Road Trip - Story from the Past
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving~Lao Tzu
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Enjoyed a road trip on motor bikes near Kolar over the weekend, but before updating that, want to jot down about the other road trip which I had during my last days back in US..
Me, Sudhir & Raghav all three high school friends had met up in San Diego sometime in May. Now that I was about to leave, we planned to meet up again. This time it was going to be in Phoenix.
A 3 day trip, which I want to briefly write & finish in 1 shot [ cos I know that it will be held pending, like my New-York trip entry whose Day2 & Day3 updates are still not in here ]
Couple of motivating factors:
1. Meeting my friends.
2. I wanted to go for a looong drive b4 I came back & this was a gr8 opportunity.
3. Grand Canyon was a part of the trip..
The Journey.
I drove frm San Diego to Phoenix. The journey enroute was beautiful. I reached Phoenix in about 4.5 hours against the actually stipulated 6 hours time. Dont ask me the reason, I dont want to have a written record of speeding. I think I left one already, Ah well !! I was over excited when I saw that the speed limit in Arizona is 75 mph as against 65mph in California.
A wild cat very very narrowly escaped from being crushed under my wheels. Phew, my heart missed some 10 beats till I saw it jumping across the fence & was sure that nothing happened to it.
The Trajectory.
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move
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The trip was totally unplanned.
Did visit Sedona(where we had nice Indian food - I was completely taken aback to see a moderately huge Indian Restaurant in the scarcely populated desert village ). Reached Grand Canyon south rim (Last time I had visited the West Rim). [4 hrs drive totally]
Grand Canyon - The place which I can visit anytime & any number of times. Its always nice to be there.. An experience in itself. The symphony of nature, one of God's grandest creation.
The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech…. Language and illustration combined must fail." ~John Wesley Powell
Do not miss the GrandCanyon movie at the iMax theater near the south rim. its totally worth it.
Stayed overnight there & been to the GrandCanyon village. Did not have time to trek down the canyon. Desperately wanted to go to the Colorado river rafting, but that needed us to travel 230 miles up north, so dropped it too :(
Make sure you have ur dinner before 8:30, else you will have to travel 50 miles for the nearest subway.
On the way back we saw in the GPS device for an attraction, which listed something I had never heard from anyone so far. It was the Meteor Crater. A well preserved Crater formed by a Meteor. It was a different experience all together. Not many ppl know of its existence.
http://www.meteorcrater.com/
We were back to Phoenix that night. Went to a South Indian restaurant whose owner happened to be from the same place as my native. Food was quite fine. He also gave us free Tea, Coffee etc.. I was also astonished to meet my college junior over there. He was there on a 1 month stint from his company. [ This is not the first time. Wherever I had been, I have always accidentally met people whom I knew. Sad that this never happened in San Diego.. ] Went to some bowling arena, came home & dozed off..
Next day we visited the Canyon Lake. A huge lake amidst the canyons. Rented a speed boat & had a very nice time, till I damaged the boat while I was parking it.. :( Had to pay some repair charges.. Damn it !! Well, this is better than drowning people in the lake right ? :)
The Encounter
Well, back on my way to San Diego. I was feeling extremely sleepy. Compared to my earlier speedometer reading, I was being an absolute gentleman. Saw that the vehicles were moving to the right lane [ there were 2 lanes ], I thought I will move forward of all those cars & then move to the right lane. In my effort did increase my speed a bit & was almost there near the first car.. And And And Dang !! That happened to be the highway patrol.. !!
I was somewhere around 85 mph. I abruptly slowed down but well - the cop flagged me down. Showed to me that I was at 83 mph. Normally therez a 10 mph grace above the speed limit. But this was an exception.. :(
He spoke to me nicely though, I sort of know half his life history & about three forth of his marital issues. Well, he said he is not gonna penalize me. But will leave with a "warning" receipt. Phew!! I was so glad to hear that. I dint wanted to pay a hefty fine just 10 days before I quit the country. Specially after paying once at the boat station of Canyon lake..
That was not the end. I crossed Arizona & was in California where the speed limit was 70 mph. I saw a car appeared from nowhere & is running exactly parallel to me. I speed up a bit & so does he. I was already at 80 mph. When I took a small peak - this one was a cop car too.. Gosh !! However I dint abruptly slow down this time. Maintained at 79 - 80. The cop car speeded & vanished..
From now on, I was not speeding beyond 8 miles of the stipulated speed limit. It was close to 9.30 when I was about 80 miles frm San Diego. Had to drive over the mountains which are about 7000 to 8000 ft above sea level. Heavy gusts of wind was almost pushing my car to the next lane.. A little later - I had to face really dense fog. Just cant see anything beyond. The rear light of the car in front of me was the only ray of hope.
Reached home by 11.
Loads of tiny tiny nice things throughout but the post is already quite lengthy. So, will leave those to be in the book of my mind.
The End
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old,
familiar pillow ~Lin Yutang
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Overall a great trip to cherish. I drove a total of 22 hours in a span of 3.5 days.. Yay !! Accomplished the mission to drive long distance.
But Dam, I have lost the pics & waiting for my friends to upload them. Stole a few from my friend's orkut account. :P [ Hence I am forced to chose those pics where I dont have any celebrity status in them.. :(
Will upload other nicer pics later.. :)