Goodbye again, it's time to go home

The hectic but exciting week in US is over now and it is time to go home. An early morning Alaskan Airlines flight on Feb 15, Sunday from Seattle took me to Los Angeles.

 

I waited there at the LAX airport for few hours to catch my Emirates flight to Dubai. I slept most of the time and the 16 hour flight seemed not that boring.

After two hours waiting at Dubai, I boarded another Emirates flight to Kochi and was home by early morning on Feb 17, Tuesday.

Microsoft, Boeing, Whidbey, and Deception Pass

The only full day I got here in US without work assignments was today and was meant for sight seeing in the Seattle area. I and Ranjeesh with his family set off in their car early in the morning. First was a courtesy visit to Microsoft corporate campus in Redmond. After all that is the company which is helping me to earn my bread and butter. :)

Next we headed to Everett, 20 miles away from Seattle, to see the Boeing Company's factory where Boeing 747s, 767s, 777s, and the new 787 Dreamliner are built. First, we saw the air museum named as 'The Future of Flight Aviation Center' where everything about Boeing aircrafts were presented.

Next was the famous tour inside the factory, which is is the largest building in the world by volume covering almost 100 acres! Cameras were not allowed inside, so I am sorry, I don't have any photos. It was a great experience to watch those bigger jets getting assembled in different stages.

   

A ride on the ferry service to Whidbey Island was the next activity and we spent some good time at the beaches of Cultus Bay. Next destination was the beautiful Deception Pass bridges.

 

By that time, it was getting dark, and we ended our day with a final trip around Seattle down town and some shopping.

One day at IdentityMine, Tacoma

My friend Ranjeesh's home was in Bellevue and his work place was just across the road. My last working day here in US was meant for meeting my colleagues in our head office at Tacoma, around 40 miles away from Bellevue. I drove Ranjeesh's Toyota RAV4 to office and it took me around one hour to reach there through the highways I-5 and I-405.

After work hours, I and Ranjeesh went to Seattle downtown. The city's famous landmark 'Space Needle' stood out from the rest of the buildings there. We roamed around that place for some time and returned home as it was freezing cold.

Visit to Universal City and to Seattle

Today was my last day in LA and I decided to visit the Universal City in the morning, before going to work. It was near my hotel and I spent almost an hour walking around the Universal Studio premises and the 'City Walk' area. I wanted to enter the theme park but that would require more than half a day to experience completely. So I returned after taking few snaps from the area.

    

After noon, there was some confusion on my travel plans as the management considered an option to send me to our San Francisco office instead of Seattle. Later on that plan was dumped and I headed to the LAX airport, returned my rental car and boarded the flight to Seattle.  My good old friend and college classmate Ranjeesh is living in Seattle working for Microsoft there, and I will be staying with him for the rest of the week. I landed at Seattle airport before 10 PM, and Ranjeesh came with his family to pick me up from the airport. Seattle was too cold (2 degree Celsius) and I was too tired. So no outing was in plan... just sleep tight.

Visit to Hollywood

It rained yesterday and was windy too. But today it was all sunny, though very cold. After work, in the evening I went to Hollywood Boulevard, the most famous place in LA. Our office and my hotel was in North Hollywood and I walked to the Metro underground rail station near my hotel to catch a train to Hollywood area. It was very near by and I reached there before it was too dark.

The Hollywood Blvd is the street where the famous theaters like Chinese Theater (which hosted Oscar awards earlier) and Kodak Theater (which is now the permanent venue for Oscars)
are located. It also had numerous shops and entertainment spots. I didn't have a camera and hence I bought a small one from here. A Canon PowerShot A470 for $108. It was not that interesting for me to roam around alone in that cold night and so I limited my tour to just walking around all the famous places including the walk of fame where golden star shapes are embedded on the roads with famous movie/music star's names.

I was back in my room before 10 PM and was so tired with a lot of walking.

Gestures and Surface at IdentityMine, LA

My first day at work in US was very much interesting. I had detailed demos and walkthroughs of an interesting project our LA team was working on. It enabled multi touch gestures on applications for multi-touch devices like Microsoft Surface and Windows 7.



