2009 in Pictures - July

After a gap of almost 2 months I am getting back to posting the rest of 2009 In Pictures now... This time around lets see how July was in 2009... It was full of loads of excitement, summers had arrived, festivals were on the charts, flowers were blooming, and traveling to new places was planned...

Let's go to July 2009 then!!!! Enjoy! (pssst...this post has a lot of photographs... be patient while scrolling down! I would not like it if you miss some pictures!)

July started with a flight to Atlanta! Aditya was there from India on a project and I felt this was just the right opportunity to fly down south and enjoy some mountains. I was really excited because this was the first time I was going to see mountains in the US... Did I say I love mountains? I do!!!

Smokies! here I come!

Reached Atlanta late in the evening and the Sun Gods were still waiting to welcome me at the airport!

Adi was driving a Pontiac G6! and I had another reason to celebrate because of this fact! I had been trying to rent out a G6 for a long time now, and it happened when I was least expecting :) lovely!

The GPS I was carrying was giving a lot of trouble, it used to get lost, or take us to places where we not really were going to! but we still managed to drive all the way to Smokies with some help from the road signs! Figured that if you keep your eyes, open you might not need a GPS afterall!

The first pit stop was creekside after we crossed the small town of Cherokee in the state of North Carolina! Amazing beautiful road, covered with greenest of green trees, with a small creek flowing next to the road! Perfect mood for an amazing drive!

And needless to say there were a whole lot of bikers enjoying the warm weather on their Harleys on that road!

Below is the east side view from Chingman's dome, the highest point in the Smokies... Its an artificially built cement view point to give visitors a 360 degree view of the Smokies. I can only imagine how crowded it would get if it was India, more because of the smalltime shopkeepers, of which all I missed was a Chai-Wala... Sigh!

The western view has the state boundary of NC and Tennessee, like you see in the picture below...

The access to Clingman's Dome below!

And finally the beautiful Smokies!!!! Pictures can capture only a part of how beautiful these were... but to be honest, nothing in this world is as beautiful as the Himalayas!!! Call be prejudiced! but that's how it is! simple!

It was the 4th of July when I was in Atlanta and all towns, big or small on our way had fireworks going on... We drove past two, but decided to stop at the third one and enjoy the show...

And did not do much the other two days I was in Atlanta... the most eventful thing being, that I saw Transformers2 on IMAX (huge is an understatement for that screen) and ICE Age 3 back to back!

Back in Milwaukee, it was time for Festivals and Fairs...

Bestille Days and Great Circus Parade were scheduled over the next few weeks... This is when staying in the heart of downtown, and next to the lake was making more sense than anything else :)

Bastille days is a 4 day french festival which is celebrated every year in Milwaukee downtown at the Cathedral Square lawns! Perfect time to enjoy some exotic wine and food... Me being a vegetarian and a non-wine drinker, made myself happy with elaborate helpings of Egyptian Rice, Greek salads and fresh lemonade while walking around and enjoying some brilliant music performances in the evenings!

The photographs below are a mix of Great Circus Parade and Bastille Days!

Beautiful father son combo :) Saw many dads wearing the same stuff as their boys! sweet!

Family planning is something that has not been introduced to some in the US I guess...

And I am sure this horse's mom had an affair with some Dalmatian!

Fairs and festivals are one place where I see some family values being displayed in the US... most of my time otherwise was spent noticing the teenagers and youth, which did not seem to be moving in any direction but everywhere! It was a very nice refreshing change to see families together at these festivals... but it was mostly kids and parents, or old people.. the young guns were not many in number around these... Considered boring I guess, by them!

There was an actual circus happening too! and it was really interesting to see how kids in the US react to Camels and Elephants :P

India still means something very different when it comes to Circus.. check out the face and India... I would love to look for someone who looks like this in India now :)

Another good thing about social gathering's in the US is that people of all age (minus the ones I mentioned) fully enjoy themselves!!! They drink, they dance, they laugh!!! it was fun to observe!!

My favorite couple in the US... Deepali and Gaurav...

My parking lot and collectibles I acquired over time...

Bindiya had handed over Ganeshji to me when I went to UK for the first time in 2007... they have been with me since! I am sure he is enjoying the mid-western weather in summers!

And the month ended with an absolutely brilliant and mind boggling sky show at Lake Front...

The adrenaline rush when a jet flies just about 100 ft above your head is indescribable... How kids cry after that is a different story altogether!

So that's how July of 2009 was... Did you read anything or just saw the pictures?

The drive that drives me sane !

It was a simple plan... lets leave when we can after we get up when we can and get ready in whatever time it takes... so we wake up at 9ish, get ready in 4 hours :D (there was a lot of catching up to do) and finally managed to leave around 1... the beauty of the entire plan being that we knew it was a day dedicated to driving and food and conversations and we did not really have a place to reach ! truly a journey being more important than the destination...

Atlanta airport on the evening I reached

the GPS has been giving me some trouble lately (I guess needs and update or something) though it brought us back home alright after the movies on Friday... It decided not to work for the first half hour or so, and then was kind enough to give us directions to the mountains just right!


