Travellers: Narendra Singhal, Amitabha Banerjee, and Muneesh Wadhera
Duration: Wednesday, 18 Aug. 5:00 pm - Monday, 23rd Aug., 9:30 am.
Narrator: Narendra
Date: 24 Aug. 2004
This trip was proposed by Amitabha, because he did not want to drive alone from Davis to Los Alamos here he was offered a summer internship by the national lab over here, seconded by Muneesh aka Muni who wanted to visit Santa Fe and was obsessed with Four Corners and supported by me who had not been to Las Vegas or Grand Canyon in my five years of stay in the US.
We started our memorable trip on Wednesday Aug. 18 at 5:00 pm after finishing our office chores early in Amitabha's black Jetta. The Jetta was loaded with food, bottled water crates, our official photographer, Muni's photography paraphernalia - tripod, long lens, short lens, digital camera, laptop charger, flash memory, (all of which occupied half the space in the car trunk :) ); and Amitabha's stuff for his two month's stay at Los Alamos. Our plan was to leave as early in the afternoon as possible so as to get into Las Vegas at night. Before leaving I picked up a bad of doughnut leftovers from our gracious department staff. Amitabha picked a soothing Bengali CD to play first, which Muni and me attempted to decipher with the little knowledge of Bengali that we had. Apparently, the lyrics were too complex and told the love story of Arjun, the famous warrior, and Rajkumari Chitrangada. No wonder, Muni came up with hilarious interpretations. We drove on I-5 and reached Bakersfield at 9:00 pm, where we had a quick dinner of chalupas, burritos, and mexican pizza at Taco Bell. Muni took over driving from Bakersfield. Before reaching Las Vegas at 1:30 am we could see a bright spot in the sky from several miles. This bright spot was coming from the top of the Luxor hotel. After dumping our belongings at Rodeway Inn, a small and cheap inn, overlooking MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay, we decided to take a short tour of the strip.
Las Vegas
We drove to the Venetian. The paintings at the foyer were very huge and expensive
and the columns were designed lavishly. It was almost 2:30 am in the morning by now,
and the crowds in the casinos were almost thinning.
After spending time in the casino and taking a
few pictures returned to out hotels. The next day
morning was hot.
We left the hotel at 1:00 am for the Bellagio. After enjoying the sumptuous lunch buffet at the Bellagio (during which Muni and me played with the night mode of his camera), we went into the Bellagio casino. The Aladdin was across from Bellagio and became our next destination. The Aladdin flaunted a huge chirag, life-size statue of running horses, high on the walls, and impeccable shopping malls providing the affect of shopping in an open air. Everything was big and lavishly decorated. Paris had a miniature version of Eiffel Tower and did not entice us much. We walked on the Strip towards Caeser's Palace in the afternoon sun. Caeser boasted of a colossium and standing sculptures at its foyer. Muni was enticed by the David's nude sculpture and shot it several times at different angles. Inside, the casino was the best among all we have visited. We played the Wheel of Fortune. After a while, we figured that there are 56 slots in the wheel and the pay off is 1:40 at maximum. No wonder the game would almost always contribute to the Caesar's fortune. We spent some time in the colossium which had huge marble sculptures and a fountain.
By the time we came out from the Caesar's palace darkness had already set in. The music of a melodious song and crowd on the Strip indicated that the fountain show of Bellagio was on. We enjoyed the spectacular show of the water fountains. The music adroitly controlled the angle and amplitude of the vast array of fountains providing a spectacular visual treat against the backdrop of Bellagio's facade. We moved to the center of the fountain array and waited for the next show which was due in 15 mins. The next ensemble of fountain crest rode on Amitabha's favorite Titanic's theme song.
We drove to the Venetian which provided gondola rides, a fine shopping mall with the effect of shopping in the daylight and a night cafeteria. After a dinner at the food court and dessert at Haggan Daaz, where Muni as usual came up with his innovative icecream combinations, we decided to go back to the Rodeway Innn. Muni and me went to Luxor, played blackjack, took pics of the wedding chapel and pyramid and returned to the hotel to sleep.