I tried out some samples using it and tried them on the Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 HP touch systems we had at the office here. It was fun and exciting.

A short visit to US

This travel was very much unexpected and was with a short notice. This time, it is for an internal project discussion and I will be visiting IdentityMine offices in Los Angeles and Seattle. And I have got just one week here.

During my last visit to US, I was in Dallas, Texas and was never been to LA or Seattle. So of course, as a travel freak, I was excited with this trip and was also a little worried about the issues in my passport. I had a B1 visa from my previous employer which was valid for another 7 years. I knew that's not an issue as B1 visas are not tied to the employer unlike H1 or L1 visas. But the passport with that visa had expired and now I am having a new passport. My previous passport and hence the visa had my name written in wrong order of first name and last name. The Indian passport has fields like 'Sur Name' and 'Given Name' and in my passport the name was written continuously without caring this order. But in the new passport, I had it corrected so my first name 'Sameer' is at the 'Given Name' field and my middle name and last name 'Cholayil Thiruthikad' is at the Sur name field. The 'h' in my middle name was missing in my old passport and I got it corrected in my new one. All this was enough reasons for a confusion at the immigration counter.

The flight was 'Emirates' from Kochi and took off on 2009 Feb 8, Sunday early morning. After few hours it landed in Dubai and there was a change in aircraft. There was only enough time to change the gates to catch the onward flight to Los Angeles from Dubai. It was a new Boeing 777-200 LR with good facilities. I liked their updated innovative in-flight entertainment system named as ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment) that had lots of movies and TV shows that we could watch as we like it. But still the long 16 plus hours flight was so boring. To beat the jet lag later on, I tried sleeping in my day time and being awake all my night time.

I landed at Los Angeles on Sunday after noon. The officer at the immigration counter was just checking the validity of my visa in the old passport and not the passport expiry date or confusions in my name. The only question he asked was about how long I would be staying here. After that, it was business as usual. Scanning the whole left arm, then left index finger, then the  same for right, and then taking a photo. That's it, and I got the I-94 form piece stapled on my passport allowing me to stay here for 3 months.

It was very cold outside and I caught the shuttle bus to the 'Budget' car rental center. There are many good things you can enjoy on a visit to US after having been here on an H1 visa before. I had my US identity card and driving license still valid and that made it easy to rent a car. It was a compact Volkswagen car. I was bit nervous on driving here after more than an year but everything went fine. I had the printouts of maps and directions from airport to the hotel where I had a reservation. Without making any mistakes, I got onto the freeway and took the correct exit and reached the hotel Holiday Inn after half an hour drive. It was a nice room and I was very tired and went onto sleeping the whole remaining day and night comfortably.

Bronze Animals in Dallas

Now that we have decided to go back to India from US for good, it is time to focus on the sights in and around Dallas. Who knows if we will be able to come back to this place again or not. So spent a weekend day to shoot, well, the famous bronze animals in Dallas.

The first group known as 'Mustangs of Las Colinas' is located inside the Williams Square in Las Colinas area. There were nine larger-than-life bronze mustangs galloping across a granite stream.

Created by African wildlife artist Robert Glen, the Mustangs are the largest equestrian sculpture in the world. Water was pumped up from the stream at their feet giving a beautiful view of splashing water while mustangs gallop across it.

The next set was at the Pioneer Park in Down town. A herd of cattles (I could not count all of them; there were many) driven by few cow boys who are on horseback.

The longhorns were coming down the hill and was heading to an open space crossing a stream.

Tyler - America's Rose Capital

Tyler is a city 100 miles away from Dallas and is famous for its roses. It's been in my 'To Visit Before I Go' list since long time. More over I now have a friend, who is living and working there. I met this guy through our Malayali friends network here and was happy to know that his native place was not very far from my home town Manjeri. He is such a nice chap and his love for the Malappuram dialect of Malayalam is still so burning even after many years continuous life in US.

