Mt. Shasta and Lassen National Park

Another long weekend. Another drive to a national park.

This time, we went to Mt. Shasta and the Lassen Volcanic park area. It was a really great trip. We went with the cousins and as an added treat, my brother happened to land here the previous week for a business trip and my brother in law drove down from Seattle! We were met a bunch of familiar faces at the hotel where we stayed and the kids thought we were going to a wedding in Shasta!

We pretty much covered a lot of places and saw what we could, given the rain, snow and the hiking trails being closed.

Shasta Dam, Lake Shasta, Burney falls, Mt. Shasta, Turtle bay museum, Sundial Bridge in Redding, The arboretum in Redding, Shasta Caverns (which included a boat ride, bus ride up the mountains, a descent into the caverns and another descent on a mountain wall after we exit the caverns!), the Waterhead of the sacramento river where all the underground water channels come out of the mountain wall (which incidentally is where Evian water is bottled) and the entire loop on Lassen national park!

An amazing trip, with harrowing moments when it suddenly rained, and the rain instantly turned to ice on the just plowed highway at 8000 feet with daddy trying to steer a van full of people around a sharp bend. People started reciting whatever slokas they remembered and many "kalpoorams" will be purchased on the next India trip. Daddy is just praying that no "vendudhals" have been made to some remote deity in India like Hairpinbendkaapaathamman which involve tonsuring his head! These days, you never know!

Without further ado, here are the "stitch shots" made of anything from 6 to 21 photos.

Burney falls, wide, majestic, crystal clear waters, it was really beautiful.

Considering that the images are 30 to 51 MB, blogger is not allowing me to upload those the way they are. The remaining pictures are resized to 3k pixels.

This was taken from a boat, as we crossed the Shasta Lake to see the caverns.

Lake Britton, on route 89 from Burney falls to McCloud. The place had an eerie tranquility to it.

Just past the Summit lake trails on Lassen, a little creek that cuts through a field of snow. Did not venture too close to the creek because we could see the ice was too thin and slippery.

Bunny flat, 6950 feet, as far as the road would take us on Mt. Shasta.

Bumpass Hell, a solitary boulder on a ledge, an amazing view of the snow covered hills and the valley below.

We will definitely visit this place again when the sky is clear and we get some contrast between the sky and the snow.

There are always the pictures of the little ones spicing up the landscape. Those come later!

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Separation Anxiety

Traveled to Texas from Wed to Friday on business. The kids saw me on wednesday morning, when I dropped them off, and got to see me again only last night when they woke up in the middle of their sleep.

Why is this a big deal in today's small world where our jobs take us to all parts of the globe on a routine basis?

Well, this is the first time daddy did not put the little one to bed, since she was BORN! Jr. went through the same thing three years ago when Daddy went to Minnesotta for a whole week. She lost a few pounds, managed to lose her voice just by non stop screaming. The two things that mitigated the side effects at the time were, my parents were here to give her extra attention and she was not talking that well. She was only 16 months old.

This time, Jr. adapted well. She talked to me on the speaker phone. Said she missed me and wanted me to come back, and understood that Daddy will come back.

The little one on the other hand, just went beserk. Even after I was back, she did not know how to accept me! She woke up at 1:00 AM and did not know if it was really daddy who had appeared on the bed. She had delayed the bedtime in hopes of daddy arriving on time, but the flight did not co-operate.

To check and confirm she sent daddy through the usually expected tasks, much along the lines of Hercules being sent on errands.

Daddy Paal (milk)
Daddy Dipee (change my diaper)
Daddy mook (get a tissue and blow my nose)
Daddy Valikaadhu (I have pain) give me medicine (!!!!)
Daddy mudugu (give me a back rub)
Daddy I am scared (this means I have to take her to the pooja shelf and put some ash on her forehead)

Daddy would normally not complain for this, were it not for the fact that he had got up from bed at 5:30AM in Texas (which was 3:30AM California time) and it was a loooong day with a three hour flight staying in the air for four hours! Also there was no break time between the tasks. It was practically back to back errands. Finally she slept at 3:00 AM.