Zion National Park Muni was the first one to get up the next morning. We left Vegas at 4:50am (can you believe it?) on I-15 for the Zion National Park (ZNP). Once we reached ZNP at 8:00 am, we bought some post cards and soveniers at the visitor center. One of the soveniers had a picture of a trail (Walter Wiggle) which fascinated Muni. We took the park bus to the scenic route. Visitors were not allowed to take their vehicles on the scenic route. We got down at the Zion Inn Lodge where we had a fundu breakfast buffet in the open air and enjoyed the high rising canyon with colorful layers of stratum. Amitabha had a crush on our Chech waitress and ended up giving her a huge tip.
We took the sight-seeing bus to the Weeping Rock. Once we reached the WR stop, we took a 0.5 mile hiking trail to the weeping rock. The groundwater that seeped through the porous sandstone and limestone could not pass through the impervious strata of shale. As a result the water trickled down the rock which had shale layer on the top making the rock weep. We took the bus back to Groggy where Muni wanted to see the Walter Wiggle trail, the hiking trail he had seen in the photograph in the morning at the visitor center. We started hiking in enthusiasm with the hope of finishing the trail in a few hours. We later realized that the trail was too long and strenuous to be accommodated in our time schedule and water supply. So, we hiked for three miles one way in bright sun until we reached a shady niche in a rock. We started for Grand Canyon from the visitor center.
Grand Canyon North Rum Amitabha took charge of the wheel and we started off for our next destination Grand Canyon. We crossed dark tunnels (on the first tunnel Amitabha complained that he could not see anything despite headlights on without realizing that he had his sunglasses on :)). On the way, we enjoyed the high rising cliffs and myriad strata colors of the canyon. We stopped at a nice junction which had open green fields on the either side of the highway and trees beyond. Excited, Amitabha and me ran to the top of a lush green hill closeby amidst the bushes. Muni took out his tripod from the car to flaunt his photography skills. It started drizzling and we got back to our car and resumed 89 Alt towards Grand Canyon. We parked at the vistor center of the North Rim and hiked to the the Angel Vista point. I took the first glimpse of the vast Grand Canyon and was awed by its vastness, steepness, and beauty. Amitabha vowed to return some day to take a 26 mile trail from North Rim down to the Colorado River and up to the South Rim. Later we drove to the Imperial Point and from there to the Roosevelt point to see the Colorado river. We left the North Rim at 6:00 pm towards Jacob Lake, the junction of 89 and 67.
A hail welcomed us at the junction. The visbility was extremely poor, and we had to pullover our car. When the weather cleared after few minutes, we filled gas at Chevron and then to a nearby Inn for dinner. We enjoyed the dinner rolls and our entrees of portebello mushroom and chicken.
This was the worst driving stretch of our trip. Muni drove amidst rain and misty windshield which he did not bother to clean for sometime and complained about the fog outside. He overtook trucks when he could barely see .5 mile ahead in rain and fog and darkness. We reached the GreyHills Inn in Tuba City at 10:00 pm. Two little puppies greeted us when we entered GreyHills Inn which was more of a hostel with a common kitchen and shower room. This hotel had a bigger room and a TV with more channels. We slept like a log. (We know for sure that Muni, did because of his off the limit high-decibel snores)
Four Corners National Monument The next morning, Amitabha took the wheels for the drive to Four Corners on Highway 160. On our way, we stopped at a small town, Kayanta, to have breakfast buffet at Holiday Inn. We were excited to see a native Indian serve us. Bottled water crate was bought. Muni took over the wheel to take us to his long cherished spo, the Four Corners. We made a short stop at at the red Baby Rocks, crossed into New Mexico and reached the Four corners. Pictures of Muni's sleeping pose at the Four Corner Monument were taken. We tried the popular Indian fry bread and I bought a Dina tribe necklace from one of the Native Indian stalls.
