A nature trip in Arizona- part 1: Red Rock state park

Over the Memorial day long weekend, San myself and my SIL who visited from Melbourne, made a three day trip to Arizona. 

This trip had been planned months in advance to visit Antelope canyon. This was yet another "bucket list" trip. Our previous plans had all been cancelled or we could not get reservations to visit the canyon on usual long weekends. The tour is owned by an Indian reservation and they limit the number of people who can walk through it every day.

San tore her back muscle the previous week and was pretty much in bed rest when my SIL showed up. We were in two minds initially. Told her that it will be okay. It was a 3 hour flight and a 5+ hour drive from Phoenix to the hotel in Page, Arizona. If we took enough breaks and she sat with a waist belt and a pillow for the plane, car ride and rationed her painkillers.. it was doable. So the trip was on! 

Took the Friday off and flew into Phoenix. Got our rental car and started driving out of the airport at 10AM. Our plan was to stop by Red Rock state park for two hours and make it to Page by 6 PM for dinner.  Did not expect Friday morning traffic near Phoenix airport to be that intense. Everyone drives vehicles raised from the floor. Even cars seemed to be on some raised suspension! Folks follow some unwritten rule that larger the vehicle, less the obligation to follow driving rules. Felt like a rat running along the dinosaurs in a stampede of sorts.

Things got better once we were out of that area. We made a pit stop at Denny's. San and me both used to love Denny's. It was a go to place for us years ago. Could eat a pancake or waffle or engilish muffin anytime of the day! Their cheese sticks used to be amazing as well. Guess, Denny's is a shell of what it was before. The service and food quality was bad. Both me and my SIL had a queasy stomach after eating there. The worse thing was me telling my SIL about how good Denny's was and we ended up with that experience. Moral of the story : Don't live in the past. As a rule of thumb, food place quality goes only one way over time!

We made it to Red Rock state park a little after 1PM. They have a nice visitor center. It was a hot day and we decided to do the shortest trail to get a sample of the place. Walked a mile around a "cute" trail along the creem and took pictures from the vista point! 

The trail itself was nice and cool. We would have loved to walk around some more but San had to go through the paces slowly. The unanimous vote was to make a non stop dash to Page from there. 

We slowed down around Sedona and admired the cute shops and restaurants on the way. Had to make three stops. Readers please note that there are 40 mile stretches on the way from Sedona to Page where there are no restrooms! If you see one, stop. Don't think another one will come in 5 mins! You are welcome!

We made it to our hotel in Page by 7PM but our phones kept saying 8PM. I had panicked going "wait.. we drove an extra hour to get here?! How many stops did we do? I did drive reasonably fast". Apparently iPhones have a time issue in Page. They switch to Utah time. However Page follows Phoenix time which is same as CST.  Again, if you are a poor driver who is asked why it took an extra hour to get to Page, check the local clocks. You are welcome!

Decided to torture the two ladies by singing "Adi aathaadi" in a high pitch for a good hour in the hotel room and was eventually confined to the restroom. Think everyone in the hotel must have complained about some deranged lunatic screaming in the restroom. Eventually there was a knock on the door to tell me that "enough was enough" and "things are actually getting worse on every new try". They prefered driving with the sun in their faces for hours compared to being a forced audience for this singing etc... so called it a night. 

We were to spend the entire next day around Antelope canyon. We got plenty of rest to recover from the day of flying and driving. 

A few pictures from Day 1... 

just when we were asking ourselves "how do people live in this heat?" saw this.. 

apparently this is going to be a museum soon..

A gallery of photos of the park and other structures on our drive to Page.

A very different structure we saw right before we hit the town of Page.

A short video of the hike.. I provided humming bgm for the hike.. let us just say it was not a good idea.

If San was normal, and it was a cloudy day, we would have hiked the entire 5 mile trail to all the vista points. It was extremely hot and we were happy with the small hike.

This trip was being taken one step at a time.

The first step was to make it to Page without making San's back worse than where it was. That was done successfully!

Electric car facts

It has been almost 2 years of driving the Nissan Leaf!

So far it has lived up to its promise. A quiet ride in carpool lane for local commuting. 

