Grand Coulee Dam Trip

Update on 12/24 - finally updated the photos. They have come out really well!
Here's one of the sunset - http://tinyurl.com/ArnabPicsSunsetGC. And another one of the highway along the hauntingly beautiful landscape - http://tinyurl.com/ArnabHighwayGC.

View the full smugmug gallery: http://tinyurl.com/ArnabAlbumGC

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My Maa is here for a month. Reached here this week.

This weekend we (Maa, Ujwala and me) are off to Grand Coulee Dam - the biggest concrete dam in North America - generates about 6500 Mega Watts - the highest for any dam in the world.

The drive from Seattle is beautiful - it passes through the Seattle hills/lakes, the Snoqualmie area (water falls, snow-capped mountains and passes), beautiful farm-lands and then on to the arid eastern Washinton area. The route follows the Columbia river and there are some really amazing viewpoints over the gorges along the way. There is a sound and laser show on the dam every evening from 8:30 PM (May-September) - the lasers use the dam as the screen! It is supposedly the largest such sound and light show in the world! The Columbia rivers history is depicted - so all that this weekend.

and the trip weather looks good: weatherbonk link

Weather Bonk

So I want to drive from Seattle to NYC. No really I want to do that once. Coast to coast.
Well I'll leave that dream to come true in another blog. It's a different topic I wanna talk about right now.

So I wanna start at 6 PM from Seattle, let Google Maps (or some other maps) decide the way for me, AND, AND tell me hows the weather gonna be all the along the way.

Now look at this rad site: http://weatherbonk.com/weather/routeWeather.jsp?
Start from Seattle, at 6 PM today, and reach NYC in 3 days. And it tells me how the weather's gonna be along the way. Isn't that cool?

And there are loads of other options! Cool. Now check out their home page: http://weatherbonk.com
I know all this is there in weather.com too but, this is like, presenting all the relevant data in the relevant manner!

Burma Shave Slogans

Don't stick
Your elbow
Out so far
It might go home
In another car.

This is a Burma Shave Slogan. So it this:

Passing cars,
When you can't see,
May get you,
A glimpse,
Of eternity.

I was reading Head First HTML and CSS - I really like the presentation style of Head First books. It's fun and their way really works (with me at the least).

And I came across these interesting things called Burma Shave Signs. Very interesting...

Burma Shave was a company that made brushless shaving cream in the 1920s and 30s. They used to advertise their products with roadside signs and that turned out to be very popular. There would be a group of 4-6 signs one after the other on the roadside, each with just one line from a slogan. The last sign would almost always be the name of their product, Burma Shave.

At one point, they had 7,000 of these signs on the roads throughout the US. Now most are gone, but the book says there are still a few left. Maybe I can see one before I leave the US...

Now, I had seen these kinda signs in ads on TV, in skits in school etc. But never knew that they originated from this Burma Shave cream! :-)

It's funny right? And to read this stuff in a technical book is even more fun (the book even explains in a note what these signs are)

Anyway, do explore more. They have funny ones there:

Wikipedia on Burma Shave: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma-Shave
Another page that shows how it looks like: http://www.fiftiesweb.com/burma.htm

A memorable flight

This has got to be the most beautiful sights I have ever seen! No second thoughts whatsoever.

So I miss my friends in NY and not yet full used to my life in Seattle - so to get a taste of how life was, back in NY, I am traveling there this weekend. Right now I am about 30 min away from Seattle - wait, that's flight time - so it should be around 300 miles (since an Airbus A320 travels around 560-620 mph in good weather conditions and I cannot say there is even a small blemish in the clouds today!
So I must be flying over the Rockies right now - seems like it anyway - Maybe the gorges that I am seeing are parts of the Bryce Canion.

I wish I was a an artist - I wish I could draw this thing - but only if wishes were horses :-)
Maybe even the best artist cannot draw this beauty in a physical medium - you have to experience it.

This is my 5th cross-country flight - Coast-to-coast non-stop and I always liked the flights.

At the east coast nothing can beat the majestic show of pomp that NYC skyline is - if you land/take off at night. Oh I don't know if you'll get a more engrossing skyline anywhere else in the world - you just have to see the skyscrapers of midtown and downtown rise out (as you descend) of the vast see of light that is the tri-state metropolitan area (NY, NJ and PA).
If you fly to NY from inside the US, you'll get to see the orange glow of NYC about half an hour before you are anywhere near it. Then you'll see the sea of light and then in the last moments of your flight you'll see the Grand NYC skyline emerge from there! It's like a Hollywood movie - I have to tell you.

On the other hand, if you land/take-off from Seattle during the day - that's another sight. It's not called Emerald or Green City for nothing. Seattle is an isthmus surrounded by quite a few water bodies and mountain ranges.
It's between the Lake Washington and Pudget Sound (which connects to the Pacific ocean about 50 miles west of Seattle) and surrounded by modern satellite cities like Redmond (Microsoft), Kirkland (Google) and Tacoma/Renton (Boeing), Bellevue (residential area).

And the whole area is so beautiful - you have to see it once in the summer - if you are in the USA.

But tonight's experience is quite different from these sights - tonight is the first time I am flying out of Seattle at night. And I thought why do they brag that Seattle is the west coast;s 2nd largest city. Well I live and work in the heart of Seattle - and I always got the impression that it's s small city (maybe 10 miles by 10 miles). Now when we took off - I saw that the story is indeed like the tri-state area - vast sea of lights!!! No doubt I am a prouder Seattlite (is that what we are called?) now!
That's nowhere near the best part thought...

I always say and believe that man can never meet nature's beauty.

So right now - I am over the Rockies. It's 30 min pat midnight. And a few days after a full-moon (I think 2-3 days). For the record, it's 2 days after the lunar eclipse that I saw while playing tennis!
There is a bit of cloud in the sky - more like a mist coat strewn here and there.

And the mountains below me are full of snow.

You can guess what I am about to say - Soft moonlight falling on the deep gorges and peaks on the mountains below me - strikingly highlighting the ravines and the whole terrain. And the misty clouds diffusing the moonlight in a dreamy sort of way!

Oh man - I really have never seen anything like this - Is this what you call ghastly beautiful?

There is not a single sign of humanity as far as I can see - only white snowy mountains and deep gorges - shining off the moonlight. Brings a mixture of feelings - lonely, scared and hauntingly beautiful. yes even though it's so haunting - it's so beautiful!

If you are reading this blog - please do take a flight out of Seattle at night - on a clear night - with abundant moonlight around. Well yeah - you are right - you need luck to see things - and I guess some people have all the luck! heh heh heh...

As for me, my colleague was talking of a hiking trip to the Bryce Canion sometime this summer - now I have to do it!

Good night - see you tomorrow at NY!