The hope is that she will get used to dad's disappearences and reappearences with time, now that she knows that the guy actually does show up after a few days! She is probably going to hate the word "Texas" without ever actually going there, much like how San hates Minnesotta without ever having visited the place. Used to leave San all alone and disappear for a week at a time when we were just married. San has not forgotten.

The little one is her normal smiling self again. However she is extremely clingy with daddy. Even if dad goes to the bathroom we hear the "Please take me with you daddy!". Based on previous experience with Jr., this phase will last at least a few days.

This post is specially for the Little one. Remember, if some day you disappear on me for days on end when you are in high school or college and you are wondering what all the fuss is and why daddy is all worried, READ THIS POST, to see what you did when daddy went away for a few days!

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A trip to close out 2007

Last year we went through Route 1 to Solvang and back. We loved it so much that this year, we decided to go through, a little farther till Santa Barbara, and see spots we missed last time.

A short summary of it in pictures. Pictures, that speak a lot more than my words!!Some of these composite stitch shots, were taken from 10-32 pictures, and may be large and have long download times!!

A stop at Point Lobos (thanks to a colleague who suggested some real nice places that are not visited by most, especially China Cove.. we had our own private beach for an hour or two). It was unforgetable.

Sunset at San Simeon..

A visit to the Mission at Santa Barbara (lot of history).

The Botanical Gardens on the mountains of Santa Barbara

A panoramic view of the entire coastal city from the Courthouse

Letting the kids play on a playground on the beach

Captain Don's pirate ship cruise to watch Sea Lions and around Pelican Island at Stearns Wharf

A night at Pismo Beach and a room with a view ..

Oh what a room and what a view!! The rooms in this hotel must have been the source of many a "lets get married", "lets make babies" or even some "never mind that divorce we were talking about"... Oh what a room and what a view...

Getting back to the topic, a great trip!!!

As I try valiantly to complete this post amidst blogger errors, drinking Apple-Pear Cider with near and dear ones, pausing our blockbuster rental midway to catch the fireworks on TV at midnight..

I think.. little will change in 2008.. or who knows what the future holds for us?

Have a wonderful 2008!

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LEGOLAND - Photoblog

Yes. There is a theme park dedicated to the little plastic blocks kids play with.

If you have not seen it, do not miss it. I have been in California for almost a decade now and have always missed this park when we go to San Diego. Have crossed the exit several times and wondered what it was all about! Add to that, the fact that many of my friends and colleagues give this place a two thumbs up, this time we decided to take Jr. and the little one on a short trip to LEGOLAND.

The photos say it all! Everything here is just plain amazing. We had a daunting task to get food into Jr. and we accomplished it only because the place relaxed her. Most of the rides are not scary.

We went on this animal safari ride with Lego animals. The little one waited patiently in line for 45 minutes zipping and unzipping her jacket, only to be kicked out at the end for being vertically challenged.

Jr., who refused to go on any ride was forced in as a last minute substitution and she actually had a change of heart. She got out saying "that was fun. can we do that again"!

This also meant that grandma had to adopt some Chinese kid as her "binami" grandson for the ride. Apparently the kid really liked her!

Here are some of the legonimals..

The next thing was a boat ride that covered all the books! Truly amazing..Jr. guessed all the stories!

Then there was the place which really got Jr. smiling.. Fun Town, aptly named.

She even drove a car by herself and they gave her a fake drivers license! She loved it.

A word of caution though. Most rides, however trivial they are require 34 inch height minimum which the little one missed by an inch or inch and a half. It is really not her fault that her parents dont have viking genes in them. Kids younger then her were getting on all the rides and she had to sit out for almost everything.

Then there was this out of place pirate thing, with rides for adults. The kids enjoyed talking to the pirate...

Finally some teasers for the adults. They have this place called Mini World which has miniature models of everything from the Taj Mahal to the Eiffel tower to Golden gate bridge.. not to mention an entire las vegas strip and Washington DC.

You have to see it to believe it..

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The road to happiness

The road to happiness is paved with smiles. Cute little smiles that we get from the little ones.

