To Michigan-Pittsburgh and Washington D.C.

Presidential Limousine

As we were heading towards our first city-Michigan. The guide informed us that in US, odd numbered routes are from North to South and even number east to west. We were on I-94 which means we were going towards east. A good piece of information.

Our first stop was The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, MI. It houses Presidential Limousines, Thomas Edison Lab, Wright Brother's planes and many other interesting historical exhibits. It is the largest indoor-outdoor Museum complex and worth visiting.

Next we visited, General Motors Heritage Center in Detroit, MI. The cool thing about Detroit is that its a bridge distance from Canada and you can actually see it easily from Detroit. The not so good part is that its bankrupt, there are houses available for $1. It's a less preferable place to live due to its alarming crime rate. Our next stop was Pittsburgh-the city of bridges. It was followed by the Capital of the United States of America-Washington D.C.. We visited the Lincoln Memorial, the White House and National Air and Space Museum.

General Motors HQ

It is said that time flies when you are having fun and believe me we never knew that it has been 2 days already with the group. By this time, the group became like a family. First, me and MH couple became a unit and later the entire Indian community became one. Also, the Chinese people became another group but they always used to leave one or the other member behind.

The White House

Whenever we used to stop on the way, we had to stop at a rest are and they dont have much to eat for my parents and even MH couple. In the beginning, the couple had some namkeen puri and pohe to offer, but soon they ran out of it. So, when we used to stop for lunch, I used to quickly go through all the shops and order for both the couples and me. We always used to have a bag of namkeen and pickle. If we don't like anything, just get a burrito (treat as chapati), get salsa (treat as tomato sabzi). When we used to stop in the city to eat, we could easily get an Indian restaurant and had proper food. Still food was a challenge for parents.

Tulip Time Festival

Summer Trip 2

Tulip Time Festival is an annual festival held in Holland, Michigan. Tulip festivals are held in many cities around the United States of America that were founded or largely inhabited by Dutch settlers. It is celebrated every year in mid-May and is currently the largest tulip festival in the United States. Although, we didn’t knew this till now still we planned to visit Holland just to get a taste of something new, to enjoy summer and live life.

I was having discussion with my friends to go someplace where we can enjoy summer and one friend brought up Tulip idea. I have been to a Tulip festival, so I knew it’s not much but again, let’s go out and enjoy. So I started making plan of going there. Soon, we were 5 people all set to go and then it became 7, then final count reached 8. It was right time to book a car. When we were planning the trip some people got to know about our plan and started talking about it. I understood, I can never have a silent anything. If I do something, it will be grand. My Boss also got to know about the trip. Even though, he was going to the same place, he made me carry my laptop with a hotspot so that I can start working even from there in case something falls apart. How workaholic I would look working from there hi hi hi.

We planned everything one day before, which was already late as per my planning. I asked everyone and whoever agreed at that time became part of our plan and whoever denied was out. One of my friend called to confirm in night but by that time, everything was booked and it was difficult to change. Even then I told him, come will adjust, but he was not ready and backed out. Morning, I got ready and got the rental car, it was cool. We thought that will get a 7 seater as per booking but fortunately we got 8 seater Kia Sedona. We were behind schedule at this time. Once we picked up car, we went to our friends place for snacks and then picked up another friend. These people were also not ready which caused more delay. Anyways we started from here and directly stopped at Michigan.

It’s a big festival and hence no parking. Locals opened up their backyard to provide more parking by taking 5 bucks which was pretty interesting. After searching for half an hour, we finally got a place to park. Then we saw the parade which was okay. They had paid sitting, I don’t get that part. Then we moved onto an attraction called as Windmill Island Gardens, a park with Tulip Gardens and a 250 year old windmill. We spent majority of our time here and then we wanted to eat something as we didn’t had lunch yet and it was around 6 P.M. We thought of ordering something, but then we saw a Pizza buffet. Greed of buffet made our trip costly and added more time to our already slow plan. We spent lot of time eating and hence we were not able to see anything afterwards. Then we spent some time chatting outside pizza hut. Afterwards we checked out some shopping places and then some people wanted to spend some more time hanging around and others wanted to head back home. Choice was made by voting. Everyone was tired of taking photographs and walking. Finally we headed towards home around 8:30 P.M. I was home by 1 A.M. This concludes our Tulip Trip.

Warren Dunes

Summer Trip 1

Dunes

A dune is a hill of loose sand built by wind or flow of water. Beach dunes are different than desert. Desert dunes can be 300 m while beach are 5-6 m wide. We got an opportunity to visit one of the dunes called as Warren Dunes, Michigan.

Group Picture

Summer initiates a series of trips, it mostly not about where you are going but about an outing. It’s about getting up from your bed and going out somewhere. I believe, we should travel and meet new people as much as possible. It is required for our holistic growth or at least I think so.

Initial plan was to go there, doesn’t matter how many people comes up. As the plan was coming to end, more and more people wanted to join. Finally we had 3 cars, that’s the maximum no. of people I had collaborated since ILP training. ILP was a totally different ball game. When there are people of same age, culture, language, schedule, age and even home, it’s easy to agree on things. But when you have people of all ages, cultures, nationalities, status, race it becomes difficult to make them agree on a single point.   

3 Musketeers

We had 3 cars and the plan was to meet at office and start from there, but due to different timings we were able to run 2 cars together and 3^rd one was going separate. So we thought of meeting at Subway or some restaurant. We were able to get 2 cars at subway. I moved to 2^nd car and sent one guy from that car to ours. Finally we made calls and aligned 2^nd and 3^rd car. Although, now 1^st car was separated, anyways I moved from 2^nd car to 3^rd. We had a mix of Americans and Indians. I moved over to an American car and sent an American to Indian car. This mix gives us a possibility to learn new things. Eventually, I was able to ride in all 3 cars. The Americans were a family, a father, her daughter and her friend.

Gabby

Soon, we reached Warren Dunes. It was bit cold over there enough to make us feel cold as well as bit hot. Beach was colder, so we moved over to dunes quickly after taking some photographs. As we were climbing up, we took more pictures and further more on top. I also tried somersault from top which came out to be pretty amazing for my neck pain. Then we rested on top and played with sand. Some friends started pouring sand on top of my head and then one another girl. Then we rested for a while and came down. We had an interesting member in our trip called as Gabby-friend of daughter, she made everyone angry and at the same time kept the trip interesting. One of our friends eventually became babysitter for her.

We also made a quick stop at another place called as St. Joseph Harbour few miles away from Warren Dunes; it was closed as we were before actual summer season which starts from Memorial Day. We spent some time over there and finally wanted to come back. When we were coming back, the father and daughter had left for a restaurant and we were left with Gabby. We were bit worried to have her with us and the father wasn’t even answering his phone. All of us decided to visit a gas station to attend nature calls. At this point we were able to make contact with father, handed over Gabby to him and took sigh of relief. Then we came back to home sweet home.