Travelogue of our Sanfrancisco and Yosemite trip:

We planned our trip to Sanfrancisco and Yosemite almost 6 months back. After extensively using Virtual Tourist, Trip Advisor, Library travel books and information from friends and relatives, we executed our trip last week.

Our flight landed in SFO at 10:30pm PST and after airport formalities and renting the car, we reached Gowtham's (my brother-in-law) house at 12:30am.

Next day (Day 1) after Gayathri's (sister-in-law) rava idly breakfast, we 4 along with Gowtham and Gayathri left for San Francisco. We parked our car at Milbrae station for free and went by BART train. Got down at Powell street, walked up the Union Square, then up the China town for buying some souveniers as well as visiting and purchasing in one room fortune cookie factory. Cable cars (Trams) going up and down the hilly streets is a pleasant experience to watch. We then went to the ferry building and the locality is a lively one to visit. We saw the Bay bridge and Mahatma Gandhi's statue there. Then we took the Muni F-line cable car to Pier 39 to take the boat cruise. From boat cruise, we saw the Alcatraz jail (similar to our Andaman's island jail), Sanfrancisco skyline and Golden Gate bridge. We then walked very steep paths to reach the world's crookedest street at Lombard street. Then we enjoyed travelling down in the tram to Powell street and then around 10pm we reached back to our residence. Gowtham and Gayathri helped a lot in assisting us in taking care of Shashandra and Samhita.

Next day (Day 2), We had dosas for breakfast. We left for Yosemite valley around 11am. Most of the path on the way is scenic. Clear plain/landscaped ways distinguished well against the eastern part of the country. Reached our cedar lodge at 2:30pm. Everywhere cautioned about bears but we did not see one till the end of the trip. Lodge is good with only drawback of having dirty carpets. We continued our journey in the river side drive with the water rushing in the rivers with a 25 year high. First we stopped to see the Yosemite falls and mountain from meadows. Then visited Bridal Veil falls, after that a place called curry village and surroundings and finally the best part of our trip, the Glacier point. Glacier points displays the most beautiful of Yosemite with snowy mountains and valley view. Our return trip to the lodge in the night around 9pm is very scary as it is completely dark and we found it very difficult to drive the curvy roads with no lights around other than our headlights and no cars in front or back to us.

Next day (Day 3), we left our lodge around 10am and again went back to the Yosemite park. Our first destination was to visit the Yosemite lower falls. Yosemite has a higher fall, which breaks and falls as lower fall little away. Rushing waters, sprays due to winds, trees touching the sky and with thick barks are highlights. We watched the spirit of of Yosemite promotional movie where they cover the history about Abraham Lincoln signing the area as protected and avoided the 2700 years of trees going away from us This also led to the concept of National parks starting-up. For my little daughter Samhita, this is the first movie and she started her mischief in moving around, making noises etc. Shashandra completed few exercises in the book and won a Junior ranger/Cub badge. We then visited Mariposa Groove the area of sky high thick trees (Giant Sequoias). We saw a lot of deers and strange birds on the way. We drove most of the places and took Yosemite shuttle few times. We reached back to Gowtham's residence at around 10pm. We had a grand dinner with Kootu, Sambar, Rasam and curry.

Next day (Day 4), We had chapathis for breakfast. We left for Point Reyes around 11am. Point Reyes is site of dangerous earth quake in 1906 with 7.8 in richter scale. We then visited the beach which we got inspired seeing Shobhit Mishra's photo. It was a cloudy day but the heavy waves near the shore are amazing to watch. When we came out of the beach, the area is so lonely that for miles we are sure no humans are around. We skipped our plan to see Napa valley to see vineyards due to lack of time. We had a short stop at Stinson beach. Our next stop was Muir wood's redwood trees. Like Giant Sequoias they reach sky high as well as thick and huge. We then went to a vista point to take photo of the Sanfrancisco's most popular attraction, the Golden Gate bridge. It is a beautiful engineering marvel for withstanding high earthquakes, but the size or traffic is no way near the magnificient George Washington Bridge in New York. We made our last minute plan to drive through the crooked Lombard street and completed that. By the time we reached airport all of us are extremely tired. After overnight flight we returned back at 9am.

Beauty and liveliness of man-made Sanfrancisco, scenic wonder of natural yosemite, patience of two daughters to withstand this rigorous trip, company of Gowtham/Gayathri, research and trip planning of Krithika are summary highlights of the trip.

Outside stair case, trees around, lakes near, idly for morning breakfast in Gowtham's house reminded Porur in Sanfrancisco.