The skies opened and we got a chance to do a last minute trip to enjoy the day. The plan was to drive all the way to Limekiln State Park (which is almost near San Simeon, 3 hours away), spend time at the falls, see the stacked stones and stop at McWay falls on the way back.
Have to always put a picture up front in the blog so it gets picked up for the preview in other media! Really wanted this to be the pic for this post and possibly a summary for the entire year! Our friend Priya took this shot.. watching the waves even if for a few minutes and just enjoying the moment is what life is about!
We didn't know that all trails in Limekiln were closed and the falls were inaccessible. It was a bummer.. so we just took a photo at the entrance and turned back.
There was also a landslide which we had to cross. We waited for a good 15 minutes for the area to clear and started back.
We thoroughly enjoyed the vista points on scenic Route 1 on the way back. You can see some of the pano's.
There is this private beach between McWay and Limekiln that also has a waterfall going into the ocean. We were told there are only 4 falls that go to the sea in the continental US and two of them were in CA and they were McWay and Alamere.. guess that is not true!
The view of the bridges and Route 1 itself as it bends around the mountain side is in itself a treat to watch!
We stopped at Mcway falls, ate a packed lunch and found that here too landslides had made the path restricted. we could only go so far on the trail. Luckily we could get a view of the falls.
We walked through this tunnel to see McWay falls and I got a rush of old memories.. of taking a picture of Jr. with her cousin as they walked through the same tunnel many many years ago!
The photo and smiling faces is the trip highlight..
We decided to stop by Paddington Cove on the way back. It was a really good trek down and we enjoyed the little waterfalls, the coves and the water going into the sea! The photo below is from the creek that goes to McWay falls.. we were a crisp red after being in the sun for an hour..
The walk to the cove is along the creek and there are many little falls that make it beautiful!
Then I tried to do Yoga on the edge..
and almost slipped trying a toe stand
and the group let out a shriek.. I promptly balanced myself and said "that is my last try" .. and the group was happy again..
It was six plus hours of driving between 7:30AM-4PM and some hiking but was worth it all!
These days the kids don't show up for hiking trips and that is that..
2021 has taught me to accept a lot of things.. Hope 2022 is a better year!
Here is to a healthy and happy new year to all of you!
It has been years since we went to Disney. Given we have been there almost every year, this has been a long break. There have been many Disney or Disney related posts in this blog...
We wanted to go somewhere, anywhere as a family. The only place the Kids agreed to go was Disney! The happiest place on Earth! We had hotel reservations but no confirmed tickets till the last minute. The way it works now is that you check availability on that day and if it opens up, book the tickets. It is total headcount based per San's information! The Disney main park is booked solid. We did get an opening for the California Adventure on Friday for a Sunday visit. We took it!
The road trip itself was fun. I got to drive and drive and clear my head after a long long time. Long drives are cathartic in their own way. The family has a playlist of songs I don't like and I am sure they wanted to play those so I will not try to sing along.
Disney has changed a lot post COVID. First the prices. We expect that from Disney and were not grumpy. Disney tickets are now variable pricing like United. So no surprises there!
Next the mask requirement and enforcement. There are signs everywhere, things being said on the speakers and by the folks who are working the lines, but... there are a lot of folks who simply are not following mask guidelines. So you go at your own risk! Again, expected to see this given the demographic in the US.
Then the demographic of the crowd. Normally we see a colorful crowd. This time the crowd we saw was less than 20% of colored folks. Most of the folks who were working in the restraurants, kiosks and the folks responsible for line management were black/Hispanic/Asian. The walking, riding crowd was not. We saw 4 desi families total from 8AM-4:30 PM in that park! That was interesting. Maybe all the desi folks are risk averse and don't want to risk COVID by coming to Disney? Maybe the ticket prices are ridiculous that not many follks think it is worth the trip? Don't know!
