#travelDiaries – Of Sun and Sand

#wontEatWillTravel – Death Valley National Park

Venue: Death valley national park
Duration: 1 or 2 days
Best time to visit: October to April
Visitor Center: Furnace Creek
Accommodation: Few hotels/motels inside. We stayed in Las Vegas, NV
Entrance fees: $30

Death Valley national park is the hottest, driest, and lowest national park in the US. It covers an area of 3.4 million acres! Despite that, you can cover the national park in a day (if you utilize the daylight well). It is barren, bold, and beautiful. It is hostile and diverse. We had only one day to spend here, so we kept away from all hikes. Please make sure you wear sunblock (for summers), have enough warm clothes (for winters), your car has enough juice to survive the day, and carry enough food for yourself. Death Valley is one of the not-so commercialized national parks. There are hardly any restaurants and gas stations inside. If you are traveling from Las Vegas, the last stop to fill in gas is Pahrump. We picked up food in Las Vegas. The route we took is as indicated in the map below.

Dante’s view: This point offers a premier outlook of the national park. It is at 5476 ft. above sea level. It gives splendid views of the Badwater basin that is 282 ft. below sea level.
20 Mule team canyon: We did not know what to expect here. It is a beautiful drive surrounded by white mudstone hills. This one-way road starts fairly wide and narrows towards the end of the canyon before joining the highway. Statutory warning: The road gets curvy later.
Zabriskie Point: This is a good sunrise point. It offers a stunning overlook of the badlands full of canyons in all directions. It is a must-visit point.
Furnace Creek Visitor Center: This is the main visitor center. It has campsites, drinking water, restrooms, and a gas station.
Artist’s palette: There are multiple attractions en route to the Badwater Basin. The hills at Artist’s palette are green, pink, and yellow due to the presence of mica, manganese and iron salts, etc. We were losing daylight, so we drove straight to the Badwater Basin.
Devil’s golf course: The valley floor surface is jagged and uneven, unlike the Badwater basin. This quick stop is necessary.
Natural bridge: This 2-mile round-trip takes you to a natural bridge (1 hour). We skipped it.
Badwater Basin: The valley floor is a salt pan and the lowest point in the US at 282 ft. below sea level. It was our sunset point for the day. The feeling was surreal. You can walk as much as you want in the basin and come back.
Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes: This was our stargazing spot.
6 PM: It felt like 9 PM. We got a good and clear view of the stars and the milky way. We spent an hour talking about the stars, the milky way, and ancient aliens.
7 PM: An animal ran across. We stood up. I turned on my flashlight and directed it to the animal. It was out of the reach of the light but stared right back at us. We decided to leave. We continued our conversation in the parking lot during dinner. Suddenly the car behind ours turned on the headlights and moved. We could see a set of the prying eyes around the vehicle. They left the spot.
On further research, we realized that we had been surrounded by a pack of kit foxes all this while! It was our first rendezvous with wildlife from up close. We left immediately.

I recommend you spend at least two days here and stay at a hotel inside the national park if possible. One can only imagine the sunrises and sunsets here. A few captured moments below.

PC: Ninad/Ankit/Me
Next: Zion National Park

#wontEatWillTravel Road trip Christmas 2020

Day 1/6

We wanted day one to be light. We left home at noon.

205 miles. 3 hours.

Punjabi Dhaba, Kingman, AZ: We stopped here for lunch. This one was a surprise. The restaurant hides behind a Love’s truck stop. You know it is an authentic Punjabi restaurant when you see Canadian truck drivers stopping for a take-out. The menu is limited but will more than satisfy your taste buds.

+85 miles. 1 and 1/2 hours.

Hoover Dam, AZ/NV: We reached this beauty a little before the sunset. All tours are closed owing to the pandemic. So, this was quick.

+38 miles. 45 minutes.

Las Vegas, NV: We went into full tourist mode and clicked a picture under the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.

We stayed at Caesar’s Palace hotel for the first two nights. Despite the pandemic, Las Vegas was pretty crowded. Only a few selected businesses remain closed. We were checked for temperature before check-in. The check-in procedure took almost an hour. The room was beautiful and had a pool view! Statutory warning: Parking is a pain.

We decided to walk the strip in the evening. We also took a ride in the Linq high roller. You can practice social distancing on the ride as every pod seats only 5-6 people. It promises fantastic views for sure.

We returned to the hotel at around midnight.
Next: Death valley national park.

PC: Ninad aka The Husband

#wontEatWillTravel Road trip – Christmas 2020

Almost 2000 miles. 6 days. 4 states. 4 national parks. The greatest road-trip of all times.

