The Heard Museum is located close to downtown Phoenix. The two of us and Adi's mum (who we all call Dadda for no particular reason) paid a visit. Party since it was a weekend day when we had the evening all planned up: someone was visiting us at 6pm that day. Anyway, driven by my developing curiosity in Native American history and culture and another opportunity to spend time meaningfully, we drove to the museum.
Also memorable was the Hogan and the fascinating 160 foot mural that describes the interaction between the native American and the white man and depicts images of betrayal and deception as the Natives were removed and relocated.
In all, a great experience. Museums are fascinating places, but do not stay in your mind as long as visits to some places of natural wonder like the Grand Canyon. What they sometimes do to you though is inspire you to learn more. Perhaps the visit to the Heard Museum left less of an imprint than it provided an impetus to explore.
In India you take trains for granted and many of us fall in love with them without realizing it. When you get to the US, you pretty much end up flying and driving everywhere you go. So when we heard of this train ride through the Verde Canyon on the Verde Canyon Railroad we were naturally excited: it was almost a year since we had taken a train ride anywhere and this was through a Canyon!
Dadda (Adi's mum) was with us, and the three of us decided to head out there and signed up for the evening "Starlight Express". That was a mistake in hindsight since that one full moon night turned out to be a cloudy one. But then who can predict the weather anway. The train left at 4:30pm which in Arizona in July means a good 3 hours to sunset, so it was pretty well lit on the journey inside the canyon: the return was well, just a train ride in the dark.
While the experience was a great one, we returned feeling somewhat unexhilerated. Many a train ride in India passes through similar, sometimes more amazing scenery, so it wasn't a big thing for any of us. Nonetheless, it was an evening well spent and we got to see a Bald Eagle too! And saw another example of how the US promotes it's tourist attractions: even the average ones. If you're thinking of taking the Verde Canyon RR, I would recommend a visit to the Grand Canyon instead. And then you can follow it up with an AmTran ride somewhere or a local train in Chicago. For some $40, this train ride just may not be worth it till you're well past retirement and can't climb those canyons anyway.
Jerome is one of the several amazing places north of Phoenix but still under a 4 hour drive. It used to be a mining town and was called at some point the "Wickedest town in the West" and home to some 10,000 people looking for the new life.
We entered Jerome just as the stormclouds gathered overhead but for most part things were dry. We had heard a little something about the Gold King Mine, so decided to head there for our "Ghost town" experience. The owners of the area have done a magnificent job of recreating a late 19th century, early 20th appeal. You can see a ton of stuff for $4 including a dentist's office, a class room and some fantastic cars and motorycles dating back over 60 years, all covered in dust for the right effect (also saves cleaning chores). They also had a saw mill there, fully functional and an adorable donkey. The folks also had a nice sense of humor with a few rather funny boards and posters around the place.
Since Jerome was merely a stop over for our real visit to Verde Canyon, we had to leave around 3pm and could not visit the mining museum. We drove out on the winding dirt roads that make their way past what must've once been bustling with men and women talking gold and copper, hard work for supposedly easy money. The glory and agony of the saga of gold is one of the more important stories in the history of the white man's occupation of the West.
UC Berkeley was the last place for us to visit on our Californian trip. In addition to wanting to see a top 3 school, we also were keen to meet two of our friends who are getting their PhDs at UCB: Sujit Kirpekar and Nihar Shah. We took the BART out of Fremont and our train actually had to stop due to some technical problem and we waited 10 minutes for the next train. But the BART system is really smooth from what we saw in our two trips from Fremont to SF and to Berkeley.
Berkeley itself was fascinating: while the school is pretty much like any other campus, it is the surrounding areas, the coffee shops, the street vendors, the book stores...everything has a peaceful, take your time kind of appeal. Reminded Adi of some places in Goa! We've probably never known hippyness, but this felt close to it. We met with Sujit and Nihar for lunch, after which Sujit showed us around the campus and even his lab and some of his research. We also got to go to the Bell Tower and see the scenery from there: Purdue should've had that too...I doubt anyone can go up there. That there's probably not much to see from there is another matter.
Visit ended, we grabbed some coffee and made it back to Fremont by the BART where Wrena picked us up. Our last day in this wonderfully warm and chilled out place.