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This part of the drive was not so hilly, but green... full of it...

We were headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and drove through 3 states, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee to reach the Clingmans Dome which is the highest peak in the Great Smokies at 6643 ft above sea level. To add an icing on the cake, there is an observatory which is build at the peak to get a 360 degree view from the top... very beautiful view, but makes it very artificial in my opinion.

This was by far one of the greenest drives I have been on... Tall trees both sides of the road all the way, mountains full of greens and shades of it... beautiful!

We took just one pitstop on this 4 hour drive, and I cannot express in words how it felt to drive on the mountains, especially when the roads were wide, and very smooth.

It would be a shame to drive around in the US and not see Harley all around... The owner of this one was kind enough to let me take a picture at the Gas Station...

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This part was all hills and curves...

The drive was especially very rejuvenating after we turned from Cherokee. Its a small town in North Carolina, and can be compared to a Katra before Vaishno Devi or Parmanu before Shimla or Bhowali before Nainital... has a lot of motels, restaurants, gift shops and a small river runs through it, which seemed to be a very popular picnic spot.. there were families enjoying the water, playing around in the stream, tubing, grilling and just being there !!! Nice...

Like I said... Harley and more of it...

Randomly stopped a few miles after Cherokee to enjoy the view... Dense forest, the sound of water flowing, lush green trees, couldn't be more beautiful

The Pontiac GT enjoying her break...

Mamu ki gaadi passing by while I was taking pictures...Mamus get the most powerful cars in the US... India learn !

Like I said before, green and more green... And these leaves would turn into paintings in fall!

A glimpse of where I was driving...

Another hour or so took us to the Clingmans Dome. There is something that happens to me when I drive uphill on curvy roads... I don't really know what, but there is something that happens.. I feel at ease, and am very comfortable... Good for another few months before I have to get out of my base again!

And some more bikes... men and women... on bikes... Jai ho Harley ki... there are more brands, but HD is by far the MOST Popular!

Count the concentric circle and know the age of the tree this block came from.. What is your answer?

Smoky mountains = thick forest all around... What fun it would be to camp and hike around in this area... There are many options and you can spend days walking around the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park....

At the top of Clingmans Dome, there is a cement structure which takes you to a high platform so that you can get a 360 degree view from the peak!

This is the eastern side view...Can only imagine how this would look at sunrise...

This is the North View...

And the western view, just on the border of North Caroline and Tennessee...

On our way down we wanted to take this trail, but did not because it looked too deserted and we were afraid that there would be bears waiting for us :P

A picture from behind the glass door of the rest room :)

After a .5 mile hike up to the peak from the parking lot, and back, we were understandably hungry and we had home made Gobhi Aalu, and Shahi Tofu with brown bread for our dinner ! Yumm!

Read more about the Smokies on this board... that half a mile of climb is good enough to remind you of the fact that you have not been working out :P

A few other not so high peaks...

The view from the parking lot after were returned...

We left the dome peak around 1930 hours and this time around the GPS decide to give up on us, the good part, however, was that we remembered the roads we had taken and were ok without driving the entire distance without directions from the GPS and we did! sweet !

Took two breaks, one in Cherokee where we went to a shop to see if there was some memoir that I could carry... I like this name Cherokee, probably because this Jeep brand has been something that I have been admiring for a very long time... I have said this to myself many times in the past, I am going to be in a Cherokee one day... did not realize that it was going to be, Cherokee the town, and not the jeep :)

The man on the left is ready for a small performance near the shop in Cherokee that sells Indian memorabilia... Indian has a different meaning here... not us Indians :) Moccasins if you were wondering are shoes made of leather which were originally worn by hunters. They are super soft and super quiet and helped the hunters walk long distances very quietly...

Our second stop was around 2130 hours, when we were passing through a town and realised that the Independence Day fireworks had started... just parked the car at the curb and enjoyed the fireworks for about 30 minutes before we took the road again... and reached Alpharetta around 2330 hours... 5 hours from Clingmans Dome to Alpharetta with two 30 minute breaks, a distance of about 180 miles, and atleast 60 miles in the hills... Not bad at all... oh, and not getting lost :) The Pontiac GT ran very very well on the entire trip as well, though I felt that the breaking was not as smooth as it should be downhill.

Fireworks in a small town on our way back!!! I can only imagine how the fireworks would have been in large cities around the US if they were so grand in a small town...

Total distance about 360 miles, total trip time about 11 hours, driving time close to about 8 hours, good car, good weather... what a day!

Today is another day and its already about 1030 hours, no plans nothing. And looks like its going to be another journey that matters!

Like I said, Sunday was a lazy day...The first half of the day was spent watching RF struggle against Andy Roddick... Poor Andy was playing to keep RF from winning the match and was not playing to win it.

The view from the flight window... This is Chicago! Did I mention that I upgraded my ticket to a Business Class... enjoyed the seat and the view both...

p.s. this post was written on Sunday, 5th of July.

And one highlight of the trip was this video... I think this is very funny... Have heard it many times now, and I am still laughing about it...