A day in Monterey

In what seems to be ages ago, San and me did a day trip to Monterey earlier this year.. this was between the India trip and our anniversary trip! 

It was a trip to go hiking with our jigiri dost's from morning to evening. Given our kids were not home, we drove early in the morning to meet them and started hiking.

It was cold and foggy as we made our way along the trail to see the coast line. 

Amazing views, lot of birds, deer, (some insects buzzing about) and seals in a cove with their little ones! Lot of work wtih the macro option as well ..

slide show of landscape photos..

and the rest of the highlight photos

 

We then went back to their place to have lunch. Had chai and then went back for another hike down to the beach! 

It was almost a private beach that day. Enjoyed that walk long the beach and drove back to bay area. 

It was a ton of fun and there were 200 photos and many video clips from that day..

Here is a video highlight

It deserved a blog post! 

We really enjoyed that day and still remember it! it was San's way of prepping me for traveling alone with her again and still have fun. 

It was a long drive in bad traffic on the way back. We realized there was no way we will make it home by dinner time.. so we stopped on the way at an Indian restaurant (my first time there). The food was good! 

Still have 2000+ pictures from that anniversary trip to Europe. It will take 2 years to write blog posts on that.. if my memory doesn't fade..

Closing out a trip in style

The previous post in the series is here..

We slept early after the long gruelling hike. Woke up in the morning and after having Chai in our room we were all ready to go to the Vista point on our way back to Phoenix. 

All nine of us had matching T-shirts to wear. It was great to spend almost an hour taking photos at the vista point.

We were delayed by an extra 30 minutes with the "photoshoot" and raced towards Phoenix.

There was a 30 mintue stop for lunch in Flagstaff at a nice Indian place. It was really good food, great ambience, quick service! If we ever visit Flagstaff, will definitely go back to this place!

We made it 20 minutes before boarding time to the gate! 

It took me two days to be able to walk normally again and be able to sit down and stand up. Was mostly standing and walking all of Monday and Tuesday. Did yoga last two days and finally able to do squats again.

All said and done, it was a memorable trip. Will I go back to the south rim again. Definitely not. 

This was one of the most challenging hikes we have done to date. Enjoyed the trip and most of the hiking except for the last three miles!

Glad it is done!

Mumbai fun

The last post in this series is here..

We went from Cochin to Mumbai and had two full days in Mumbai before our return flight to the US.

Having visited so many temples every day in Tamilnadu and Kerala, why stop. While San was busy trying to get blouses stitched urgently, MIL and me went out to visit local temples. We visited 3 that morning.

Later went with San to another local temple and visited what is probably the worlds best one stop beauty store. (you can see it in the video).. 

We managed to eat out a few times..

watch three movies in two days.. the movie theater is the building next to in-laws apartment. We can just walk down and go see movies!

Here are two lapata ladies at lapata ladies..

Then we spent an evening at Ambani center. It was a stark contrast to the other shopping we did. The stores and complex was grand but there were no people in the stores! 

We walked around, took pictures and drove back in time to get some rest before flying out the next morning.

A video highlight..

The return flight was not direct. It was Mumbai to B'lore and then to SFO. The airport in Bengaluru was nice. We actually enjoyed the two hour wait.

Then there was a disaster of a return trip where the tail section of the flight had no power! 

No way to charge phone/laptop, call the air hostess, or watch anything. It was a horrible 16 hours in a plane with a local power cut. They werent even apologetic. We were to get some money back as token compensation for this horrible trip and it has been 6 months plus and we still don't have anything from Air India. There has been 20 + emails back and forth and a check leaf was wasted. That was about it. They have bought all these used planes from Delta airlines and are flying it BLR to SFO. Ratan Tata must be sad now that he can see what is going on from wherever he is!

The trip on the whole though was a happy one. Checked all the items that were in the plan. Did so much in 10 days! 

Now that I have finally finished posting about the India trip in Feb/March, can get back to otehr things that have happened since!