Woodland Park Zoo - Photoblog

There comes a time in every mans life when he starts straying.. and gives in to temptation. You have been faithful and loyal to what you thought was a "vision to behold", the "apple of your eye" etc. etc. only to find by chance that sometimes you might just have missed out on a lot of fun.

Okay. We are not talking about my woman here, though god knows that Seattle women who come to the Woodland park zoo on a summer weekday can make you doubt your own resolve. That zoo can as well market itself as a pickup bar! As usual we digress, especially after a whole post has been dedicated to this topic already..

Now that you have guessed the names of all those animals from their butt shots, here are their portraits. But before going further, we have to clarify. The Canon digital rebel with the simple 28-80 (non image stabilized) lens is not exactly zoo material, except for low light shots.

The BIL has recently acquired a Nikon D40 with the works (body, wide angle, telephoto, tripod, etc. etc.). He had the 55-200 lens on his Nikon and in an impulsive move, I grabbed his camera to take a shot, simply because my camera couldn't zoom that nicely. Lo and behold, what a shot!

The rest of the zoo trip, would borrow his lens at every opportunity.

Love my Canon. This is not a camera limitation. If the old Tamron 18-200 lens was there, it would have done the job. There are no imminent zoo trips, so the wait for the lens will continue.

All shots taken with D40 except the snakes which were taken with the Canon.

Finally, our wild ones..

At the end of this trip when we were driving back, one thought kept crossing my mind. Human beings, inspite of all their flaws are the most fascinating of creatures.

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Please save state parks in California

A virus has infected the laptop and that has translated to a day of gardening.

Had to borrow the wife's laptop for this urgent post.

All those trips to route 1 might become nasty experiences.

The Governer is now cutting down 80% of the state parks and wants to "close" them!

If you can pack a quick lunch and want to spend <30$ on gas, you could have a real good day trip along the beautiful coastline within 2 hours of the silicon valley area for a park fee of 6 dollars today.

This is a lot better than spending 60 bucks a ticket to some theme park!

Please please please support the save the parks initiatives. Please contact your local politicians to get this thing repealed.

Click on thi link to send a support email or use any other initiative that you know of.

Please...

We do not want these nice forests with redwoods, creeks and beaches to be trashed. Sometimes I feel that the only good thing we are leaving behind for future generations is these state parks. Now that is also at risk!

Pleasssseeeee...

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There is always a first time

At 36 years and pushing, decided to put on skis for the first time on saturday.

What could prompt such lunacy?

Well, it was one of those blanket IOU's that had been promised to the wife. After listening to the Ramayana since my first memories formed, it looks like I have somehow selectively forgotten the part where king Dasaratha gave such a blanket IOU to his wife and paid dearly for it with massive cardiac arrest when his wife exiled her stepson to the forest just before he was to be annointed the king!

One never learns!

After one of those bouts of work (yes, worked for almost two days straight two weekends ago) where yours truly completely neglected the wife, MIL and kids and played spoilsport with all of their weekend plans, I blurted out:

"I had to do this work for the last two days and I cannot even keep my eyes open. please let me sleep and will do anything, ANYTHING you ask me in the next two weekends!" and went on to sleep for 13 hours straight. (It was actually 12 hours, but the damn daylight savings made it look like 13!).

San has not forgotten the Ramayana. She used Kaikeyi as her mentor and fairy godmother and said "we have been cooped up in the house all weekend for the last few weeks because of your work. We are going to go out somewhere. I have always wanted to Ski!"

Note, there are priors when the wife has said the sentence "I would love to _________".

Once upon a time , approximately ten years ago, when we were just married, the wife would get a present every month on our wedding date. As it so happened, a few days before the fourth monthiversary, she said "I would love to play the piano." So on my way back from work, I decided to surprise her with a full size Yamaha keyboard from what was then Circuit City, something that AR Rahman would have wished his mom got him when he was a toddler!

I bring it home and yell "SURPRISE!" and setup the piano and say "ta da! you can play it now. Come on, show me how you play" and San replied "I don't know how to play the piano. I said I would love to play. Didn't say I know how to..." A slow motion replay of a Courtney Walsh delivery uprooting an Indian tail enders middle stump and ejecting it straight up a dozen or so feet played over and over again in my head. Those were days when Cricket was still followed in the house....

After that episode the wife has loved to do a lot of things without knowing how to. Skiing was one such thing, I inferred. In any case it was time to honor the IOU by banishing myself to the snow and after a long journey in peak traffic we reached the destined hotel on Friday night. It was facing the lake and there was such a wonderful view when we woke up. Some breakfast later, we were on our way to Donner Ski resort on a cloudy saturday morning.

The entire family took turns skiing. Jr. and the little one went first. They did a lot better than the adults, considering they were fearless! The parents did not fare so well. Daddy took the brunt of the falling and came back sore. Unable to support his body weight equally on the van seat, he drove back the entire way like a tilted mannequin.