I took the wheels. We were running low on gas. The junction where we expected gas was deserted. We decided to drive down 17 miles to the next city, Shiprock. Luckily after a few miles, we saw a gas station. When we reached Shiprock, we looked for 666 which did not exist because it was re-named to Highway 491, but mappoint had not updated it. We saw the TseBitAi (the rock of wings) which is the remains of a 27 million years old volcano. The most terrible part of the journey happend after driving 23 miles on 491. The rear tyre got punctured on the highway and we had to pullover the car to fix the flat tyre. The trunk was emptied, the doughnut was taken out, and tool box figured out to change the wheel. A local Indian automechanic stopped on the highway to help us fix the tyre quickly. The doughnut tyre limited our speed to 50 mph.
We drove back to Shiprock to get the flat tyre patched up because Gallup was way south. At Shiprock, we could not find a tyre that matched our specification but what we did find was a shorter route to Santa Fe which went through Farmington. Farmington had a Walmart. Walmart had only one mechanic working on changing the tyres and the expected time was four hours. We started looking for the alternatives. Big-O was closed because it was past 5:00pm. We were happy to find an enthusiastic mechanic at the Sears who was willing to fix the tyre for us. We bought the tyre at Walmart and got it fixed at the Sears. Once the car was in good shape, it was time to treat ourselves with a dinner.
We enjoyed a nice dinner at Chilis and Muni tried to call up all the hotels at Santa Fe for overnight stay. He found hotel rates as high at $489 per night because of Indian Market Festival in the weekend. Luckily, we found Thunderbird on Cerrilos for $79 per night. We drove on 64E-550S-25N to Santa Fe. We reached Santa Fe at 10:00 pm. The villa room of ThunderBird at Santa Fe was huge and had two rooms. One of the rooms had a TV and phone. Everyone fought for this room. Muni's resounding snores forced him to take the other room which he enjoyed all to himself while me and Amitabha shared the TV room.
Santa Fe Downtown
We left the ThunderBird villa next morning for Santa Fe downtown. The parking lots were
expensive in the downtown. We found a parking lot with hourly rate that suited us. We
had a Mexican breakfast. Once our stomachs were filled, we started our tour of the Indian
Market Festival. We saw native Indian dress competition, really really expensive Indian
art works and a beautiful downtown cathedral. After hours of strolling and feasting our
eyes with Indian art shops, we decided to drive to the State Capitol of New Mexico which
was a few blocks away. On the way, Muni was fascinated by the red buildings in the
downtown and captured them in his digital camera. The Capitol is round like Indian
Parliament. We could not go inside because it was Sunday and the Capitol was closed.
By 2:00 pm, we started heading for our last destination Albuquerque.
Albuquerque Once we reached Albuquerque, we dumped our belongings in the Sleep Inn and enjoyed a siesta. After watching the pictures taken by Muneeh, we left the hotel at 5:00 pm and drove through the downtown to the Old Town on Central Avenue. Hyatt was the tallest structure in the downtown. We were hungry and started looking for a dinner place especially for sopapilla which Muni told us were famous. We found few eating places at Mountain Avenue. We could not find sopapillya at 'Melting Pot' which was a fondue restaraunt but the waitress over there directed us to Little Anita's with the best sopapilla's is the Old Town. The mystery of sopapilla was revealed when the waiter actually brought one to show us. It was pillow shaped bread made from dough. We were supposed to take a bite off a corner, fill it will honey, and enjoy it. Everyone like the sopapilla's which also came with our entrees. We decided to stroll in the Old Town. The streets were narrow and shops were old. We walked through the North and South Plazas. What interested us was a lady posing infront of a church and a man recording her dance as she lip synced with the music from an audio system. We shot a few more pictures and then returned to the Sleep Inn.
Our 1700 mile drive thus came to an end. We watched the 100m men's Olymics Final (Justin defeated Maurice Green). Muni and me took a morning flight back to Sacramento via Salt Lake City and Amitabha moved to Los Alamos to begin his summer Internship.