Ankit is visiting! My boys met each other for the first time.
Ankit and I hadn’t been to this part of the US yet. So, we decided to take a road trip to major destinations in and around Arizona. The destinations were a good mix of places we had visited earlier as well as new ones.
This post only outlines the trip. The upcoming posts shall go through all the days/national parks in detail.

Day 1:
Punjabi Dhaba, Kingman, Arizona (Must visit)
Hoover dam, Arizona/Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Night @ Las Vegas

Day 2:
Death Valley National Park, California
Night @ Las Vegas, Nevada

Day 3:
Zion National Park, Utah
Night @ Page, Arizona

Day 4:
Horseshoe bend, Arizona
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Night @ Page, Arizona

Day 5:
Lake Powell, Page, Arizona
Bearizona, Williams, Arizona
Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim, Arizona
Night @ Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Day 6:
Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim, Arizona
Home Sweet Home.

A few tips if you are going on a road trip during the winters:
1. Clothing: You may need to wear layers. It can get windy, cold, and snowy.
2. Hiking: The major hikes may be closed during the winters. In the event you decide to take the trails that are open during the winters, I would recommend hiking/snowshoes and gear.
3. Gas: Across Arizona and Utah there are stretches with absolutely no civilization. Make sure your gas tank is always full.
4. Food/Drinks: We had a cooler bag full of adult/non-adult beverages at all times. We carried a month-worth of snacks as well. Most restaurants shut down at 9 PM. Depending on where you go you would want to check ahead and schedule accordingly.
5. Stay: We stayed at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, Marriott at Page, and Yavapai Lodge at Grand Canyon. I’d recommend going for lodges inside the national parks if you can.
We changed plans on the go and ended up traveling a lot more than we should have. For example, Bryce Canyon and Zion were last minute additions. Had we planned better, we would have stayed at Kanab (a place between both the national parks) rather than driving down to Page for the night.
6. Please mind the road closures.
7. Spontaneous changes are good. Make sure you have enough fuel for it.
8. We tried to see sunrises, sunsets, and do star-gazing wherever we went. We are sunset-chasers. So, we made sure all the sunsets were picturesque.
9. Don’t approach the wildlife. If you suspect wildlife is around you, excuse yourself. (Story in the upcoming posts)
10. Make sure your team has more than one driver. The more the merrier.
11. Try to drive as little as possible between two consecutive destinations. That saves time and miles.
12. With the sun setting earlier during winters, try to maximize the daylight.
13. We preferred not to spend time at breakfast and lunches. So, they were always on the go. This helped us utilize the daylight better. We made a point to return to the hotel by 8-9 PM. So, our dinners were relaxed and we could call it a day early.
14. Don’t try to pack a lot in a few days. Keep it relaxing.
15. Please download offline maps. None of our phones had a network for long hours.
16. Make sure you have phone chargers in your car.
17. Mind the speed limits. We saw innumerable speed traps, especially in smaller cities.
18. The sun is brutal even during the winters. Make sure you have a pair of sunglasses.

Here’s how our road trip looked on Google Maps.

A few highlights from the trip –

#wontEatWillTravel Roy, WA

Date: 01/26/2019 to 01/27/2019

Venue: Roy, Wa

Fire is now married and moves out of Seattle soon. We are trying to make the most of our time with her and so a few weekends ago we airbnb’d a YURT! And it was lovely.

The yurt we rented was in Roy, WA, an hour away from Seattle downtown. It is 35-40 miles before Mt. Rainier. Saturday was a perfectly sunny day to start our trip.

Do more of what makes you happy. Especially when it’s sunny.

We started at around 11 AM and stopped at Punjab Sweets, Kent, for brunch. I highly recommend the kadhi chaawal. Once we hit the road again we shook up our plans a little. Paradise, Mt. Rainier, was started as a stop. It was an hour’s worth of detour. We hoped to make it till the sunset. The sunny weather promised a beautiful sunset – and i was dying for some colors.

As we approached the Mt. Rainier national park, Fire realized that she had forgotten her national park annual pass. However, that did not seem to matter because the entrances were unmanned owing to the government shut down. Also, the road was open only up to a certain point owing to the snow. Paradise was a bad idea. We took a U-turn.

Rainier looked splendid from wherever it could be spotted. Snowy, reflective, beautiful… plain beautiful. We caught only the glimpse of the sunset on our way to the yurt. There is nothing like a little dash of pink to the blue sky.

The yurt was a part of a larger property. The property had a main house, 2 yurts, a tent cabin… and I am sure we missed something. It was shortly after the sunset that we were escorted to the yurt by the owners. There it was… our yurt… in the backdrop of a pretty dense forest… decorated by Christmas lights. The interiors were absolutely classic, and handmade.