The first time on skis was not easy, but, yes.. there is a but, I liked it. I might actually go back someday and try it again! Somehow the few seconds of balance on the skis outweighed the slips and falls.

There might actually be a second time!

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Et cetera, or should we say Eggcetera?

On our recent trip to Seattle we did more than go to

Snoqualmie Falls
Boeing Future of Flight
Olympic National Park
and watch "The curious case of Brads Buttocks".. sorry for the slip, "Benjamin Button"

We also managed to go spend a few hours at a place called Northbend inspite of bad roads and snow, eat at Mayuri Chat, Mayuri Restaurant, InChin's Indian Chinese fusion restaurant, breakfast at Eggcetera, visit the local Indian temple on Jan 1st and and and and and...

Yeah, we were busy!

Just to close out the Seattle trip posts

1. Mayuri Chat served me a spoilt samosa which was refried (probably a previous batch?) Thoroughly disappointed!

2. Mayuri restaurant served us really great food. Food that compares to some of the local desi restaurants in the Bay area.

3. Inchin's was amazing. I knew there was a good chance of an allergy attack that too on New Year's eve but took my chances and went there anyways with the rest of the gang. Their Seczchuan fried rice was amazing. (Did get an attack later that night and paid the price for tasting something that either had peanuts or sesame seeds on it and was a spoilsport at the card games that night..) Truly amazing food and fantastic service!

4. BIL decided to take us to Egg's cetera in Seattle instead of a long drive to Mother's Bistro in Portland (yes, on the last two Seattle trips we have driven to Mother's Bistro in Portland to have brunch. It is that good!) But this time we decided to try Egg's cetera, a place with a look and feel that is similar to Mother's and the Brunch was great. The Pecan waffle was mouth watering, and we conclude

Mithun: Amitabh :: Egg's Cetera: Mothers

Leaving you with two pictures that defined the rest of the trip...

Inchin's on New Years eve

The Northbend mall a day after we landed in Seattle. The backdrop was so unique for an outlet mall.

We have already begun the process of leaving the trip behind in our memories and are back to the work, school routine!

The posts on life's "little" quirks will begin soon enough...

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Olympic National Park - day trip from Seattle

The last day of 2008 was spent in Olympic National Park.

Knowing that there was 5 inches of snow expected that day at the park and that there was already 51 inches of snow piled up in most places, it was a risky decision to go. We have made five to six trips to Seattle since 2001 (started way before the BIL became a Softee) and we have driven around this park only once from Port Angeles to Seattle.

This time we wanted to see Rialto beach and Crescent lake. So we started off with hopes that the main road through the park would be ploughed and it was!

Considering it is a day trip, we used the Edmunds to Kingston ferry to cross over and then drove through cute places like Port Gamble, Discovery bay, Sequim and Port Angeles into the park and past an incredibly beautiful place called Piedmont.

We drove through rapidly changing weather, snow, then slush, rain, followed by clear sun, then fog to end up in Rialto beach. The temperature was a warm 33 F (but with wind chill it was 27 F) and the kids and some adults could not handle the winds at the beach.

The group spent 20 minutes there for a quick photo shoot and turned back just in time to beat a sudden spurt of rain. On our way back we did stop at Crescent lake to play in the snow at the edge of the "moment of time" trail. There was this beautiful house in the background and lots of fresh snow.

This is the first place where you see a mountain with snow and five minutes later you are on the other side at a beach!

Little one playing in snow for the first time at an age where she can understand what is going on. At first she was puzzled by the strange white stuff falling from the sky which instantly disappeared when she touched it.. after a few minutes she was thrilled with the possibilities of this new material..

There were snowfights, pictures, smiling faces and all round happiness! That made the trip worth the trouble.

Here are the stitch shots...

Had to wade through 3 1/2 feet of snow across a small bridge to get this shot.

A slice of heaven!

The next two shots were taken with 16 to 21 pictures. Fast moving waves and a fine mist in the air were challenges. (a tip for other stitch enthusiasts : get a flower hood and shoot with ISO1600. I did not have a hood on because it was low light conditions. there are pros and cons of not having a hood. you get more light in but the boundaries of the adjacent shots are visible. Maybe there is software that can correct for that?!)

The ones at Rialto beach were the most difficult because my fingers were numb from the cold and wasn't even sure if I hit the button or not! My appreciation for nature photographers went up several notches after this trip..

All the roads from the highway into various view points and attractions like Hurricane ridge, the Ho rain forest , Sol Duc, hot springs etc. were closed for snow or fallen trees.

That means, another trip to this place is due, preferably sometime when it has just started snowing and the roads are still navigable! Sunset at Rialto beach should be amazing, and we hope to see that on our next trip.

The cottages at the lake front looked very inviting. Someday, someday assuming the Venn diagram for "this body still has some strength left to press on a gas pedal" and "there is no obligation to be in this rat race" has an intersection, Sundar and Sangeetha will be at that cottage and spend a long time there watching the snow fall while sipping tea on the lakefront!

Until then, it is back to school time!

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