was as we left the city of santa fe we realized how beautiful it is. The full city was that same architecture, even the Marriott and the Hiltons. A 35 mile drive brought us back to I-40 and the biggest city of new mexico, the queerest name I have ever heard -“Albuquerque”. But as these highways are very important, we suitably bypassed the town and were heading for our next stop, William (near grand canyon). http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Santa+fe,nm&daddr=Williams,+az&btnG=Search
I insist on you to go through the link which I add so that you can have a better understanding of the extent of travel that was done.
This was the first time, I sat in front seat acting as the navigator. And am proud to say that I am pretty good at it. Within an hour I discovered the significance of exit numbers and they are the miles the interstate highway covers along the state. For example, exit 217 is 217 miles away from one of the border sides. I don’t know whether to generalize or not but in the states we covered it increased from west to east. Whatever, coming back to the point, new mexico is absolutely dry and no industry state and no tourism also so it is also another legal gambling state like Nevada. We passed some casinos on the way. Land was so flat and road so straight that at one point of time we could see around 6 miles straight ahead of us. Me, D and Nik were in the same car at this point of time.
We needed a break around dusk and with proud I suggested near a hotel called El Rancho in border city of NM- Gallup. It’s advertisements had started long back and it was said that it is a world famous hotel. But to all our disappointment it turned out to be a pretty mediocre hotel. It turned out to be a big joke as I had hyped it beyond proportions during the drive. Everybody took it in a light sense but I will never forget this hotel again in my life. Coming back from trip, I had done my research and found out why it is world famous and here are the facts: http://www.elranchohotel.com/ . Home of movie stars. These Americans are really crazy.
We resumed our journey and crossed the borders to Arizona, the state of Grand Canyon (this is their tagline too). I was immediately reminded of my dear friend ananthu though as he was “then” coming to Tucson soon. Crossing a big city- Flagstaff, we finally reached Williams late in the night. Thankfully we had already booked in motel-6 so there was no tension. This part of trip I was with parag, harsha and mugdha, gallup onwards. There was some miscommunication between the two cars and we were separated and had to have dinner in different places. Thoroughly tired of Mexican I took chicken sandwich as take home. The town Williams is wonderful. Only a small place, actually not even a village, it hosts all the cheap motels for grand canyon, just 30 miles away. It had a special train service to grand canyon but too costly and the town was beautifully lit with Christmas lights.
The motel was pretty ordinary, but nikhil’s comment about it was the best : “Hamne room rent kiya tha, bathroom nahi”. The door opens and bathroom and wash basin greet you first and then the room. I noticed one thing that all hotels in US have to have Bible in the rooms. The room was exactly like New Marrion, BBSR.

Day 1

The plans came out of the blue. Earlier the plan was to go to Corpus Christie Bay in southern Texas coast which was a one day affair. But then plans changed and so did the players and finally, merely 12 hours before the start of the trip, it was decided that we are going to Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Santa Fe and Roswell.
We here are:
1) Myself
2) Roomie Nikhil
3) Host n Friend Parag
4) Host And friend Dhananjay urf D
5) Harsha
6) Mugdha
7) Chetan (Friend of D)

Two cars were booked. I am no car fanatic so I have no interest in the models though I was frequently asked but all I know that both were Dodge Cars.

28th Dec, Wednesday

We planned to start off at 6:30 but finally started by 8:50 am. I was with D and chetan. As soon as I sat in the car and it started, I felt the most dreaded motion sickness. But I was ready and promptly took an avomine which made me sleep like a log for sometime. Later when I analysed, I think it was because of the initial phase and the sharp turns inside the city. This is the route we took. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=college+Station&daddr=Santa+fe,nm&btnG=Search
After a small break for brunch at a place out of waco, which I don’t remember coz I was almost at sleep we resumed our journey again. We had subway footlong. Can’t tell you anything about the road as I was too sleepy till this time. Now, me and Nikhil were there in the car which chetan was driving and as everybody around we also crossed the speed limit and it was our car only which was spotted by the cop and we were fined for around $160 in the very first phase of our journey. But I think in a sense it was good, coz after that none of us oversped inspite of all the cars and even heavy trucks overtaking us.
We touched interstate highway I-40 (Chicago-LA) at a place called Amarillo. It was an awesome highway where we learnt about what are exits and business exits and loads of other things about the highway. Around twilight, we were behind the schedule by around an hour when we entered the state of New Mexico. There was a board to welcome us and told us to change the time. We had entered Mountain Time zone and gained one hour. But somehow I was arrogant enough not to change it. Around 40 miles fro I-40 is the capital of new mexico: Santa Fe. We reached there at around 10 pm. It looked like an average size city in the night and the glittering lights from hilltop looked real good. We started looking for motels on the main road of santa fe. Let me tell you I am very poor at finding hotels because the hotel I had ditched as would be sureshot costly turned out to be the cheapest. The Park Inn. All restaurants were closed and we did the funny act of walking thru a drive thru of taco bell (Mexican style restaurant). I had one “chicken chalupa” as I was not much hungry and we were off to sleep.