Cooolorado

So here it goes, I get a call from my Boss that there's an emergency situation and I may need to travel over the weekend. He knows, I am always up for a travel, I agreed in a minute. Next hour, I was booking a flight to Colorado. Since, I was out of time, that company can book the flights, so I just booked it by my own and next day I am in Colorado, crazy right.

Well, the crazier thing is, I found one of my college buddy over there. I had to travel on Sunday, but it wasn't sure that I have to visit office. So, we made a plan to roam around that one day. Colorado is a mountain place, it has many places to visit. I had a itinerary of all the places, I want to visit. I picked him up from his place and we directly headed to the Colorado Springs. It was already afternoon, so we had to finish everything fast. Also, it was hot and me being from Chicago, can't handle that much heat and my friend, well he just didn't wanted to walk much.

Our first point was Garden of the Gods, well we didn't find parking over there after taking 2 rounds of parking lot, so we moved on. We just saw it from outside and headed to next attraction: Red rock canyon open space, which was basically just an open area. Then we moved to Ghost town museum, this was the first place where we could find proper parking and stayed for some time. It was a paid attraction and I didn't find it worth. The good thing about the place was we got to know about the history of Colorado. It was a gold mining area and the gold was found in river water. Colorado is actually famous for gold digging, I was not aware of it.

Moving on to the best attraction of the day-Seven Falls. It's actually, one continuous fall, but water drops 7 times with stops in between. It is also a paid attraction, but its worth it. We reached there in evening, so Sun was also supporting our small hike. There is a shuttle that takes us from parking to the base and then there is a small hike. Also a shuttle is available from base to the falls if you don't want to hike. I was in the car from morning, so I had to walk a bit, so we didn't took the shuttle. We took some cool pictures while hiking up and then reached to the mesmerizing falls. I must say, it is beautiful. We have to take many stairs to reach to the top of the falls. It gives us picture of all the falls from the top. Once we are at the top, there are 2 hikes, shorter and longer one. I took the longer one, but my friend was tired by this time. So he decided to wait for me. As I started going up, I got to know that it is going to take around 40 minutes to return. I was already halfway through and could not go back, so I informed some people who were going down to let my friend know that I am going to be late. I tried to finish the hike asap and came down. Seven Falls was the only attraction that made our day successful. Then we had pizza on our way back and day can be called as successful.

I had to work in office on the following 2 days and then returned back to Chicago. Next day, I was working in office and my boss again reached out to me for traveling the very same day. No worries, I was back in Colorado in night. This time, it was a hectic schedule. I was working even on weekends. I tried to visit the garden again with my client partner, but no parking one more time. Since my friend was on a trip-a long weekend one, so I couldn't catch up with him.

Then I went back to Chicago and after a couple of days, back in Colorado. This was the 3rd visit and hence the name Cooolorado. This time, I didn't tried to visit garden but had nice Indian food everyday with my friend. Overall it was a good trip every time. I was able to view Colorado from different perspective in every trip which is really a great experience. Many thanks to my friend. Normally, I avoid visiting same place twice, but it was an emergency-Hurricane.

Niagara Falls and US trip closure

New York is too big to cover in a post. So here's another one starts in the city that never sleeps. When we finished the Intrepid Museum, my parents visited Statue of Liberty cruise on discounted tickets-courtesy of our guide. I had already been on that cruise and didn't wanted to go as it was not much there. Our next NY attraction was again an art place like the one in Chicago. This one was much bigger and beautiful than the previous one, so we thought of checking it out. It has really great architectures brought from all over the world. It is the largest Museum in United States. 

Then we moved on to the last but the best attraction of entire tour-The Niagara Falls. Well, before falls, we visited Niagara Fort and understood its history. It was originally built for New France, then fell into British hands and now comes under US. The fort has few actors who shows how the attacks were performed during their era. They even shoot a cannon sometimes and we were lucky to spot it. Then the guide showed us different parts of Niagara falls, origin, middle and the actual falls. We took the famous Maid of the Mist boat tour which goes close to the falls and comes back. Frankly speaking, it was in my bucket list but when I saw it, it was not beyond my expectations, may be I have seen enough that even Niagara doesn't excites me much or I have become mobiholic or in Love. I guess the last one.

Once we finished the one and only Niagara, the tour came to an end. There was just one last show remaining. It was Native American Dance show, it was related to native people near the Niagara. It was a good show, just to relax yourself after such a long trip. There was nothing remained for us to visit anymore. We started our return just after the show. Our aim was to complete some distance before taking rest for the night. 

The last attraction of our tour was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there was just one person from our tour who opted for it. Since, it was part of the package, we had no choice but to stop there. We enjoyed the Cleveland harbor in the meantime, that Bangalore guy was visiting the museum. It was a good museum, even from the outside. Then we returned Chicago, this concludes our East Coast Tour by GetBus Tours, looks like that company is closed down now 😳.

The next day, we went to get some souvenirs and parents took India flight after one more day. To conclude, it was a short and sweet trip. We completed it with God's grace. My parents don't keep well, but they completed this trip without any health issues. Thanks to God. Jai Shree Krishna.