Diwali in USA

October is about to end in few days. October marks the starting of festive season both in US and in India. Beginning of October I was quite mesmerized here by the fall colors that came up on the trees before they shed all their leaves. The month also started with Durga Puja, followed by karva and then Diwali. This is my first Diwali in US and I was quite skeptical about how it will happen. New York City had its Diwali street fair on 1st of October - so early because in NYC fireworks are not allowed after 15th of October every year accept on new year's eve.

In whole of New Jersey and New York area various Indian Communities and Temples were celebrating Diwali by organising some sort of get together and Aartis, like ISKON of New Jersey had two day festival comprising of Aartis, Bhajan, Bhog etc. Same with Durga Mandir in South Brunswick and Sanatan Mandir in Parsippany.

We here at Parsippany/Morris Plains had a small get together at one of our friend's place. We called for a Potluck dinner which means everybody will bring some dish from there home and contribute. On staurday evening i.e. Diwali day we had small puja at home followed by lighting of Diyas and Dinner and an Adda session till late in the night.

puja darbar

Diyas

Diwali Celebrations continued on Sunday with a matinee show of DON at Edison and awesome desi dinner at an amazing Pakistani restaurant - Shalimar in Edison. Those days Shalimar had extra tables for sweets because of Diwali and Eid. It looked all similar to the situation we have at sweet shops in India. Before all this we lit Diyas on Diwali eve also i.e. a day before Diwali marked as Choti Diwali. Thanks to the Indian store in Parsippany, it was never an hassle in getting Diyas and different varieties of sweets. Missing on this auspicious day in US were family and Crackers :-)

Thanks to Rashee di for quick setup of puja darbar

Puja

Puja Darbar

Online availability of written Aartis made things easier

Teeka

Howcome a Diwali without good food

flowers and floating Diyas

Group photo :-)

Fall foliage

Today we thought of appreciating the beauty which gets wrapped over the trees during these months, well the month of October is also known as fall or autumn. Its the time when the leaves of trees in major part of US starts changing color. This major part essentially means the places where it snows, because fall colors have some relation with snow and frost. Okay, coming back to the colors. The colors change from green to yellow, orange, red, purple, brown and differnt shades or before mentioned colors. The color depends on time and type of tree.

In layman's terms during fall leaves start changing colors, starting with yellow then orange, purple, red and finally brown or faded. After this they fall.

The color change necesserily happends because of a cell layer which forms over the leaves about two weeks before the fall. This layer restricts the renewation of chlorophyll, hence other colors which were earlier overshadowed by green clor of chlorophyll start showing up. And finally due to lack of chlorophyll, the leaves die and fall.


I read in some travel book about top 32 must visit places in USA, one of them was New England during fall to see the foliage. New England area includes the north east states like New Hampshire, Rhode Island etc... I also read somewhere that there are two places in world for best fall foliage - New Hampshire in USA and some parts of Northern Japan. I am not sure about the later part but I can easily put a stamp on the first one.

I remember, we used to have nature wallpapers on our computers of beautiful roads with trees on the both sides bathed in colors of yellow, orange and red. Maple leaves flying on the road. And here we are, appreciating the beauty with our bare eyes in real. Nature is already so beautiful and this time its like it is on full bloom and want to again prove its beauty and the artistic sense of almighty.

Today, I started from my friends place in East Haven, CT for Topsmead State Forest. Well that was sort of disppointment, colors didnt came up good and most of the trees were pine tree which do not really shed leaves. So we head for Mt. Tom State Forest about 20 minutes from Topsmead. Ummmm, quite impresive, we took a trail to top of the hill. There is a small tower over there on top of the hill, you can see quite a distance of connecticut's forest area from the top of that tower. The view was mindblowing, worth 2 miles of trail to top. After that we head for Mohawk State Forest via beautiful routes of CT-4 and CT-7. Wow, its like whole of the forest is bathed in yellow color. Pretty impressive, breathtaking views with Mohawk Pond and a river flowing beside the route 4. Mohawk made my day today.

Its amazing to thought that falling of leaves because they are dying can be so beautiful. Amazing, another wonder of mother Nature

Good Old 80 - From NYC to SFO

California - Black and White

Sousalito - north of Golden Gate

Paul & Mason street car - San Francisco

Golden gate bridge - San Francisco

San Francisco, the city

Pacific coastal drive - 17 Mile drive, Monterey

17 Mile drive - Monterey

A scenic house - Monterey

Rocky and scenic Monterey coast

Pebble beach - Monterey

Santa Cruz

Municiple Wharf - Santa Cruz

Giant trees - Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park

Biker on a Yosemite road

Reflection of Half Dome - Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park

US - 50, on way to South Lake Tahoe

The best national park - Yosemite

Last weekend when we hit west coast, the two most important places on my mind were Yosemite and the Route 1 pacific coastal highway. I would admit Yosemite was the top priority although it was the worst time of the year to visit Yosemite, people say this.... I don't know.....I don't care.....I could not plan a long weekend in Yosemite because of time constraints, So I planned to reach Yosemite village at night and dedicate the full next day to the park. I along with my two buddies left for Lake Tahoe that pretty Saturday morning. Tahoe didn't had much to offer that day apart from scenic Gandola ride to top of the lake facing mountain. The lake is definitely pretty and one of the most beautiful lakes of the country. We had an early dinner in an amazing Chinese restaurant - water wheel, at the Nevada side of the South lake Tahoe city.

