Oh Spring, I welcome you into my life

Bright Sun, blooming flowers, crisp air and chirping birds - all these have given me compelling reasons to bring spring into my blogging as well. Despite our busy lifestyles, sometimes you want to do things that your heart longs for - a long walk, quite time with family, get back in touch with lost friends, for example. Coming of Spring after harsh Winter, has reiterated to me about the ups-and-downs in life as well. Downtimes will eventually make way for brighter, warmer beginnings. I feel Spring within me. With a new found energy to do things that matter to me, I have given up some old habits and shed a part of personality from the past. My cup is now half-full and I feel a deep sense of gratitude towards good souls that stand by us at all times.

Yet again, I look forward to pen down my musings here. Cheers to the Spring all over!

While you are running

To the old man who runs every morning on Rain Creek Parkway and FireOak Drive,
What are you thinking while you are running?

• Is it about how wonderful your life has been so far?
• Is it about the hot breakfast, prepared by your loving wife of 40 years?
• Is it what your grandson told you yesterday about his new girl friend?
• Is it about the curious neighbour who wants to know how you plant a vegetable garden?
• Is it about me who waves happily at you and wonders what motivates you to stay fit?

Whatever it is that you are thinking, I admire your efforts to stay fit.

If only I know what you are thinking, I'll now be running on FireOak Drive with a big smile like you!

Trip to Smokies - Part 3 - To GPS or not to GPS!

Please read the first and second parts

We had a fun ride from Hartford to Gatlinburg until we reached the mountainous roads that lead to our dream cabin. We trusted the GPS to take us there. We adapted to a more cautious driving mindset becoming less oblivious to the beautiful mountains around. Suresh was driving with extreme caution as we heard Lakshmi say"Turn right in 0.2 miles" while the curvy road didn't seem to be heading right at all!

Remember those times when your inner voice says, "Don't trust this!" and you still believe in that and finally end up like a loser! It was one of those situations! Suresh's inner voice was literally shouting at us " Screw the GPS! Take a look at the google maps printout to reach your destination". We decided to show our loyalty to Lakshmi at this point only to regret it later!

So, when Lakshmi said "Take a right", we obeyed her and realized in a few seconds that there was indeed no right to take. We ever-so cautiously pulled back on the steepy road and hit the main road once again. This time I had the itinerary print out in my hands.

Now comes the question: To GPS or not to GPS?
We had a bad call from Lakshmi. So took a hard look at the google map route. It was completely different from Garmin's version! What should we do now?

It was 7:30 p.m., the mountains were lonely and darkness was spreading. We thought about food, bear attacks and getting lost in the mountains and realised that we were in a situation that is not desirable at all!

Since there were no signs of fellow humans any where in the vicinity, we decided to trust the virtual companion. So, we listened to Lakshmi again and started climbing a steep road ahead.

Moving further up into the mountains at dark was quite scary. It was woods and rocks on one side and some log cabins on the other. We went to the end of the road, this time trying to take a left.

Again, there was no left. So, Suresh started backing and before we realized, the car was in a deep ditch!

We panicked and the passenger side of the car was already against the rocks while the driver's side was above the ground. Suresh tried to steer forward quickly, when we heard the mud churn and a burning smell stated to surround us!

I tried to remain calm and said "Please dont try anything further" and Suresh quickly added "Yes, Lets get out of the car now". So both of us jumped out of the driving side of the door.

This is where we were supposed to take left ???!!###@@@$$$

That is the place we were trapped in the car :-( ( Look for the yellow arrow)

I ran down the road looking for help. No one to spot. We tried to call the Cabin Rental head office and the answering machine greet us!

We came across a newly wed couple still in their wedding gown and suit. Not bothering them, I stood in the middle of the road, while Suresh was inspecting the car. Thats when Toby and Wanda, our guardian angels, were returning from a trip to the grocery store.

Toby, his wife Wanda and their three kids were spending the weekend along with their friend Ben and Trucey. Ben and Trucey have a beautiful log home up the hills, not far from the cabin we had booked. While the kids along with Ben and Trucey were spending time at the cabin, Toby and Wanda were rushing to join them for dinner.

These guys were the best. We don't have words to express our gratitude for them. They went out of their way , took an entire evening from their short vacation and gave it to us!
On that night, we learnt about going out of our way to help others.

Toby looked at the car and assessed it to be a mess :-(. He sent word for Ben to join us. So Wanda drove their truck back with the message and after 5 mts, we were joined by Ben, Trucey and Toby's teen son.

We discussed a while about man-lifting the car. So Trucey helped me pull all our stuff from the car. We dumped them into their truck. Leaving the rental car there with Toby, the rest of us hopped in the truck. Ben took us to the cabin "Lakshmi" was supposed to take us.
Suresh quickly unlocked the door and threw all our stuff inside. It was very dark now and close to 9 p.m. I didn't even get down to look at our cabin. It seemed trivial now!

On the way back, Ben called out for help and a few other men decided to help us and came out from their vacation home to give a hand at lifting the car.

