Thursday, May 29, 2008

Seattle

I have been wanting to blog about my vacation since I came back. But with things the way they were I just could not get to it. Finally I managed to get a post done in class.

The trip was something I looked forward to a lot. PSP is getting married and it was our last chance to get away as bachelors. Add to that the lack of quality guy time and my general frustration at work you would know how much I wanted the break. Wednesday was when I was planning to leave and it was a hectic day with me trying to finish a lot of work. Somehow I managed to get to airport with the help of a friend on time. But my flight to Houston was delayed and I nearly missed my connection to Houston. For me the trip started at Houston because Bobba was on the same flight. And from then to when I caught my return flight time flew so quickly. It was amazing.

We reached in Seattle late wednesday night. All of us (me, bobba, psp and chakka) met at airport rented a car (PTCruiser) and reached our residence. I was driving for most of the trip. Fortunately nothing untoward happenned.

Thursday and Friday
We started out trip to Mt.Rainier. We reached around 3.30 at the camp ground. The camp guard looked surprised we wanted to camp at the camp ground for the night. He told some precautions 1) There might be bears, 2)You guys will be the only group up there for the night and 3) Be careful with the rain the river might swell. Pretty encouraging words. We walked for 5 miles backpacking our luggage. It was the firsttime I carried so much weight for such distances. I enjoyed the trip. We reached the campground and went ahead with setting up the tent and started cooking. Very soon we were realizing how cold its going to get. We ate the food and got inside the tent. We were happy to be there without any contact to the outside world. The feeling of being so disconnected with the outside world but connected with the nature wss awesome. The night wasn't as eventful as we hopped. There were no bears, no river swelling. But there was rain and God was it cold. But we manged to survive. We got up and decided we will return soon. so we packed and reached the base by 10.30. We were very tired and decided to go home and rest. The evening we went to an Ethipoina place and treated ourselves :P

Saturday
We decided to go to Mt Helen (the active volcano). The drive down there was awesome with some really great views. The eruption video portrayed the intensity of the blast. It was pretty scary to say the least. From there mountain we drove to Portland. Downtown Portland was pretty with lot of life and vigor. And as luck would have it it started pouring heavily in the evening. So, we decided not to spend the night in Portland. We drove back to Seattle. The driving with the rain was tough and there were 2-3 times where I couldn't see much. But fortunately we made it back safely.

Sunday
Sunday was a relaxed day with us watching IPL. (Somehow Delhi won!!) We went to the needle building from where we could take a peak at Seattle downtown. The view was good. From there we went on to drop chakka. After that we just walked around in the downtown and I tried some fish near the shores. It was just like everytime - not good!! After that I could meet one of my seniors from UT and the catching up was pretty good!!

Monday
It was already time to leave. I was pretty scared to return. We dropped Bobba at the airport early in the morning. We returned home to get an extra hour of sleep. Then I and psp started off to the airport and as luck would have it, we ran out of gas about 0.75 miles from our rental drop-off location. Somehow we got help with that and just managed to reach the airport in time. The trip back home was uneventful until I reached Austin.
Thankfully there was a pickup and good dinner ready by the time I reached Austin

Overall it was so nice to be with people who know you well. There was great food...great fun... very good actiivty and most important of all great company for 4 days. Thats all that matters to me!!

Already looking forward to next trip....

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