Considering that San and me have birthday's just around thanksgiving break, we have spent many a celebration at a themepark, and the special ones are in what is supposed to be the happiest place on earth, aka Disneyland.

The irony of it is that as the number of kids went from 0 to 1 to 2, and the kids got older, the happiness somehow seems to be muted, or to be fair, lets say "has mutated"!

This post is a travel through time, to the very same place, over the last 8 years...

1999 : Newly marrieds, jointly celebrating birthdays for the first time, holding hands, walking through the special parade, staying in the park till till closing time, the fireworks, finding out that all it takes to make the Mrs. happy is to get her to toontown, that too after being married for 5 months! The adults could mark the Disneyland map with the best makeout places.

2003 : New parents, taking grandma to show some place outside San Jose before she went back to India.. it was our way of telling the first time grandma that we wanted her to have some fun before she went back with memories of sleepless nights, emergency C-sections and avent bottles! Daddy spent most of the day in the Baby Care room with a sleeping Jr., with two backup bottles of breast milk ready to be warmed up, while mom and grandma went to the various rides and attractions. Finally when all of us stood in the line to take a picture with Mickey, Jr. decided to grab the permed hair of the lady standing in the next section of the serpentine queue and created a little side attaction. By the time we managed to extract that lady's hair from Jr.'s grip, Mickey himself was ready to honor us with some extra photo time! We did not stay for fireworks as it was too cold. Daddy could mark the Disney map with the best Child care places, locations where you could warm a bottle of milk, where to store stuff in an icepack, etc.

2004 : A near miss as we go to Universal Studios and decide against Disney because my parents want to spend a day with my cousin. I told them that the mouse wins hands down, but they didn't listen! Now they have to wait for their turn...

2006: Taking all the maternal great grand parents to see Mickey and Friends, along with grandparents, parents and the kids. An interesting trip where we had enough hands to distract the kids during feeding time, but started having wheelchair issues toward the end of the day. A trip where the parents felt relaxed because the kids were fed and nothing else seemed to matter. By now, daddy had also gotten used to the "we won't be seeing much if we spend all our time feeding the kids!' routine. In short, daddy lowered his expectation on the percentage theme park covered in one day metric. The single brother in law was given some tips from my previous trips, which might come in handy when he gets married! We actually stayed for fireworks and this time, Daddy and mommy know the wheelchair map of Disneyland.

2007: A trip with the cousins, aimed at making the little girls happy. Everything goes well till we go on a ride called "Mr. Toad" and then Jr. gets shocked. She stops eating, has a long drawn face and starts asking philosophical questions like "Why do I have to eat? Why do I have to do ANYTHING?" and freaks us out. We pull out of the park before the evening parade for the first time, with a protesing little one in tow. Jr. has suddenly lost interest in this world and refuses to go on any ride, eat anything, do anything at all, while the little one wants to go on every ride but is either too young or too short to go on anything! We hurried back home, but did manage to break her hunger strike in Legoland the following day. We are still at a loss to understand what happened to her in the park! Did she see something? Did she hear something? Why would a kid suddenly shut down like that? Was it related to the fifth year immunization shot she got earlier in the week? A million questions, none of which matter now, considering she is back to her usual self! We did have some fun when she started smiling again during the afternoon parade but the smiles were few and countable! Daddy and mommy can now show you the fastest way to exit the park!

Guess that shows how a Disney trip evolves with time. Next time (I am sure there will be one more trip, when the little one goes through HER princess phase), we are going to use all the learning from the previous trips and hope to have a great time!

One thing is true, irrespective of the theme park we are visiting. As long as the feedings are on schedule, the kids are okay, the moms are not stressed out and the dads don't have to take the brunt of the abuse for the kids not eating, the trip is a success and everyone comes out happy! If the kids stop cooperating in the eating department, even Disneyland becomes hell on earth!

On the bright side, the whirlwind LEGOLAND trip was good. The girl ate lunch, played, even started dancing again! At dinnertime, she started acting dull again and we just checked out a day ahead and started driving back in the night! Drove through I-5 last night knowing that we could always handle this better when we were home!

Will post pictures and videos of the trip tomorrow.

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