Within 5 mts, everyone realized that the task was not do-able. So we went back with Toby and Ben's family to their vacation home.

Our first ray of hope came by when we met Toby and Wanda. Luck favoured us once again when Toby called a local towing company and they agreed to come by in the next one hour. We all were pleasantly surprised.

We all sat by the fire and were exchanging stories for around 40-45 minutes. Our new friends showed great warmth and made us feel at ease.

Toby's cell phone went loud and it was the towing company waiting near the ditch! The guys left me with the other ladies and the kids.

We were exchanging stories about India, Holland, Australia, arranged marriage etc. while the men were trying to pull the car.

After 30 mts, Ben came back with a smile and shouted "Hey Vidhya, your car is out. You guys can drive home safely". Those were the best words of the night. It was 11 pm already.

Shortly after, Toby was driving our car and Suresh was sitting beside him like the most obedient kid.

We had dinner with our friends, at their place , and were ready to check "Secludled Cabin" at midnight :-)

Toby made jokes about bear attacks and more ditches before waving good-bye to us. The men discussed for a while about the techniques the towing guys used to pull the car. It cost us $150 on that night!

Suresh pulled 300% of his attention on driving the car and now we know where the cabin is , thanks to Ben for a trip early that evening.

We parked the car. Suresh inspected it in the street light and looked like it was ok. Seemed like a miracle. We decided to check it again in day light the next day!

We walked into the cabin. With no energy left to admire it, we talked for a while about how lucky we were despite of the accident and how nice the family was. Then we crashed into the bed.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you it was Suresh's birthday? Well past midnight, I gave Suresh a happy-birthday hug and we went into a deep sleep.

More about the log cabin, rest of the trip in the next post, and yes, the adventure is not YET OVER!

Trip to Smokies - Part 2 - We love water sports

To read Part 1 of this trip, please click here

We left Atlanta on Saturday morning around 9 am. We were fully charged up. Good breakfast, MTR "ready to eat" Bisibella bath, Pongal in the bag, bananas, Parle-G biscuits all set to go along with us. I gotta talk about the rental car here. It was a white colour,suzuki reno, small size and good for the mountain trip, we believed ;-)


Enter our companion: Lakshmi. Remember, the tamil movie "Padikadhavan"? Rajinikanth was a taxi driver in that movie and he used to "talk" to his taxi and call it "Lakshmi". We borrowed Lakshmi from our cousin Jana. It was a 4.4 inch Garmin GPS :-) So , hooked up Lakshmi to the windshield and gave her the address and said in Rajini style "Lakshmi, start". She started reading the route for us. Enroute, Lakshmi found a subway restaurant for us and we picked our lunch . We were just few minutes away from Hartford, TN.

Enter Hartford, TN: It was around 3:00 p.m, when we reached the pigeon river banks. I was surprised to see the flood of people there. There were numerous kayak and rafting boats and around 500 odd people bustling with energy. We ran into my husband's old friend Nikhil and his wife Durga. We exchanged pleasantries and checked-in for our 4:00 pm rafting trip.

After a delay of around 40 mts, we were ready to board the bus. This bus would take us to the upper Pigeon river and we would raft all the way down to the check-in center. The place was crazy and the raft guides were visibly exhausted with the flood of people showing up on that day. However everyone's enthusiasm kept them going.

We boarded the bus and were divided into group of 7-8 people. We were accompanied by a family of five. They were from Virginia and the kids Mikey and his younger sister were bubbling with enthusiasm. Our guide was Stewie and he was a medium built guy ; should be 24 yrs or so. He was making jokes with the youngest kid and trying to scare her. But she was a brave one. My husband and Dave took the front seats. Mikey and I took the next seats. The eldest daughter in Dave's family sat behind me with her mother on the other side. The brave kid sat on the last seat along with Stewie.

What an experience it was. We were screaming, splashing, panting sometimes and smiling all the time!

There were a couple of swirls where the raft would just seem to go under the water and we would all be splashed with the cold water. Stewie would then steer us from under and we'll be rolling on the surface of the water again!

After an hour and 20 minutes of screaming and adrenalin rush, we were on flat water again.
This is when the real adventure began for us! So, as if the rafting was not enough fun, a mischievous guide from another raft started pulling random guys into the water. it was fun to WATCH people scream as they get into the water until he grabbed me :-(

I was shouting " I donno to swim" and spat came the response "Oh yeah? Lemme see that" and there I was in the water panting and panicking. Everyone laughed at me for a while and then seeing that my scary face was not animated for a while, the panic struck them as well. Then the elder kid and Stewie pulled me into the raft. For a moment, everyone was waiting for my reaction. I went like " Where is the guy who pushed me in?" and he was getting uncomfortable with glares from people around and sighed relief when I retorted with a "Thank you man! It was fun". And my husband quipped " I wish someone took a picture of that!" . So everyone switched back to the original light mood and we ended our rafting

We were getting excited about about getting to Gatlinburg and the rafting increased our spirits as well as appetite.