Then there was the fast pass..we could reserve a fixed time window for a ride and go at that time to save time instead of standing in line. There were restrictions but it still worked. You needed some planning skills. Now there is no fast pass. It has been replaced with the "lightning pass". You pay 20 bucks a person and you get to go through this line for the top three rides in the park. Then there is another 20 bucks a person pass for all other rides. Think "special Darshan" queue at Thirupathi..
Initially we thought maybe maybe we could go to guest services and switch the ticket from California Adventure to the main park, but it was not meant to be. So after spending 30 minutes after park opened to try switch tickets, we ended up walking into the California Adventure park. The minute we walked in though, the kids eyes lit up. The Avengers theme area was in this park!! We always wanted to see this since it opened. So we ran to the first big ride and realized the wait time was 90 minutes. We stood in line for 105 minutes to see a 3 minute ride. It was great, but we promptly bought the lighting pass and the other paid fast pass. Then we covered the next two top rides in the next hour. As soon as you use the pass, it lets you book the next ride on the App.
we just love this "Radiator springs" area which Jr. used to call "Gladiator springs".. the attention to detail to the Cars movie series is just amazing!
Between the big rides the kids would take us to the little rides in each area!
The extra money was well spent as we pretty much covered everything by 4:30 PM. The last ride we went to was the Guardians of the Galaxy (which used to be the drop tower now converted to a new themed ride).. except.. except.. instead of one drop, now there is 7 drops and you just keep going up and down for 3 minutes. Haven't screamed like this in a long time and my fingers were white from holding on to the arm grip the whole time. The funny thing is that the lightning pass for this had a wait of 30 minutes. Guess by 4PM everyone paid for a lightning pass! The regular line wait time was 2 hours!! Reminded me of United Airlines again "All group 1 ready to board!" and you see 400 out of the 420 people on the plane line up as group 1! It is just a question of time when they introduce the Thunderbolt pass which is 100 bucks a person and an escort will walk you to the ride and sit you there and put the seat buckle... you heard it here first!
Was telling the family "Thirupathila kooda mottai adichcha sandanam freeaa kudupaanga.. Disneyla sandanam sold separately!" (even in Thirupathi, when you go tonsure your head, they will give you sandalwood paste for free to apply on the head.. if it was up to Disney, they will charge for that separately). They are trying to make up for the park closure during COVID by charging for everything.
The kids were extremely helpful in using the App, planning, making us run from place to place, ordering food on the App, etc. It is great when your kids are old enough and they tell you what to do! Told them that for the first time they moved from the liability to asset column and they both rolled their eyes!
We just decided that there was enough exposure to unmasked people for the day, or for our life and walked out at 4:30. The small parade was fun to watch on the way out!
You can no longer take pictures in front of special props. For every such place, there is a Disney Photographer and a line! They take the picture and you pay for it.. we just clicked pictures as we walked along.. with our phones. For once I didn't even edit these pictures from the phone to post in the blog!
We did not stay back for the fireworks. We had seen it the previous night from the restaurant where we had dinner. The kids were like "we covered everything thanks to the paid pass! Let's go get some rest!"
On the whole it was a nice day, pleasant weather, great rides. The food at Disney sucks and it has gotten worse over the years and the unmasked crowd is a little scary.
They have redone a lot of rides and it was good to go on these.
We will still recommend Disney to anyone as it is guranteed fun for the day! The happiest place on earth is accessible only to folks who can shell out a lot of money at short notice and the more you fork out, the happier you are!
A video of the day.. Have captured the cars thing here.. the kids wanted to go on it again.. so we took the single rider option where we are all separated and went back to the line for 30 minutes and did it twice. This is one ride that makes the California adventure worth it! Truly amazing!
Disney is still king.. just need to improve on the food options, especially for vegetarians! No better place to enjoy the holiday spirit!
Had a nice dinner at a local Italian place to made up for the bad food in the afternoon, and called it a day!
Our drive back was interesting thanks to a great rest stop!
2021 definitely wrapped up nicely with this one day adventure!
