25 November 2006 After spending a longer time than expected, at thanksgiving shopping yesterday, we needed a break. Ganesh's bible (101 hikes in California) had a quick browse. We picked this hike in the Marin Headlands(an hr from home). Hwy 1 was closed for construction after Muir Beach. But we double checked that up to Muir beach, the roads were fine. This hike titled “The Head out” started right from Muir Beach. We parked the car in this huge parking lot. After checking the trail map there, Ganesh was so dejected as the trail t [View Full Entry]

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Nov 12, 2006 My surprise gift to Ganesh for our 3rd wedding anniversary. He thought it was Alcatraz all the while. He did not find out until we were nearing Scotts valley exit on Hwy 17. There was no reservations necessary. The first train ride was at 11:00 am. There were 2 other rides back to back at 12:30 pm and 2:30 pm. It was raining near home on Saturday. Fortunately for us, the sky cleared up sunday; in fact, it was sunny; still cold, though. A $6 parking fee gets you into the lot. We reached around 10:00 am. We [View Full Entry]

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Rim to Rim backpacking and hiking 13th Oct - 18th Oct 2006 This is one trip I doubted if I could do. I really don't know if I was eager to do it or wanted to get it over with. Backpacking Grand Canyon would be a feather in my cap. Hiking was never a problem, but no previous backpacking experience made me think twice. If Ganesh had not pushed/brainwashed me, I doubt if I would have even thought of it. Rajesh had got permit for 7 people some 6 months ago. People started dropping out and Ganesh had the chance to [View Full Entry]

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When: 7th & 8th October 2006 Would this trip even happen? I was thinking about this sometime back. I had made reservations for the previous week. But there weren’t as much fall colors then. So, with lots of difficulty, I made reservations for this weekend. Every day I would check this site This was the peak time for the fall colors. Any later, we would have missed. Ram and his father joined us for this trip. Four of us with 4 different cameras… Coming to think of it now, its way too much [url=http://maps.google.com [View Full Entry]

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What: The Fault When: 24th September 2006 Description: A 3.5 mile hike starting off from a parking lot near Pacifica up to Fort Funston, San Francisco. The famous San Andreas fault gets inland here. Impossible, rather, not advisable to do it during high tides, due to high waves and rip currents. Ocean on one side and tall 50- 100 ft cliffs on the other side. fyi, Fort Funston is a part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Plans for t [View Full Entry]

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01 - 04 September 2006(Labor Day weekend) About Lassen National Park Itinerary: 09/01/2006 LEAVE HOME 07:30 PM. NIGHT HALT: CORNING REST AREA 09/02/2006 LEAVE 07:00 AM. BROKE OFF MOUNTAIN HIKE, CHECK IN CAMPSITE 09/03/2006 BUMPASS HELL HIKE, KINGS CREEK HIKE 09/04/2006 CHAOS CRAGS HIKE TO FROG LAKE, CHECK OUT, SUNDIAL BRIDGE, BACK HOME Another weekend out of home :-) Lassen was out and out Ganesh's choice. Next to marrying me, that was the best decision he has made. :-) This time, we really wanted to have the cam [View Full Entry]

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Aug 19 - 20 2006 This is a trip well worth waiting for. Wanting to parasail was one of the prime reasons to even make this trip. We had to wait 1 month to get camping reservations into Emerald Bay State Park. As I said earlier, well worth it! One of the best places to camp. We could peek into Lake Tahoe from our site :-) We could not leave until 7.30 am on Sat, Aug 19th. With a late breakfast in Folsom, our first stop was Angora Lakes. The road opens up only in summer. As a result, there was [View Full Entry]

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My friend, Deepa, had come over from NC and we had planned "ladies day out". My husband was more than happy to let go of our car(and me, of course) for 2 days. I am meeting her after 2003, I guess. She shifted companies & a little while later, I got married and came to US. She joined me later in the US, but in the east coast. Thursday, July 27th, I drove over to show her the Pacific Ocean. She was actually stunned most of the times. Only then, I realized the importance of seeing places as a newbie. I [View Full Entry]

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30th June 2006 - 4th July 2006 The only planning I did for this trip was reserving a campsite. (We could not camp during memorial weekend as we had not reserved a site earlier—so, lesson well learnt). Everything else was vague. Very Vague! I hear people say all the time “ Just take the car, have a map and set out…That kind of trip is generally more eventful as you don’t know what to expect”. So, we were going to do that and see for ourselves. We had no events planned earlier at all. In fact, I did not know there [View Full Entry]

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18th June 2006 This is my first such hike- a hike with Swami Sukhabodhananda, the author of the best seller “Oh, Mind Relax please”. Well! He is a Hindu monk from India who has written a number of books for the benefit of people like me :-) This was a part of the completion of his first set of events in bay area. June 16th and 17th was spent very usefully with his Bhagavad-Gita talks in Sunnyvale. We were more than 10 in number. At that time, I did not know it would be such a long day there. I was [View Full Entry]

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