Lake Tahoe

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 after climbing on a precarious rock and log. We did feel a little dehydrated and thirsty by the time we got back as we had run out of water midway. But this breathtaking view was well worth the effort.




After some refreshing sandwiches and a dip at the beach, we next checked out the Balancing Rock. A .5 mile walk took us to this site. Its actually a 130 ton rock precariously balanced on another granite rock. Steady erosion at the joint has caused this natural formation. It almost looked like the "face of a whale" to me. While Ashwin and Aditya decided to check it out at close quarters (You can spot them at the waist) we decided to keep our distance. Talking about both of them, they both must have climbed n number of rocks that day - we had to just spot one and they would rush over to climb it. Kids never fail to amaze me.



Comments

saurav said…
beautiful pictures Pooja...great job...
6:31 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wild Animal Park

Image
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
Read more

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Image
My latest favorite place in the world is Lauterbrunnen. It is a beautiful valley near Interlaken. For most Indians, Interlaken is synonymous with Yash Chopra movies and classic Swiss scenery. But about 20 miles from Interlaken, is this quaint little town and valley called Lauterbrunnen and this place formed the base of our Swiss travel in the Berner Oberland area. While Interlaken boasts of all the touristy stuff, if you want to live close to the mountains and numerous waterfalls (close to nature as my mom would say), Lauterbrunnen is where you need to be. A small town, that leads to a beautiful valley, with waterfalls falling on either side. When we went out for our first walk on the valley floor, I stood at one point and counted the total number of waterfalls visible - the count was 11. Streams trickle down from anywhere and everywhere. My husband remarked - "This is much like Yosemite, but multiplied by 10'. Days in this place just seemed to vanish - there was so much to do
Read more

Fatehpur Sikri

Image
I was looking through my pictures and came across some of Fatehpur Sikri. And I wondered - how come I never wrote about it ? Was it simply because the touts made it impossible for me to enjoy the place ? Or was it because the weather was so hot ? Don't get me wrong, the place itself is beautiful. And the architecture great and awe inspiring, especially the red sandstone made it look out of the world. Infact I was reminded of quite a few scenes of the movie Pardes. But still.... So I decided to pen down what were the precise reasons that put me off. Reason 1: First impression - We approached the fort through a small bazaar outside the fort. There were touts in the bazaar who insisted that we stop our car and pay them some amount for parking near the fort. They were using a thick rope as a makeshift barrier to stop passerbys like us. Reason 2: As soon as we got out of the car, there were guides pursuing us like crazy. There seemed to be no official place to get any ticket/information
Read more