The best part for me was to watch the girls talk to each other all day, jointly plan what to do next.. it was like watching them be kids again and that alone was worth all the driving!
It has been close to two years since we went on a long road trip as a family! Thanks to COVID and one kid being in college in the mid-west and the other one being in 11th grade and busier than most CEO's, any trip was challenging.
San gave the usual ultimatum and the kids relented and agreed to come out for a weekend. So we drove to Disney, spent a day there (if you can call it that) and drove back. The Disney experience post COVID will be a post in itself.. this is the prequel..
Before every such long road trip, I get to make sandwiches for the family with some potato box curry.. It has to be the box curry and not the boiled and peeled masala curry. The masala curry is easier to make and it doesn't make a difference as a filling, but the kids insist on it being box curry.. apparently they can taste the % differnence in the potato roasted surface area within the filling! Whatever..
and a video of the making... one handed videos are challenging to make. Seem to have lost the touch... used to do these easily years ago..
Did enjoy making it for old times sake and we all ate it on the drive to LA. This way there is only one rest room stop for 10 minutes and we keep going! We usually make it in under 6 hours, but got stuck in LA traffic this time and made it in a little over 7 hours.
Enjoyed the drive. There were no fights, no arguments, just eating sandwiches, snacks and keep going!
As long as I agreed not to open my mouth and sing, all was well. Did keep that promise, even though there was a lot of temptation to launch into song, listening to what was playing in the car.
My next project is to make my own almond caramel sea salt bars, so I don't have to buy the expensive Kind bars which still might have peanuts in them. That will be the weekend project..
We finally made it to Alamere falls. It has been on our wish list for a long time and we were planning to do this with the full group sometime in spring.. A last minute pre birthday request from wife to give this a shot, made me say yes!
This was the longest hike for me in post Covid times. I am told that I have now graduated to try Black mountain and Falls rest. We will see about that.. have managed to pull the muscle on the left leg and have been limping around since yesterday. Hopefully the hot room will heal this quickly!
Started at 6AM sharp from Cupertino and drove almost 2 hours to the Palomarin trailhead which is past the Point Reyes bird observatory. Got to see the sunrise just as we were crossing SFO into Marin on the golden gate bridge!
Drove past a lot of scenery and started hiking exactly at 8AM...
We hiked 12+ miles over 5+ hours with a 20 min eating break at the falls. There is a shortcut where you can climb down and climb back up to the falls, but it is not recommended by the park service. Lots of accidents in that section as the shale rocks break into little pieces on the cliff sides.
We decided to go through the coastal scenic route, bypass only the last 0.1 miles to avoid the Wildcat campground and walk along the beach the last mile to the falls. As fate would have it the tide was closing in on us even as we made it to the falls.
We hike past two lakes, Bass lake and Pelican lake. They were both really beautiful!
We crossed the creek like three times and the rushing water was good to hear.. last few hikes, we didn't see any water in the creeks!
You can see Point Reyes from the high point on the Coastal trail (if you take the shortcut you will miss this!)
The fog, the water spray from the falls, the overlapping cliff faces.. the approach to the falls on the beach side is simply breathtaking..
But, there is a catch.. We had to time it and run through stretches to avoid the waves as they came all the way to the cliff faces!
Have to try long exposure shots when we are a waterfall !!!
Could not get all three upper falls in one shot with long exposure.. too many people. With photoshop averaging, can try it.. but don't have the time. There is a definite chance we will revisit this while we are still able to climb up.. will give it a shot then!
Given we had wet feet and pants, there was no way to walk back along the beach and we decided to climb up to make it back to the trail. This made the 14 mile hike into a 12 mile hike which was also welcome! It was challenging to climb back up but we were glad. Got to see the three upper falls (which you can only if you do this climbing up business). You can see it in the video below..
Some more photos..
this was my attempt at an artistic shillouette..
Once back in the parking lot, we got to eat a packed lunch, have some hot tea and drove back for 2 1/2 hours as we got caught both in local traffic around Stinson beach and San Francisco city.
