http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/travellersoul/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from travellersoul en-us Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:10:44 BST Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:10:44 BST Panorama above is the view of the outer walls of Fort Jefferson Dry Tortugas National ParkShreya and I visited South Florida for 4 days during July 4th weekend. Summer is not the right season to visit Southern Florida. It is the wet season with some occurrences of hurricanes. But the bright side is the benefits of the ldquooffseasonrdquo. That is relatively less rush cheaper hotels etc http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Florida/Keys/Dry-Tortugas-National-Park/blog-297692.html First of all accept my apologies for not updating this overdue blog for a long time. Some of it was due to laziness some of it was due to work and some of it was due to planning and preparation for Florida trip. Now I am back and so is some activity on this page.This entry is in continuation with . We stayed a night at Burney CA. Next morning we drove north to the Mount Shasta. We got some st http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Mount-Shasta/blog-286341.html Panoramic picture above is frozen Lake Helen in Lassen Volcanic National ParkAnother spontaneous trip Shasta and vicinity. Shreya and I planned a weekend trip to Northern California while returning home from office on Friday evening. We drove to Sacramento and stayed the night at my cousinrsquos place and started heading further north to Lassen Volcanic National Park.Lassen Volcanic National http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Lassen-Volcanic-National-Park/blog-286026.html Two exciting days at Utah deserts brought a craving for more of it inside us However we had an evening flight back to the Bay Area from Salt Lake City on Monday. We reached Salt Lake City on Monday morning around 215 am and stayed at Metropolitan Inn in the downtown. We checkedin and crashed to the beds. To our great surprise they had ldquotempurpedicrdquo mattresses It was so comfortabl http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Salt-Lake-City/blog-286021.html We made a day visit to San Francisco again this Sunday as we had a friend visiting from out of town. This was Shreya's 3rd visit and mine .... I lost the count since 2005.We tried to cover as much as we could Golden Gate Bridge and Vista Points Rodeo Beach Sausalito Crookedest Street Union Square Coit Tower Fishermen's Wharf Twin Peaks...Although San Francisco deserves a blog entry I do http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/blog-282766.html As the name suggests Arches National Park hosts over 2000 cataloged natural sandstone arches. This national park is situated on a salt bed. This is the main cause of the rock formations here. This salt bed was deposited over the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago. Over the years the salt bed was covered with residue from water and winds. This movement of salt shaped the earth due to ero http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Arches-National-Park/blog-282006.html Trip to Utah was planned two or more months back This was the Memorial Day weekend and we wanted to make a longer trip rather than usual weekend activities in California. We flew to Salt Lake City Utah on Friday night rented a Hummer 3 from the airport and drove south to Moab UT. Utah is very famous for its national parks and desert. There are 45 national parks featuring red canyons. Canyonla http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Canyonlands-National-Park/Island-in-the-Sky/blog-281958.html Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are located 4 hours South East of the Bay Area and 4 hours North East of Los Angeles area. They are two neighboring national parks. Amongst these two Sequoia National Park is more accessible and visited. Whereas 80 of Kings Canyon is not accessible by road and requires wilderness permits.These two national parks were on our tovisit list for quite a wh http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Sequoia-National-Park/blog-278843.html Viva Las VegasShreya and I visited Las Vegas and Grand Canyon to celebrate New Years Eve. I am writing this blog 5 months after that so canrsquot go into a lot of details. Writing what I remember.We flied to Las Vegas on Dec 29th morning. We had a reservation in Luxor. Luxor is an Egyptian themed resort. It has 23 towers the main tower is pyramid shaped We had a room on the 21st floor of thi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Las-Vegas/blog-276037.html We drove down to South Rim of Grand Canyon in Arizona on 30th Dec. It is a 4.5 hours drive from Las Vegas. We reached there by 2 pm. We drove around to different beautiful overlooks on the rim. Grand Canyon is really beautiful During winter there was a blend of white in the canyons. We could see a beautiful sunset from