Our route was NV-207 S, NV-88 S to US-395 S to hit CA 120 E. CA-120 runs through Yosemite National park. We hit CA-120 from Nevada side and entered Yosemite from east. The CA-120 is also known as Tioga Pass Rd in Yosemite park area. This road is all year open road on Yosemite. When we reached US-395 it was pretty dark and by the time we entered Yosemite it was 11:30. Unfortunately we found nobody at the park gate, so we entered the park without paying. well paying was not a big deal because we can easily pay while going out but we were missing the park map which we were supposed to get at gate....we thought of getting the map from Yosemite village next morning and proceeded our drive. It was all dark. Yosemite is a park which allows night hiking also so its open 24 hrs. For us it was good 1 hr drive more before we reached the Housekeeping camps at Yosemite valley. I was driving and enjoying the forest in night. Thanks to the almost full moon that night, the forest was looking beautiful, we passed the Tenaya lake, which looked awesome in moonlight, we almost crossed the Yosemite park on CA-120 and turned towards east for the valley.

The guy at Housekeeping told me that they are open 24 hrs, well the park is 24 hrs so they should be... and yes he was infact waiting for us. I didnt knew the concept of housekeeping camps before I visited them at Yosemite. The are like three brick walls covers with tent at top and a curtain as fourth wall. The camp has a light buld and two cots and a rack, that's all with a fire grill outside and a bear box. Its like an installed Camp for you. Cool concept, you just need to carry blanket etc and other stuff, no need to worry for roof and walls.
Bear box, whats that, well these are the iron boxes installed just outside each camp to keep food. Yosemite has lots of California black bears which are actually brown in color. These bears smell food and come down to get them, if they sensed food in car, they are going to break the car and get the food. So they can come to your camps too to get the food and they might hurt. So its advised to clear the cars and store the food at secure locations i.e. bear boxes. We didn't planned and adventuresome night that day, so we were equipped with only Smirnoff Ice and tiring. We just had few and hit the bed.

Our whole of journey from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite valley was in dark and I had no idea about the park except from the fact that is jungle and its hilly. Nest morning when I got up and stepped outside my camp. I was stunned. Oh gosh, I never imagined, is it real....I was surrounded by nearly vertical high rocks from all around. With lots and lots of pine tree in the valley. The whole view was so so amazing. I just wanted to get ready and go out into the wilderness.

We had quick breakfast and hit road, the Yosemite valley is amazing place....small flat area surrounded by high rocky mountains and a narrow merced river flowing in the middle of the valley. There is a point where we can see the reflection of world famous half dome in totally still merced river. I remember the time when I was a kid, just got a new PC and we had beautiful wallpapers of amazing views from different parts of world, we used to just sigh looking at them. And today I was witnessing one of the most beautiful creation of god with my bare eyes in real - Yosemite falls, Half dome, El Capitan, merced river and there are many un-named sights. wherever I look, its an amazing sight.

Shortly after 2 we left valley for Giant Sequias and in between I saw a sign pointing towards Glacier Point, the first thought was that it will be a place to look at the valley in winter to see the glaciers, but I could not stop myself, I didn't wanted to miss any angle of Yosemite, I wanted to see whatever I can in short span of one day. It was a well 16 mile steep drive to the Glacier Point. And along the way little drizzling enhanced the beauty of Yosemite. Everyone can imagine how beautiful forest look after rains. The extra 16 mile atop the hill for Glacier Point came heavy but equally rewarding when we reached there. That was an unbelievable site. It was drizzling and in front of my eyes was the Yosemite valley surrounded by high rocky mountains peaks.

Our next stop was Mariposa Grove which is residence of Giant Sequias trees. We went for small hike into the groves. Passed giant trees fallen and still standing proudly. The giant sequias have shallow roots but spread out to large area, which help these huge tree stand proudly. There is one California tree tunnel, which is a huge tree carved out to create a tunnel in the tree trunk. Wow, the trees are so huge.....you can pass a car from the tree tunnel. Amazing.

By 7 we left Yosemite from south gate and followed route 41 south for San Fran. What an amazing day. I would love to visit this amazing beautiful place again sometime. I missed out hiking this time. Yosemite has some best of the hiking trails. Something for every season, for day and for night. Hats off to Yosemite!!!