We expected to see more people given it was a long weekend. There was not much of a crowd. We practially had the beach to ourselves on the way to the falls and were met by 10 people, all of them had taken the shortcut climb down!
Strongly recommend this place! However, try to read tide timings and go along the beach to the falls and climb up to see the upper falls. It is worth it. That said, wear the right shoes and gloves if possible so you don't cut your hands while climbing up. Also it would be a good idea to switch to sandals for the walk along the beach!
Strongly recommend this for a day trip, on the right day with the right tide!
Started writing this post and somehow it took on too sad a tone. So decided to post about the mornings hike first!
The festival season is officially open. That starts with the Varalakshmi nombu, observed by the women. This year was a muted affair given the pandemic and also because Jr. was leaving for college early the next morning.
Cooking and packing don't mix. That sums up that. Still San did a great job and got us some goodies and did her pooja. Have said this before a zillion times.. she is always my madisar wearing hottie! She lights me up whenever she dresses up in her wedding saree.
The weekend had the thread changing ceremony for the guys in our family on Saturday followed by a 1008 time recitation of the Gayathri mantra today! These events have been described in this blog for a good 16 years now.. bottomline, I get to change my thread, meditate for a long time using a mantra for at least that day. On normal days I say it a 108 times in 6 minutes. Every 90 minute hot yoga class is a moving meditation and some classes I just move with the Gayathri mantra going on in my head in an infinite loop and that count would be close a 1008 as well on most days.
The reason for the sad tone of the post that got scratched? Flight reliability. I have not been on a plane since we landed from Costa Rica on New Years day 2020. As most of you know, my Asia trips came to a halt as did all travel. Since then San has flown once to Seattle and her flight was delayed 5 hours. Jr. came and went from the midwest twice last year and both times she was fortunate to not have more than 30 minute delays. The MIL has come and gone back to India without event.
This time our luck ran out. Jr. sat in a plane for 2 hours and they aborted the flight for some mechanical issue. So I went back to SFO to get her back home and there was a scramble to book her on the next flight where she could make a connection. A note to parents.. when considering your kids college, think about if it is a direct flight away or if there is a connection. Connections make it incredibly difficult, especially to smaller cities. We had to go back to SFO a third time to drop her off for the red eye. I know Uber drivers do this all day, but they have the practice and experience and their passengers are not anxious children who are worried about making it to campus before school starts Monday.
The idea that she should be here on Nombu day was tricky. We did not anticipate this flight issue. Why planes show up at gates, board all passengers and then find out they have issues is beyond me! This is one issue that seems to have no progress over the years!
She finally made it to campus today. Given the mornings experience, I did not sleep till the flight status changed to show the plane left the runway. It was on the runway for 30 minutes on a red eye! Lets say I didn't sleep last night.
Was wondering how my parents dealt with it when I left home. There was no texting, no facetime, no nothing. We left on a train and reached college 42 hours later. There was no feedback loop. Same thing when I came to grad school. Maybe all this technology is making me more anxious than I should be!
Over years of traveling I have had flights canceled, sat in plane and been de boarded, have slept in airport floors over night, but all of these experiences were not a big deal because it was me. Maybe my family had some anxiety but I doubt it. Maybe the lesson in this is for me to let Jr. go through these learning experiences and teach her all my travel tips.
In the middle of the first and second trips to SFO, I had manged to do the thread changing ceremony! After very little sleep last night and going on a sleep walking hike for 8 miles, came home and did the Gayathri japam this morning.
Given the mental and physical exhaustion, did the only thing I know that can give me that "you are dead and back, nothing can touch you now!" feeling. So went and did yoga to wrap up the day!
Here are some pictures in random order..
It has been a hectic weekend and I need a weekend from this weekend, or so it feels!
Now I have to just contend with Facetiming Jr. for the next few months!
Friday, December 31, 2021 at 1:08PM ;)
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