Yellowstone National Park

@Grand Canyon

Our 1^st Long weekend trip continued to explore one of the most visited place of USA, yes we are talking about the smelly geysari place Yellowstone National Park. It is also described as a wild recreation area on top of volcanic hot spot, but you can’t dare to sit on it, I bet. It also hosts canyons, rivers, forests, hot springs and most important gushing geysers. It’s also a home to bears, wolves, bison, elk and more.

Norris

We started in morning from the Glacier and reached Yellowstone after noon. We directly entered in the park instead of doing time pass in hotel. Soon after our entrance there was a herd of Bisons was ready to welcome, then there were few springs and finally we make our halt @ Norris Geyser Basin. Norris has many geysers, hot steam coming out from the earth which was looking as if the earth is showing her anger and ready to erupt any time. When it erupts, it looks like, it is saying “no more torcher or I am gonna steam you”. The colorful water around geyser looked like, earth is puking. Well I am not trying to show you the negative side of park, so no more bad talks.

Earth Puke

Beauty of the nature is beyond comparison, even if you have been to a good hotel, pub, disc but when you see Mountains, plateaus, rivers you forget everything. You are mesmerized by the view that Mother Earth has. To enjoy such a view, we drove to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Dusk was falling rapidly which closed rest of the points and we moved to search for our rest place and some food.

Paint Pot

Morning we had American breakfast and reentered the park to throw some natural paint. Yellowstone has a place called as fountain paint pot. Volcanic heat and gases rise through Earth’s crust mixes with water from rain and snow to make mud. Then few microorganisms and minerals are added to complete the recipe and cooking/fountain pot is ready for you.

Old Faithful

Just in case if you are not excited by this, we have faith in the Old faithful geyser which erupts after regular intervals to a height of 20-30 feet. It is one of the most famous geyser of park. On the way back, we met our old big bulky friend Bison on the road. There was one more geyser on the way and few scenic spots, I forgot their names. When we were about to return, we found out that the road is closed after covering about 50 miles, hence we had to turn back and found another route. GPS was making our way back to the same road again and again-useless, Mobiles were not in network-damn. So we used the best way to know route-ask someone. We stopped a car on highway and they helped us to make our way back to home.

Help

The new route was beyond comparison, it was like, as if we are going to Leh Laddakh (my dream place). We passed through a historic place known as The Last Mountain-Dead Indian Pass (Red Indians, not the Indians from India). Besides historical sorrow, it’s a good lookout point. Then we passed through all colors of mountain and finally home sweet home.

1st Long Weekend

Now a days, a term known as Long Weekend has become quite famous-thanks to our IT culture. It is defined as any weekend greater than 2 days, even if it’s just 3 days. I witnessed one of such in recent days and since it was the 1^st long weekend of US for me, I was quite excited. It came in the form of Memorial Day Holiday on Monday May 25. I planned a road trip which included 5 friends, 4days, 3000 miles, 2 National Parks and 1 premium SUV and lots of nashta(Snacks).

Drive to Glacier

We started on Friday May 23 after completing our office work towards Montana-Glacier National Park in our car-Chevrolet Tahoe. We had 5 guys and among them 4 drivers, all are supposed to drive but when I took the first look, it was looking like a goddamn truck. I was doubting myself (Caution: Never ever doubt yourself, man has reached Moon so definitely Sky is not the limit) whether I’ll be able to drive it, but after some time, I was driving it as if I have driven it from months. In US, driving is fun. Note that you will not enjoy much in the national park but the drive to the park is awesome, you will be driving through a road called as “going to the Sun road” and its worth to drive there. So drive slowly and enjoy the view, they are strict about speed limits and animals can come on the road anytime so be careful and enjoy the ride.

Truck

We reached Glacier National Park next morning and even after I said multiple times that we should roam around park first and then hit the hotel, people with me wanted to check out hotel first just to get refresh which we can do in any restaurant/rest area. Just to save time and spend it in the park instead of hotel. Unfortunately or fortunately when we reached hotel, it was closed so we got fresh in a restaurant had kind of ok Lunch and started exploring Glacier National Park. 

The Group

Most of the park was closed except the Avalanche trail. The trail was supposed to be small but it was bit long. It took around 30mins to reach the end, but in the end it was worth the efforts. There was a large glacier with small lake and a great picturesque view. We clicked lot of pics there and then headed back. Last of course not the least, I met 2 girls on the way down and got to know that they were Indian, although at first look no one can identify that they are Indians. I was surprised to know that. One was Punjabi another Gujju. It was nice to meet someone from our region in an unknown area. Our 15 mins talk was so intense that we became good friends, they say we make friends everywhere. I had say that’s true. Next station was subway followed by hotel.

Tulip Festival, Iowa

People in Dutch Flavour

 Want to see something old from a new glass, Orange City Iowa is the place for you. It hosts Tulip Festival yearly to celebrate the Dutch Heritage. This year they celebrated the 75^th Anniversary and I was fortunate to spot the event. I had to convince my friends to come to the agreement that it is going to be a good show and believe me it was aaaawesome.

Best Pic

Tulip Festival’s main attraction besides variety of Tulips is the Parade. There are 2 parades in the festival, 1^st in afternoon and 2^nd in eve. We started a bit late Saturday morning and hence we were not able to see the 1^st but the 2^nd one. As soon as we reached there, we had subway (Note: wherever you go in US, there are few restaurants like Subway, Pizza hut, Chipotle where you can get affordable veg. So you may want to look for them, if you don’t find good local veggie). So we waited for the parade and before that enjoyed the puppet show, horse ride-a tour of downtown and entertainment on road.

Tulips Close up

The most important part of the festival was that the whole town was submerged in Dutch color, everyone and everywhere, we can find people roaming in Dutch dresses. They look pretty cool hence I clicked couple with them. Not only the dresses but the shoes too were unique. Wooden shoes are typical Dutch heritage. They were useful in wet soil in Netherlands from where the Dutch people came.

Parade Snap

Finally the time came for the evening parade for which we travelled around 3 hours. All the way from Minnesota to Iowa. It consisted of bands from different schools, but exactly same format. Every group consisted of a banner in starting showing the name of group followed by 3 persons facing towards the band, giving them directions, followed by around 5-6 rows of different instruments and last instrument will be flute. Then there were King and Queen of festival, antique cars, bike gang, tractors and many more.

Lots of Tulips

Overall parade experience was really cool. After completing the parade, we tried to have coffee in the old wooden shoe factory (now a coffee shop), unfortunately it was closed. Anyways we stopped for some food on the way and finally made it to our place on time.

Know more @ http://octulipfestival.com/