Mohave Point at the rim. It is accessible through Hermit Road which is open t http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon-National-Park/blog-276030.html We had two more days with us to visit places we hadnrsquot been to in Oahu. We were somewhat tired from previous two really hectic days. So we decided to take the day little bit lightly.We walked around the area in the morning and had a nice breakfast. We signed up for a guided halfday tour rdquoNatural Highlights of Oahu Adventurerdquo with Oahu Nature Tours. We thought it would be nice t http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Hawaii/Oahu/blog-275626.html We spent the fourth day at the Polynesian Cultural Center near the north shore of Oahu. They provided us transportation from our hotel.It is a living museum of the culture of Polynesian islands. This cultural center represents seven islands of the Polynesia Hawaii Tonga Tahiti Fiji Samoa Aotearoa and Marquesas. Polynesian cultural center is divided into above mentioned villages. All the vil http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Hawaii/Oahu/Laie/blog-275265.html We wanted to celebrate our first Valentinersquos Day after the wedding in stylehellip something differenthellip and the answer was Hawaii Volcano National Park It is the home to one of the most active volcanoes in the world Kilauea. This national park is located on the Hawaiirsquos Big Island.The Big Island also known as the Island of Hawairsquoi or the Big Isle is the biggest isl http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Hawaii/Big-Island/Hilo/blog-275236.html Hawaii is a part of the United States since 1959 making it the newest and the 50th state of the country. State of Hawaii consists of hundreds of volcanic islands spread over the area of 1500 miles. However there are only eight main islands. Honolulu is the capital of the State of Hawaii located on Oahu Island. We had considered visiting Oahu Lanai or Kauai islands. However we finalized Oahu http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Hawaii/Oahu/Waikiki/blog-275137.html Big Sur is a very famous tourist destination along the Pacific Coastal Highway1. Big Sur generally refers to the region surrounding the town of Big Sur. Itrsquos boundaries are not verywell defined however in general it is considered to be the area between the Carmel River and San Simeon town along the pacific coast. Big Sur is world famous its resorts and state parks along the coastline. Th http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Big-Sur/blog-273645.html Our whitewater rafting expedition was at the Merced river near Yosemite National Park on Saturday. Hence we decided to spend the Sunday around that area. We spent the night at Housekeeping Camp in the Yosemite Valley. This place is generally sold out during summer however fortunately we got a reservation just two days back due to somebodyrsquos cancelation. Housekeeping Camp does not provide http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Yosemite-National-Park/Yosemite-Valley/blog-272065.html Shreya and I were looking forward to a whitewater rafting trip for a few weeks now. For some reason or other it was getting postponed. Finally this weekend we had a rafting trip in Merced river near Yosemite National Park. We drove down to El Portal on Saturday morning as our rafting trip was scheduled for 2 pm.I have been to rafting before in Truckee river near Lake Tahoe. It was class IIIIII http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Yosemite-National-Park/blog-271736.html This Saturday we made a spontaneous plan of going for hike. It was supposed to be cold and windy but sunny weekend. Initially we were thinking of going for a hike in Muir Woods however considering the weather conditions we zeroed down to Mission Peak Preserve near Fremont.Even though this was a spontaneous plan Pranav Mohnish Ruchi and Saket also joined us. We started around 1 pm. Itrsquos http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Fremont/Mission-Peak/blog-271107.html Disneyland is a selfacclaimed happiest place on the earth No matter how old you are how many times you have been therehellip the kid inside you will enjoy the experience for sure This weekend we decided to check the grounds of these accusations. There are two different resorts Disneyland Park and Disneyrsquos California Adventure Park in Los Angeles. We decided to make a day trip to the http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Los-Angeles/Anaheim/blog-271059.html This season we had not been to skiing even once... We went to RenoTahoe in December but by the time we reached the slopes it was too late for skiing lessons So this weekend we decided to hit some slopes before winter is officially over. People generally go to northern areas for skiing and snow boarding. However being different people that we are we decided to go to Big Bear Lake in Southern http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Big-Bear/blog-264786.html