Beyond Here

Sunit and I are big fans of the Wild Animal Park at San Diego - we've been there numerous times and everytime we come back filled with wonder at something new. Spread over 1800 acres, the park provides a lot of space for animals to move and they are not enclosed in small cages as in a Zoo. It also allows the animals to mingle and follow the same natural habits as they would in the wild. The train safari provides a quick tour of the place, but if you have the energy to walk around and view some of the interaction areas, the Park can be a lot of fun. On my second trip to the Park, with Vijay ( a friend who is crazy about wild cats), we caught the Cheetahs during their feeding time. A huge moat separates the viewers from the feeding area, some meat is left on the logs and then far-from-sight the Cheetahs are let loose. One can actually see their long strides as they run to the meat and then feed on it. Vijay gets the credit for this picture. We also went upto the tiger observatory dur...

We travelled to Lake Tahoe on July 29th. It was a weekend camping trip with Sunit's uncle (Ravi Mama) and his family. The trip proved to be some nice relaxing time with family just before Sunit resigned from Cisco. The slow paced hikes, Mamiji's cool sandwiches in mid-afternoon, the campfire stories and jokes, the game of 20 questions by the campfire (at which Ashwin proved to be genius) - All made the trip a memorable one. We stayed at the DL Bliss State Park. Spread across about 1800 acres along with the Emarald Bay Park, the DL Bliss park offers a comfortable camping ground, a couple of beaches and some very interesting hikes with beautiful vistas. We decided to do some light weight hiking - we went on the lighthouse trail. About 2.0 miles long, the trail ends in some very awesome views of the Lake. While the lighthouse trail is a bit rugged, curvy and steep, we took the easy(and very short) way back along the Rubicon trail. Ravi Mama managed to take this picture of the lake...