It was around 6 p.m. and we jumped into the car and dreamt about "Apparent Seclusion" log cabin that was waiting for us in Gatlinburg, TN. The 25 mile drive was very scenic. The mountain ranges were mesmerising and the breeze was just good to refresh our tired bodies.

We were musing that it was enough shock for the day. Least did we know that a much bigger shock was was waiting for us at Gatlinburg!

T be continued..

Trip to Smokies - Part - Thumbs down to City Attractions

The blog is back to life after our recent trip to Great Smokies National Park, Tennessee.
I have been away from writing since I came back from India in February. But this summer vacation has been so refreshing and adventurous that I'm back to do what I really love - write!
So, it all started when my husband asked What do you want to do in your vacation? We wanted to do many things - outdoor activities, excellent food and be close to doing nothing. What we got in the end was a day full of activity, a day of sickness , a day of adventure (at its best so far ) , a day of rest and a day of excitement. Thats five full faces of this summer vacation.

The Trip - Austin -> Atlanta -> Hartford -> Gatlinburg -> Atlanta -> Austin
We reached Atlanta on July 2nd, close to mid-night and checked into our downtown hotel. It was in the 15th floor and right across Georgia dome. Crashed into the bed right away.

Day 1 - Atlanta & Decatur
We started to go around downtown Atlanta. First stop was the Centinnal Olympic park. We went in there because we wanted to get across the street to the Georgia acquarium. Not much to say about the park, otherwise.
Then it was the Georgia acquarium. A huge acquarium it was and we spent close to 5 hours there. We discovered that we are not that excited about visting acquariums anymore!
Right across the street was the world of Coca-Cola. We went on a guided tour and it made us admire the wonderful marketing and advertising coca-cola does! We liked the short video which had Coca-Cola TV ads from around the world.
It was close to 6 p.m. and we headed to Decatur, Georgia. It had the most famous place in Atlanta "Hotel Saravana Bhavan" :) That was one of the main reasons, we decided to stay in Atlanta for a couple of days in the 5 day trip. So much for Saravana Bhavan dosa and parotta kuruma!
After indulging in HSB, we were heading back to the hotel, when my husband's energy level was mercurial like Texas summer and thought aloud Why not watch a movie now? So, there we go, at the amc cinemas, just 5 of us in the hall, watching "Wall-E". We thoroughly enjoyed the movie and it was an activity filled Day 1.

Day 2 - CNN Tour and Chinese food with time for Lord Balaji
We headed to the CNN center and took a guided tour inside the studios. It was very informative and we took a couple of pictures and headed back to Decatur, this time for Indian-Chinese food!

Bamboo Gardens was a neat little place and food seemed to be good too. We headed to the Balaji temple in Riverdale and spent some time there. When it was close it 5 p.m., we decided to head back to the hotel and spend rest of the day in downtown Atlanta. I started to develop headache and had an irritating sensation in my stomach. On our way back, we realized that spicy Indo-Chinese food is no longer an option for my sensitive tummy. The evening was sucky with me barfing in the car and then in the hotel. We wanted to forget that day and was more than ready to head to the Smokies! It was nothing short of exciting and adventurous from here on!
Bottomline: We dont get excited about city attractions and spicy food is becoming alien to us!

Sanity Sanity go away

I'm on a 3 week visit to India and having a relaxed day today. To avoid the 'kaanum Pongal" crowd at Chennai, we decided to stay home. The day is perfect with excellent food and breezy which calls for a perfect afternoon TV watch. When my husband used the TV remote control to practise his adeptness with usage of fingers, surfing channels once in every 20 seconds, I will be there to tell him that it is annoying. But today, to my surprise, I could not survive any single channel for more than a minute. My patience and naive interest in watching a good tamil program was tested to its core. Where has all the sanity gone? I sincerely hope that there be atleast few quality tamil programs to watch rather than puzhinjify the sentiments of people through a series of woman dominated soaps...I'm heading to heaven in the form of a wonderful afternoon nap. Hail Sanity!!

Movie Review - Aaja Nachle

We watched this movie on Saturday. Well to start with, for Madhuri fans, its something to be excited about. We enjoyed the movie though it picked up momentum only towards the end.
"Aaja Nachle" is a movie that places emphasis on the crew's dancing and theatrical skills and less of plot or acting. The dance sequences and the choreography has been done very well and its great to see Madhuri mesmerize us on the big screen. Its a very good comeback for Madhuri and she has played the role for her age. Kunal Kapoor and Konkona Sen also have performed well. There was some over acting and flow of emotions from Madhuri's guru. The final musical play was awesome and the crew did a wonderful job there. In all, its a colourful , off-beat movie and can be watched once. If you watch it without any expectations, you may end up enjoying it. For the pros, dance, colors and the cast keeps you awake even though the dialoges and the plot will try to sedate.
If you like Madhuri, you will watch it otherwise you can wait and grab a DVD on a lazy day.