Catch: There was no legit heater in the room and only 2 beds. The beds would be fine since they had heated mattress pads. The windstorm had sabotaged the pipes and so the water from the sink in the kitchen had no outlet. The windstorm had also sabotaged the common restrooms. We had a compostable toilet though – which meant we could hear each other pee. The hosts were gracious enough to let us use the restroom and shower from the main house.

The hosts invited us to keep warm around the fireplace. We graciously accepted the offer. We stayed by the fire till dinner. Oh yes, girls can talk non-stop.

Dinner was Maggie. As the tradition goes, we slept off gossiping.

Sunday was a new day. Being the first one to wake up i decided to go on a walk by myself. It was a foggy foggy morning.

It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey.

We joined the hosts for an organic breakfast. It was going to be a lovely morning. I settled on the chair on the front porch of the yurt comprehending how not to give a f***. I occasionally looked around and felt grateful; how lucky I was to be strong, free, independent and happy. I turned back to look inside the yurt – Fire and Water were chilling on their beds – Fire laughing hysterically over Mrs. Funnybones. We left soon to come back home.

A few candids..

A few things to remember if you’re traveling to new formats of airbnbs –

If you look forward to booking a yurt/cabin/airbnb for the summer make sure you do it at least a couple months in advance. The good places go pretty fast.
Carry enough food and alcohol. We fell short.
Carry a hand sanitizer and extra toiler paper just in case.
Carry warm clothes so that you are prepared in case of adverse weather conditions. Socks.Slippers are very important.
Carry comforters just in case.
Carry board games if you like.
Carry bottles of water.

Safe Travels!

#lessonsOfLife #happyRealization 2018

I’ve had an opportunity of listing the things I’ve learnt these past few years. However, I have had a tough time jogging down the memory lane for the past year. I do remember a few things I realized this year though. Please find below a list of things I realized –

I can be a part of a show – Life has been happening ever since I have become a part of Live2DanceSeattle productions. This year we stepped it up a notch and had a show of our own – Desi Detour. It was a beautiful and sweaty journey that ended with a rad evening. It was definitely a proud moment.
Cleanliness maybe next to Godliness – Desi Detour was tough. Juggling work and the dance schedule was impossible. There used to be ‘wait list’ for dishes to go into the sink (because the sink was already full with soiled dishes). But nothing bothered me. Soiled dishes and messy apartment failed to steal my sleep. Me so much chill.
I love my bed – I think it is the only thing that cares about my comfort and sleep.
I love my couch – As do my friends. My couch recognizes my needs. It swallows me when I am exhausted. It’s big enough to accommodate all my friends (all 4 of them). Also, it does not complain when it is messy.
Money is tough – Earning, investing, saving, spending… everything about money is tough.
Travel is wisdom – In hindsight, I have learnt a lot from my #travelDiaries. The rich experiences have made me wiser, more organized, and given me excellent stories to tell!
Try to be a minimalist – One fine day I realized that I was a pretty small for all this baggage in life. So, I got up and donated 2 bags worth of clothes to Good Will and threw away 3 trash bags worth of unwanted items. I couldn’t believe I had so much to let go.
Let go and Move on – My ‘let go and move on‘ game is at it’s strongest right now. It’s amazing how people walking in and out of my life has ceased to matter to me. It’s sad really. But Oh well!
Mental health – I’ve realized the importance of mental health. As Indians we don’t really learn about mental health awareness at school. Mental problems are considered to be first world since real world problems are aplenty. Any discussion about mental health or even consulting a psychiatrist/psychologist is a taboo. However, I have realized that sometimes mental health is more important than physical health. Wrong attitude reflects poorly on you and shows at work and home. Definitely not a good place to be.
What’s your contingency plan? – Everything was hunky dory until we received an email from our CEO about impending layoffs. The world stood still. It forced me to think about my contingency plan – and there was none. My career was everything I have ever worked for and so this experience was a little scary. You start working with a company and you work for it till the end of time or till you decide to go for something better. It is always your choice. You never think about getting laid off. That thought had never crossed my mind until that one email. I obviously did not receive it well. The experience did teach me to make contingency plans and plan better. You know what else I realized? – Nothing is permanent.
Never take anything for granted – In this day, age, country, visa status take nothing, nothing for granted at all. It’s surreal how situations change every minute. That makes me wonder whether or not we should even have loyalty towards a city, state, organization or people. Life is beautiful and you’re living your dream. Shoot me if I take my life for granted.

Hope you remember your 2018 better than I do. And Happy New Year!