Memorable Moments USA 1989-1991

Pic- Leslie with Anu in Greenwood. 

 Moving from Clemson in a U Haul which I drove. Mini-truck.

Meeting the diverse faculty in my department at Lander, and Leslie Price Bennett and her husband Bob. We really hit it off. 

Went to Yellowstone, and saw Mount Rushmore in 1990 in a trip with my parents. 

Visited Sheelu, a cousin, Jayashree, another cousin and their families in New York Staten Island, and Warren, Ohio. Prakash Kenjale in Detroit, and Kiran in L.A.

Made new friends- Athena and her family, and the Sonis, and some Gujarati families in Greenwood. Wilma Reeves from Home Science, Samrendra Singh and his wife Annie- we are still in touch.

Stopped in Europe, visited Greece for the first time and was captivated. Corfu, mentioned in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, was on the route our Ferry took from Brindisi to Patras.

While we were in Amsterdam, heard about Rajiv Gandhi's assassination from a local newspaper.

Joined Xavier Institute in Bhubaneswar, on return to India.

Vintage Pics-2 Rushmore South Dakota

More pics from a 1990 circumnavigation.

Circumnavigating the U.S.- Part 2

This was our road trip no. 2 of its kind in the U.S. This involved touching places such as New York and Ohio (where a cousin each resided), and then Chicago, Detroit, across to South Dakota and Wyoming. Of course, Mount Rushmore was the major attraction in South Dakota. And the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The joy of actually watching The OLD FAITHFUL, a geyser that shoots water and steam at regular intervals, and soaking in the wild scenic beauty of the place, was worth the very long drive, which we did with my parents who were visiting from India.

We rounded it off with a visit to Los Angeles and Las Vegas before heading back to South Carolina where we started. Great memories, and a reason why I never really visited the US after I got back- I felt I had seen it all.

 Yellowstone Park (above) and Red Canyon, Arizona, below.

Weirdest Places I Have Been to

There's a website advertised that lets you advertise places that you have travelled to, I believe. Like the websites that tell you what colour your necklace should be, which celebrity you will be reborn as, or things of that sort, if you get the drift. So I thought I would join the movement by listing the weirdest -ok, unusual, if you don't like the word weird- places I have visited.

Gatlinburg in the U.S. is one of them, for sure. The only time we thought of it was when the Fall colours were in full bloom, that is, trees were orange and yellow instead of green. Gatlinburg was a mountain full of these multi-hued trees. One time, we drove 4 hours to get there from Clemson, and drove right back coz there were no rooms available in the whole town.

The four-Presidential-faces-carved-in-stone fame Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Had it not been for the man who carved those, South Dakota might have had a visitor population of zero. I am not even sure there is a population of any kind there, visiting or non-visiting.

Pisa in Italy, with its famous tower. It's the only tower (or building) I know which does a Hamlet, as in, 'To Fall or Not to Fall' is its existential dilemma. Shakespeare would have loved it!

The Old Faithful geyser that shoots a spray of hot water every 45 minutes in the Yellowstone National Park, USA. The question is, who is it faithful to, and why?

Kolkata today would take the cake, not because of the place itself, but the special person ruling over the state, who is, shall we say, a bit unusual? Why, Mr. Tughlaq suddenly looks cool.