Given my kids tell me that I drive like an old grandma, it is no surprise that the leaf has 5 miles/kwh. Leaf forums tell me that this is a pretty good record for a car that has since seen 15k + miles

One intersting thing is that the Leaf gives you an estimated miles left as you drive.. and that can sometimes be like the Windows File download or copy dialog box "time remaining" prediction!

You drive 3 miles and get back 5 more.. then you drive back 4 miles and lose 9! Net result is that the car was driven 7 miles and it shows 4 miles consumed. These numbers are also a function of recent trips and who knows what logic?!

One gets used to this after some time. Also if you remember which routes have roads that slope down vs. roads that slope up, you can optimize your mileage!

Only downside this year is that the Leaf is behind on the 10k mile per year we signed for in the lease. So far the dealership is getting a better deal. 

The charger is now fixed and the car is back on the road! These photographs were taken few weeks ago on a route that always makes me laugh when looking at the dashboard.

Here is to more fun!

It should be easier to go green...

We bought a Nissan Leaf in early Jan to cut down on our gas cost as the big Toyota Sienna was not the right car for me driving alone most of the time on local roads.

It was one of the best decisions we made and now the Leaf has more than 2500 miles on it already!

Also, Daddy Narayanan seems to be setting a record of sort with ~4.7 miles/ kwh, if the readout is to be believed. Even at flat rates of 13 cents/ kwh, that crudely works out to 70$ in electricity bill for almost three months of use. My Sienna gas bill (mostly filled at Costco at cheapest rates possible) was ~ 270$/month!

So far so good. But there was a bigger incentive. If you went on an E-9 plan which has peak rates and off peak rates, you got cheaper electricity if you charged from midnight to 7AM. The Leaf comes with a charging timer, but ... there is always one, it can charge within that timeframe only on 220V. If you charge at 110V, it takes 21 hours.

This did not deter us. I would usually drive only 50 miles on a day and the max range was 110 miles and that meant top of charging as the strategy till we got the 220 V Blink charger installed.

Little did we know that it would be an ordeal. The whole charger install rebate program is winding down and it borders on  a scam. You get assigned to electricians who are not residents or licensed in your city. The city will not let anyone install it unless they pay for a City business license and Cupertino seems to be one of the most expensive city's just to get a business license, which you end up subsidizing out of your rebate! They need to make this part easier.

After San and me ran from pillar to post to work the permit process, install and final city inspection, we finally have the Blink Charger installed in our garage! It took almost 8 weeks, but it is finally here.

Now we get to charge the leaf between midnight and latest by 4AM. The thing sends me an email saying it has finished charging, connects to our wifi automatically and sends data to Ecotality for them to do the math, see where else I charge.. so they can figure out where to put charging stations, etc. etc.

In one way I feel happy to be an early adopter to help change the way we drive and consume gas. In another way it is interesting to see how the machinery does not favor a green solution as a default. The other interesting thing is that I now drive differently. If I see a person in front of me stopped at a signal light, I don't go as fast as possible and stop behind that person. Instead, I coast to a halt. I also drive at speed limit in the slow lane where possible. There is no range anxiety and I get to my destination..

The usual round trips are

local grocery store 4 miles 

Indian grocery store 4 miles

Kumon class 2.5 miles

swimming class 4 miles

Bikram Yoga 9 miles

work 24 miles

Which pretty much is the sum total of places I hit 90% of the time baring the visit to a friends place or some other destination during weekend! For this the Leaf more than does its job.

Do observe that there are at least 20+ Leaves that hit the same routes. Even the drivers kind of nod to each other on Lawrence expressway in the morning which I find amusing.

There is also a lot of Leaf haters out there, most of whom are in the 20-25 age demographic. Yes, I hate the racial profiling but it is true in this case.

Every time someone has taken a freeway exit on to the local expressways or main roads and they encounter a Leaf (not mine necessarily), they expect the other driver to just give them way to the point where even if there are other lanes, they won't move over. There wa this one kid in a brand new black Lexus going at 70 mph after he exit the freeway and ended up on a 50mph zone, where I was driving at 50 on my way back from work.  He kept honking for me to move over to end up in an exit lane and when I refused he had road rage and kept honking and giving me the finger. He even came directly in front of my car and put on the brakes abruptly. Knowing the kid was not stable, I was driving cautiously and was able to coast to a stop as other cars on the road watched with amusement.  Maybe his parents should have gotten him a Leaf instead of the Lexus! That way he could really go far if he goes fast and they can keep track of his every move!