Napa Valley is the first wine country we have visited and perhaps the best in the US from what we hear. The entire area is lush and on the day of our visit we could not have asked for better weather. We had a merry group of Amol, Wrena, Ameya and Anant with the 2 of us. Amol was an awesome host and drove us all over California in his CR-V. We visited two wineries in Napa Valley: Domaine Chandon and Rutherford Hill. We took the conventional wine tour and followed it with a $9.99 sparkling wine tasting treat and pocketed the lovely flutes as well. Domaine Chandon was a wonderful place and everyone seems to take great pride in what they are doing. And the room with the huge tanks was mindboggling and looked like a bunch of ICBMs in some secret underground military base!
We spent the afternoon at Rutherford Hill and ate lunch there. We had seen "Sideways" only a few months earlier and we have both always preferred wine to most of the other reasonably priced options out there (beer chiefly) so this was a very nice visit! Only when we returned Amol surprised us with Bailey's Irish Creme which was simply outstanding and we also had some sparkling Asti (wine) which was nice for my sweet tooth. I don't think I ever had so much to drink in one day!
A fantastic trip to Napa Valley thanks to the Sapatnekars!
Day 2 in California and Amol took us alongwith Ameya and Anant to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. Half moon bay was a nice beach, but like most beaches in the US that we have seen or heard about, the temperatures make taking a dip seem like taking a walk in Indiana on a winter morning...Ah, the beaches of Goa!
But we were insistent: having come to California, we wanted to see a beach and walk in some sand...when we got to Half moon bay, we realized just how complex Californian climate is: a sunny day in Fremont and a cold, wet day at Half moon bay, an hour away!
After that we made the drive on Highway 1 for a bit and eventually got to Santa Cruz where the weather was a whole lot nicer: still a little chilly but sunny nonetheless. After our experience at Pier 39 at SF the previous night and this morning's cold romp on the beach, the weather seemed heavenly! As was everything around: dogs playing in the lawns by the side of the sea, seagulls flying and people driving expensive cars. We saw a couple of guys from Lamborghini driving one of their babies and we also spied an otter in the sea.
While we did a lot of traveling in Arizona and intended to do a lot more over what was left of the summer, we realized this was an excellent opportunity to drive to California, now that we were so close to the West coast. Eventually we decided against making the long drive that would cut into the 4 day long weekend, but decided to fly to SF anyway and spend the long weekend with the Sapatnekars: Amol, Wrena and Ameya who were also being visited by Amol's brother- Anant. From the time we landed at the airport we realized that SF was a place like no other in the US, though at times it did bring back memories of Bombay and Goa!
We reached the Sapatnekar home in Fremont on the 4th of July by noon and immediately headed out for SF bay. Our goal was to get to the piers in time for the fireworks and take in as much of SF as we could along the way. We took the BART to SF and walked up to the sunny but breezy city. Right there was a line for the famed tram ride and we duly Q'd up.
SF is the most alive city I have seen in the US yet: everything seems to be alive! The roads are at insane inclinations. When you drive in a car you can't even see the road often when you're descending a slope. And then there's the magnificent ocean and all its glorious garnish: seagulls, waves slapping on rocks, crabs, fishing boats...
We stopped for lunch at a place called Alioto's (?) and ate fish. Adi had a crab to herself, I decided to just eat the usual fish and clam chowder, which is extremely popular around here. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, saw a great Jazz band. One old lady even stopped me when she saw my Purdue sweatshirt and happily remarked that her husband taught at Purdue some 50 years ago...she was really old. And sweet.
After that we headed to the pier edge: we were among the first to get there and had a 2 hour wait till the 9pm start. It was freezing!!! And coming from the Arizona heat, we had not prepared for this...Amol was an angel and bought us some SF hats to keep our ears warm and that helped a lot.
The wait was worth it: the fireworks were splendid. Much better than the ones in Chicago I had witnessed at the Navy Pier last year (2004) and better than the best I had seen upto that point. Fantastic stuff and some really innovative designs like a smiley face and a couple of hearts streaked the sky. It lasted some 30 minutes too.
We headed back on the BART and got home by midnight. It was a great day, one of the best "touristy" days we have ever had together! And all thanks to Amol and Wrena for making it possible.
