After a much of confusion and persusasion and struggle... finally the Plan was in place for the weekend on Friday evening around 6:30 PM..... Still a lot of things were to be done...
We booked an SUV for two days - and were supposed to get the vehicle on saturday at 7 AM.
At around 7:45 PM we were able to get free and left office - went to Walmart to Pickup some stuff for the Trip.... returned at around 10 PM.
Saturday morning myself and Manju were ready by 8:30 AM, Biju called to let me know that he is ready and waiting for us to pick him up.... ( Poor Guy didnt know that the actual Plan was to depart by 10:30 AM) ... We reached Canyon Creek - Parked the Car there and went walking to the Vehicle Renting office - it was damn far and Manju had bluffed its just across the street...
Finally reached the Vehicle Renting Office, there is a desi couple waiting before us and there is only one person on duty that day to add to my irritation - after a long wait then we were tols that the Vehicle is not yet available - it is is some other center and they r waiting for Hikers to get it to our location....
We were advised to wait for 1.5 Hrs - it was painful to kill time there without any work.... unless in India we can go to a chail tapri and strike a conversation with anyoune around and kill time...
Finally found an Office Depot just nearby - so we went there to kill some time - the wait period of 1.5 hrs was incresed to 2 Hrs... all others at home were pretty inqusitive of whats happening...
Finally after 2 Hrs - we got the vehicle... its a BUICK - ENCLAVE - the powerful big beast...
The wait was worth - the Vehicle was a pretty new....
Came back to Canyon creek - picked up Venky,Sandeep,Adarsh,Biju and mayuresh...
Stuffed all the luggae and ourselves into the vehicles and we were off to the Road Trip....
It was nice for some time and after a few miles we entered a smaller road which took us into the country side of US... that was a good experience..... Large and a number of windmills... beautiful mountaines dried up to a golden colour... lots of cattle grazing at the sides, junk yards as seen in Horror Movies and thrillers, Motels... of Cow boy style, the wodden Barrels at the sides of the road.... as we proceeded ahead after a hundreds of miles we went into a hilly region - single road (yes guys there are single roads in US also) both the sides covered by Pine Trees..... The altitude increasing to around 4000 ft from sea level..... and our stomachs asking for some break we started munching our snacks..... and the journey continues until we reached Calaveras Bigtrees State Park....
Wake Up!!!
Dunh - we banged into the wooden fence which was in the Parking - Manju got confused with the Reverse Gear - as it was different in this vehicle than his avalon.....
The Guards in the Park came running - "hey thats an accident we need to make a report".... :) Accident - A dead Wooden Log is bent over and he calls it an accident - Cant help - itys their Country - He Called out for the Ranger - The Ranger came there made a report and ther was a officer from the sheriff's Dept - with this ultra Zoon Cam - Takes some Pictures of the car and the wood.... Finally the report is done and they let us to go around the park.... ( Good we had asked for Full Coverage Insurance)........
