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.

Letting off the Steam

@ Botos

So I was on a break with a friend cum colleague in office and were discussing a hang out for weekend. I thought that no one from my room would be willing to join but to my surprise everyone jumped in. We planned to visit Kanyakumari at first, from that point itself there was a single kanya joining us (from office) and we didn’t had proper way back from there so we had to drop both kanya and kanyakumari. It became a complete boys trip now, all of started searching for the next best place in south and soon we came up with Yelagiri-a small hill station in TN. 

Uncensored Pic

Biyani booked a cab and we were ready to hit the roads, addition to 5 of us from Chennai we called a friend photographer friend-CV from Bangalore too. Here I would like to make a note of thanks to all my photographer friends for providing there awesome photography on the trips that we execute. We started banging our qualis on full volume with breaks from time to time for Atm and the very famous Kumbakonam Coffee. Then there were drinks when we were waiting for CV at some mid station (forgot the name).

Temple Pic

Finally we reached Yelagiri, had a full tight dinner and started exploring beautiful natural scenery. Our first point was the Botos Natural Park, it was not much but enough for some crazy shit. I have tried not to post any uncensored pics, this one is fine to remind everthing. Next we visited Murugan Temple, it had quite a sight. Its true that there is a peace where there is God, this temple was a true example of it, it was cool, quite and calm, best place to meditate and think.

Swami Malai trek

Once prayer was over, we started our hike to the highest peak-Swami Malai. Note it takes 2-3 hours in ascending, which we were not able to do as we started late, the temple at peak was already closed. We thought of just taking a tour and coming back, but as the Sun was coming down it was getting darker and its  not advisable in woods to roam around especially at a new place. So we trekked up to a point, enjoyed our way up, clicked some pics and started coming down.

Censorship Applied

On the way back, we entered a garden with musical fountain. It could have been quite a show but due to weather conditions/separate tickets ffor garden and fountain, we dropped the plan of fountain. Again clicked and started our way home with a single stop for dinner.

Thats Me

If we are working in a dead end job in a small cubicle, such trips helps us to let off our steam, to rejuvenate us, to give us a new angle to our life, work and thinking. There is a saying, “don’t tell me how many degrees you have, tell me how much have you travelled.” Reading books can give you bookish knowledge applying it in the field makes you practical as well as compassionate.