We started the trip at Morning and had a relaxed two hour plus drive enjoying the greenery of pine trees that dotted the sides of interstate highway I-20.

My friend was busy at his gas station and we spent few hours there waiting for his staff to turn up to replace him. While waiting there, I tried to understand the details of how these gas station plus 'you get everything here' shop is run.

The 5 security cameras inside the shop were covering all the areas and he was able to watch every nook and corner of the shop from his office room or even from his home through the connected portal using internet. It was possible to zoom in/out and pan the camera through mouse clicks enabling him to read even the numbers of an invoice!

We headed for a lunch buffet at a Chinese restaurant there and had a heavy meal. By then it was already evening and was getting late to see what Tyler is famous for.

The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden was supposed to have acres of roses of different colors and varieties. But it was the season of pruning, and we ended up enjoying the garden with few roses left here and there. Nevertheless, the garden was beautiful and there were bridal parties busy with photo sessions.

While returning, drove some miles off the highway to see the scenic country side and it was worth the time.

JFK and Sixth Floor

The top one thing Dallas is famous or infamous for is the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States.

The motorcade of President two minutes before the shooting.
Photo from http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

JFK was on a visit to Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963 and was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza, Dallas’s city park.

Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, according to the conclusions of multiple government investigations. But majority of the public either believed that he is not the killer or he was just part of a bigger conspiracy group. Oswald was murdered by another person before his trial and thus closing the door to more details behind his motive to kill the president.

The mug shot of Oswald from http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/

We spent this weekend day at Dallas City visiting those historic places. The road where JFK was assassinated was ‘X’ marked at the points where he was hit.



The sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository now houses the museum dedicated to JFK. We spent hours there going through all the exhibits and photos and other audiovisuals that explained in all detail on what happened that day here.



The sixth floor corner window was kept open as it was on the day of assassination, and the corner where the sniper fired his shot was recreated and kept intact. The museum also showcased all the investigations and ruled out the popular conspiracy theories.



Few blocks away from the spot stood the uniquely simple memorial for JFK. It was a concrete roofless room, symbolizing an empty tomb, 30 feet high and 50 by 50 feet wide with two narrow openings facing north and south.

Vegas and Canyons

Already I had wasted a long weekend (Thanks Giving) here without going out any where. But that time I had just landed in US and there was work related issues too. This time it is Memorial Day Weekend. Monday is a holiday and I get three days together. But since it was the most preferred long weekend for all in America for a vacation trip, even my three months advance plans didn’t help me in getting better deals for flight and hotel rooms. So I decided to add one more day by taking leave from work and did all the planning in detail for a grand vacation from 2007 May 26th, Saturday to 2007 May 29th, Tuesday (4 Days). It is interesting how easy it is to book flight, hotel room, and rental car well in advance through internet, but at the same time how difficult it is to search through numerous options and deals to decide on better ones.

Even though many of my friends and their families had committed earlier to join us for this vacation, they all changed their plans as expected J leaving me and my wife alone to enjoy the vacation in peace.

On Saturday, we started very early in the morning to catch Flight 101 of US Airways to Las Vegas from Dallas Fort Worth airport. We reached there by 07:30 AM after a two hour flight and headed straight to the McCarran Airport car rental center to pick up our compact Mazda car from Hertz. Our hotel (Riviera) was not very far (on Last Vegas Blvd, known as The Strip), but they didn’t allow us to check in early. So we headed for Red Rock Canyon which was just half an hour drive from Vegas.


Red Rock Canyon conservation area has large red sandstone peaks popular for hiking and rock climbing. We started from the Visitors Center picking up the brochures and maps and drinking plenty of water. It has a one-way loop road, 13 miles (21 km) long, providing vehicle access to many of the view points and hiking trails in the canyon. We stopped at the first view point named Calico and hit the hiking trails to get a closer look of those strange red rock formations. Climbing those rocks was not tough and was interesting except for the scorching sun. By the time we were back from the rocks, we were out of water supply and thirst was killing us. Nevertheless we continued enjoying the vistas and completed the scenic loop drive looking for water and not finding it anywhere, and stopping at all view points (but not hiking any more). We should have carried enough water!