As for these kids with the fast cars and no road sense, only wish the DMV had better scrutiny before handing out drivers licenses or we have a system where we can report such drivers. When I came home that day after this kid did all the honking, was really worried because he definitely seemed to have an issue with me to the point where he pointed his fingers at me as though he was going to shoot me. So came home and was tossing with the idea of calling the cops to let them know what had happened. After being on the phone for 25 minutes with various people, got put on to someone at Highway patrol.

The conversation was very short at that point.

Operator : You reporting a rash driver?

Me : Yes.

Op : when and where ?

Me : xyz location, almost 30 mins ago

Op : vehicle kept driving in which direction ?

Me : South

Op : what car?

Me : Black Lexus.

Op : Black, White, Hispanic or Asian?

Me : (was shocked by that question actualy. was expecting her to ask me male or female driver first..) White.

Op : Male?

Me : yes. young kid.

Op : Ok. Hangs up on me. 

That was it!  I kept saying .. I have the last three digits of license plate.. but nope. she hung up! Guess that was enough info for her.  A young white kid driving a black lexus south on a freeway 27 minutes ago..

Like I said, we need a better reporting system.

Only one thing remains with respect to completing the Leaf Saga.. and that is to get the HOV lane stickers. That way I can keep going in a steady pace on the local expressways without dealing with these road rage folks. Can avoid the freeways altogether.

Someday, sooner or later.. more folks will adapt to a battery operated car. The planet cannot keep going the way it does. It is just a question of time and economics and technology improvement.

Battery cars will be the default the same way Cell Phones, Digital Cameras and E-mail have replaced ther predecesors.

It is fun driving this car. It is a good ride. When you see folks race to stop behind someone, it feels bad now. But, I was one of those people and if I can change my driving habits so can the rest.

Time will do the job!

Leaf review

A short video that pretty much explains the driving experience so far..

Very quiet drive in a small car. 

So far have gotten used to knowing all local distances so the whole "what if we just end up with a dead battery somehwere?" phobia is gone.. for everyone in the family.

We are also keeping to approximately 50 miles or less a day. 

The kids love the ride and San is slowly tempted to at least go Hybrid...

So, in short, the Leaf has done its job!

Whirlwind week

The last week went by very fast. It all started when San hydroplaned her car and survived a crash. She came out in one piece with minor bruises, and yes, she is fine and back to her normal self and to prove that point, she will yell at me for mentioning this to the world. That will bring her "percentage normalness" from 95.6% to around 98.9%. In a couple of days, we are confident that she will reach 100% !

Work went from hectic to unmentionably busy at the same time. Almost worked two days straight with a few power naps of 30 to 45 mins towards the end of the week. Then slept for 12 straight hours to compensate and the weekend almost disappeared.

The only saving grace was my college roomates visit today! He came from the east coast and spent most of the morning with us. It was a treat to watch him play with the kids. He told my wife and MIL old stories of me, but they always beat him to the punchline! He was so disappointed to see that my behaviour has stayed consistant over the years and that my wife and MIL could guess how the old grad school stories ended! For me, it was a joy to watch them make fun at my expense.

The best part? He could not believe that I don't go near the kitchen anymore. He told my kids "your daddy cooks really well, you know. He cooks great food for you everyday right?" and they had the deer in the headlights look. If Jr. was 16 she would have said "our daddy? cooks all the time? which parallel universe are you from, dude?"

fun, fun, fun, to make up for a nasty week.

On the plus side, we now have a new car, now that the old one is totalled. San has a new algorithm for driving the car:

Pray
Sit in car
check everything before opening garage
open garage
carefully ease car out
check dimensions all around car (this reminds me of how saastrigals ask you to put darbais in all four directions around the fire during a prayer!) San looks at all diagonal points to check for something.
drive out extremely carefully

Everyone at home was upset with my busy schedule at work the whole week. Jr. did come to me once and say "Daddy , look I did something very different!"

She had come up with a novel way to assemble the rings on the toy, just out of pure boredom.

So I promised to tell everyone how she did something differnt. So here it is..

She might check on me tomorrow.. This blog is slowly being taken over by the kids!

This week promises to be less busy, and that means a few posts that never made it out of my head into the draft, will actually get out!

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