Tour to US West:

After our Srilankan trip, this is the biggest trip covering 6 nights 5 days - It is trip to US Wild West. Planning started 3 months back with Krithika preparing excels for budget/schedule/tasks, referring web almost 4 hours a day, posting questions in virtual tourist, mouth shut and other discussion forums.

I left my office on 14th Jun around 12:30 pm after a too busy schedule in the morning. As usual for any trip, we left our house very late with just 1 1/4 hours left for flight. Checked in before 40 minutes and Delta started on time, reached Atlanta (layover) on time. Airline landing here and all throughout the trip was so smooth and my appreciation to Pilots. I remember having transit in Atlanta airport during my first trip to US, 11 years back. Enjoyed traveling the concourse train again. Dinner in Dominos. To LA flight journey was good. Biscuits/Chips/Oatmeal cookies/Tomoto Juice/Coke for 2 of us. Got Toyota Sienna most spacious 7 seater Car from Hertz. Krithika's parents, Sister and her husband joined us in the Car from airport for our MEGA group tour. Checked in hotel at 11pm. Days Inn at Anaheim near Disney Land (40 miles from airport) was reasonably good to stay.

Day1: (15th Jun) Had our hotel breakfast and left to Disneyland. Tram took us to the entry point from the parking lot. Sleeping beauty castle, Disney faces, Old stream train, Old model bus were visible as trademarks of the place. Indiana Jones ride was pleasant, Spacemountain ride tested our body's strength in withstanding a massive bodyshake, Jungle Cruise mainly for Shashandra, roller-coster + Thunder mountain for Madhavan (+Anusha). Mickey's house visit for all, but wait for that is not tolerable. Small World, Pirates of Carribean and Disney characters parade are other ones we enjoyed. New attraction "Finding Nemo"'s wait time is 2 1/2 hours, so we skipped that. Krithika's idea and research for Fast Pass saved good time. Honey I shrunk the audience 3D show was nice. Fireworks at end was ofcourse WORLD CLASS. Don't forget to buy coke/water from outside when you go, otherwise pay 6 times normal price. Its Worth a trip.

Day2: (16th Jun) Started from hotel at 8:30 am, went to walmart to buy some cheap food items for travel and hit the highway around 9:15 am. There started our mega 500 miles trip. We stopped for gas/petrol at a place called Needles. I have not seen a heat (107F) like that anywhereelse in the world including Chennai. It is like being in midst of fire. Had our break in some rest area near entry to Arizona state. Had our home made food. Reached Fairfield Mariott hotel in Williams at 4:45 pm. Krithika was not well for a shortwhile due to food and heat. Left hotel around 5:30 pm and reached Grand Canyon at 6:30 pm. Grand Canyon is a world wonder with a big hole in the earth and mountains below ground level. Had a nice view from Yavapai point and Mather point. During the Sun set, the entire mountain shined like a (McKenna's) Gold. It was a clear day and telescope observators offered their telescopes to general public to view astronomical wonders. We saw beautiful Saturn, Venus, Jupiter with 4 moons and closeup shot of Moonram Pirai (3rd day moon).

Day3: (17th Jun) Krithika drived from Williams back to Grand Canyon. We covered Maricopa point, Bright Angel Point and Hopi point. Stunning views. Then we drove to Desert view point and it was worth 25 miles journey. Too many curves on the way. Mouthshut.com user mentioned about Shiva/Vishnu temple in Yaki point and we want to see whether it is real. But, we can go only by park shuttle and we didn't have time to do that exercise. I covered my 250 miles journey from Williams to Las Vegas in almost 3 hours. We had a night shot photo of Hoover dam. One who has seen "Vacation to Las Vegas" movie will remember this. Checked-in at 10pm. We were too tired, so made a car trip to Las Vegas Boulevard or Las Vegas Strip area. Too much traffic made us to parse through the road very slowly enjoying the lighting, buildings made with theme like resembling New York City, Venice etc. Bellagio hotel fountain was world famous and we saw it from outside. Other popular buildings like MGM, Pyramid, Treasure Island Hotel, Stratosphere were nice to look and take photo. No time to goto Casino, so I could not win $880 like one of my friend. Travelogue was just okay kind of hotel. Breakfast was not that good as Fairfield Mariott hotel.

Day4: (18th Jun) Due to everyone's laziness and tiredness, left the hotel after 9:30 am. Went one more trip to Las Vegas Boulevard/LV Strip. Want to have a glimpse of famous Guitar Hard Rock Cafe, went there and took photos. Another 250 miles journey after that and reached Universal Studios around 2pm. That means we have only 5 hours to visit the attraction. Studio tour covering KingKong shaking our tour tram, Helicopter falling on Brooklyn Bridge set in front of our eyes, Stephen Spielberg's real Aeroplane crash site, Rain/Thunder/Flood in front of our eyes, Earthquake in New York subway set, with bridge breaking over head, oil tanker truck burst, Mummies set are star viewings from Studio tour. Back to the future is just a virtual ride with lot of shakes. Special effects show was okay and the overweight comparer was excellent in her performance, but due to that show we missed atleast 2 other good shows. Shreik 3D show was okay kind. Left the studios at 7:30pm and we went to a narrow location where popular HOLLYWOOD sign was clearly visible. Krithika got this information from web and the route was too narrow for the 7 seater to drive and I was little worried. But atlast had a wonderful view and took photos. Then we went to my friend Arun Vineeth's house at Hughes Avenue. It was a neatly maintained house. Had dinner at Taste of India Indian restaurant.

Day5: (19th Jun) Its the last day of the trip and we left hotel around 9:15am to San Diego for Sea World. Traffic was heavy but special car pool lane helped us to zoom through the highway. Around 150 miles was covered in little over 2hours time. Whale show, Dolphin show and Sea Lion show was really stunning. I am amazed how Whale and Sea Lion were taught to express different things. I can understand Dolphins. Then while part of group visited a 3D show Haunted Lighthouse, others don't want to see 3D shows again and visited Penguins, Polar Bears and Dolphin feed area. We touched the Dolphins and they are like Hard rubber. Returned to Airport rental area 8pm. We relaxed, repacked suitcases to avoid airport security delay. In that process, we reached airport at 9pm for a 9:40pm flight. I lost hope we are going to go in that flight, as the queue for checkin looks minimum 1 hour wait. Fortunately delta rep helped us to directly check-in. Again we bypassed queue for security check. I rushed to McDonalds for some mini dinner. Flight delayed upto 9:55pm and we were in flight at 9:50 pm. That is unforgettable.

Reached Hartford, Connecticut at 6am next day. Back to office at 9:30am and for the first time it was almost impossible for me to sit in office and extremely sleepy. Managed the day somehow.

All the days of the tour, we slept at 12 midnight pacific time, which is 3 hours back to Eastern time. So we almost slept 3am everyday, and we gotup at 5am Pacific that means 8am Eastern time.

It's a memorable trip for everyone. What's next - Mexico? -- not sure!!

Addendum: a) Wildfire over somewhere NEVADA in the night when we flew over the place in place b) Terrific wind that shooked our Mini Van in I40 express way c) Few small twisters on way to Las Vegas from Grand Canyon d) Disney Land parade with unforgettable Disney characters are other unforgettable moments.