The most significant geologic feature of Red Rock Canyon is the Keystone Thrust Fault. A thrust fault is a fracture in the earth's crust where one rock plate is thrust horizontally over another. About 65 million years ago, it is believed that two of the earth's crustal plates collided with such force that part of one plate was shoved up and over younger sandstones. This thrust contact is clearly defined by the sharp contrast between the grey limestones and the red sandstones.

Why are the rocks RED? Here is the explanation from Keystone Visitor Guide:
More than 600 million years ago, the land that would become Red Rock Canyon was the bottom of a deep ocean basin. Over time, changing land and sea levels resulted in the deposition of both ocean and continental sediments that became the gray limestone found at Red Rock Canyon today. About 180 million years ago, a giant sand dune field formed over what became the Western United States. Powerful winds shifted the sands back and forth, forming angled lines in the sand. Over time, the sheer weight of the layers of sand compressed into stone. This formation, locally known as Aztec Sandstone, is quite hard and forms the cliffs of Red Rock Canyon. Exposure to the elements caused some of the iron-bearing minerals to oxidize. This oxidizing process can be more easily thought of as a "rusting of the sand," which resulted in red, orange and tan colored rocks.

By the time we reached our hotel room back from Red Rock Canyon we knew well how exhausting the desert sun can make you after a day trip. So for the next day’s trip to Grand Canyon, we carried lots of water and snacks.

On Sunday morning, we started the road drive from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon and covered a distance of about 300 miles (482 kilometers) in more than 5 hours. The drive was really thrilling with straight roads (US-93 and I-40) cutting across vast deserts with changing landscapes and I was able to hit the 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour mark at times.

We stopped at Lake Mead and Hoover Dam at the border of Nevada and Arizona states. By the time we reached Grand Canyon, it was almost noon. It was over crowded with long weekend tourists and finding a parking place was really difficult.

Though I had seen many photos and videos of Grand Canyon, I never had an idea how it will be to feel and experience one of the world’s premier natural attractions and one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Grand Canyon is a very colorful, steep-sided gorge or chasm (a deep valley), carved by the Colorado River cutting a channel over about 6 million years through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau. It is 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (0.4 to 24 kilometers), and attains a depth of more than a mile (1.6 km). Nearly two billion years of the Earth's history has been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through layer after layer of sediment as the Colorado Plateaus have uplifted.

We landed on the south side (known as South Rim) of this deep cut on earth’s face and the views from there were breath taking. There were many activities possible other than sight seeing, like helicopter rides, water rafting in the river, hiking down to the bottom of canyon and camping there a night, etc which demanded more time and planning besides money. So we limited our experience to hiking through the rim taking time to enjoy the wonders of nature. Also we spent considerable time at the visitors centre learning the historical and geographical details of canyon.

Sun set and sun rise were special in Grand Canyon as it will cast a magical effect of lights and shadows on the canyon walls. So we waited until sun set and watched this magical play from Hopi Point.

The return trip was not that nice and we were totally exhausted when we reached back to our hotel room in Vegas at around 3 AM in the night.

So the next day, we spent most of the time sleeping as anyway it didn’t make much sense to explore Vegas in the day light as the city has all its activities rolling in the night. We started exploring the attractions in the city by evening, and soon realized that there were too many man made wonders along the Vegas streets, than we could cover in a whole night.

Vegas is internationally known as a vacation, shopping, entertainment, and gambling destination. It was unbelievable how glamorous and special a desert city can become with its huge hotels and casinos each having their own specialty, be it a gigantic volcano simulation, huge water falls and water canals with boating, dancing fountains, or numerous thrill rides.

We were stunned by a Pirates show setup in front of a huge casino where life size ships came running through the water canals (all man made) and displayed thrilling actions that included firing with canons and all.

The last day in Vegas was again needed for taking rest rather than adding more places to our ‘To See’ list. We went to airport early and were back in Dallas by 9 PM, ending our longest vacation in America.