state park

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Revisiting memories from a Pink Floyd T-shirt

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The previous post in this series is here..

A long long time ago, there was a Pink Floyd T-Shirt that I used to have. It had a picture of a man diving into water. You can see his legs reflection only in the water as he has gone waist down into the water. The landscape in the background looks like some special effects from a Dune movie.

Post Google days, I find that this picture is of Mono lake in California!! Used to tell San that we should go visit it. Eventually we did go with her cousin’s family with the little kids to see Mono lake. But we did not get to stay for Sunset. It was also 95 F outside and the brine flies did not encourage us to spend more time there. It was still a great trip as we checked off “Mono lake”! ( just realized that when I moved all my old posts from blogger to squarespace, early Youtube video links never transferred over!!! Here was the original blogger post and a post with pics (sadly doesn’t show up in squarespace as the porting was probably not good!) . and here is the link to a past Youtube video.

After hiking Mt. Dana and staying practically in the same area, we decided to go see the sunset at Mono lake. It was a 10 minute drive to the Vista point and the entire group went there right after an early dinner.

This time the sunset did the T-shirt picture justice. We were treated to natures landscape show! The skies lit up in so many hues over the 45 minutes we were there! Two “bench photos” to start things off.

These landscapes made me photo crazy.. here is a landscape gallery! Yet again, I played spoil sport as soon as the sun went down. There were no restrooms in this area and I had to get back to the hotel room. So the entire group rushed back so yours truly could use the lodge restroom. No one complained.

These landscapes are really out worldly!

And a few panos..

A few more photos in portrait format..

A video highlights reel of our time watching the sunset at Mono lake.

It was time well spent. We were there for maybe an hour or hour and a half. We came back to the lodge and. got a good nights sleep. The next mornings plan was to go to Mammoth lakes and then come back home.

We decided to change that plan as well and visit something else.. that in the next and last post of this trip..

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Coral Pink Sand Dunes state park in Utah

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The previous post in this trip series is here..

We had just enough time after finishing lunch at Bryce lodge to make a 45 minute stop at Coral PInk Sand Dunes state park. We had planned this as part of the trip as it had rave reviews. It was an extra 1 hour detour and we were warned that return traffic when we cross the tunnel into Zion would be horrible later in the day. Still we had the 45 minutes and were glad we went.

The drive on local state routes from Bryce to Coral Pink dunes was beautiful with the trees showing fall colors. We got in, went straight to the observation deck, then down to the large dune to do a photo shoot and started driving back. The weather was cool and the sand was not hot. It was extremely windy and the fine sand did a facial for all of us. The standing bow I did with the wind in my face was one of the most difficult I have tried. My feet kept going into the stand even as I was still. It was more difficult than doing this on a beach with waves!

If you do start early enough from Zion to do Bryce, then definitely recommend this. Our return was slow because of the tunnel traffic. The sky put on quite a show on route 15. Still we made it to the airport with 10 minutes go give an earful to the Avis manager for giving us a smoke filled car. I pretty much slept through the return flight as my feet were shaking.

A video highlights reel of the dunes and the drives to dunes and back to Vegas..

Was very glad we went on the trip. Lot of nature, fun with friends, happy wife, bucket list item checked off.. felt happy and contented after this trip.

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Hiking Pinyon Peak in Carmel

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It has been a busy weekend. Spending all afternoon and evening at SIFA concerts, taking photos, soaking in the music.. then waking up early on a Sunday to drive to Carmel valley and hike Pinyon peak.

We drove early morning. It took us 90 mins to get there and we promptly started hiking.

This hike was harder than black mountain overall because of the steady climb in a shorter distance. We also ended up picking a day that is unusual for that area. No breeze and bright sunshine! Foggy conditions would have helped. My shirt was glued to my back for most of the climb.

We thoroughly enjoyed the hike with the banter and antics. Also got to try some yoga poses on a ledge. However the pants did not cooperate for some of the poses..

Everyone had packed some food to share for lunch and we had tea (made at the top) and after a few more photos, got back on the Fern trail. This trail is nice and shaded and wider. The sky trail we went up on was not wide and there was a lot of poison ivy everywhere. We also got lost once but realized it soon enough!

Here are the nature pics..

I also hit my head on a tree branch while running down the trail. Have a bruise but so far my cognitive skills are still good enough to blog. Hope the bump in the head subsides in a day!

Back home after being in traffic for almost two hours. Sitting and smiling while typing this, going over the hike in my head. We had a fun time!

Surprisingly I was not grumpy as was expected!

A video highlights reel..

Would definitely recommend this as a day hike, even if you have to do the drive from bay area. The views are amazing!

There is supposed to be an amazing waterfall in this hike in rainy season. Might have to revisit in April for that!

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.