Continuing across the southwest...

Happy New Year! We are, once again, falling behind on blog posts... but we'll desperately try to catch up in the next few days, and resolve to be better about writing in real time during the next leg of our trip! So although we are currently in Philly with Amit's family (sisters Dorit and Shimrit, and Shimrit's husband Daniel), I'm actually writing to tell you about our visit to Carlsbad Caverns and our brief but lovely stay in San Antonio. After we left Arizona, we drove across New Mexico and, after going through two checkpoints (one was permanent... probably related to being very close to the US-Mexico boarder, and one was an impromptu checkpoint... think orange cones blocking the road and lots of cop cars), we ended up in Carlsbad, the home of some of America's most beautiful underground limestone caverns. The caverns are filled with incredible stalactite and stalagmite formations, as well as a whole bunch of other special geologic formations for which I don't know the names. We walked through the central part of the caverns, known as the "Great Room" and then we went on a special tour through the area of the cavern called "King's Palace." Other than just admiring yet another one of our country's incredible natural beauties, one of the interest things I learned from this experience is how our view of "conservation" has evolved over the years. When explorers first discovered the caverns, they knew it would be a treasure for the public, but their way of sharing it with the world was to create an event hall in the caverns where people could have parties and weddings! They completely trampled on some of the structures, destroying them forever. The next generation knew better than that, but built large elevators and public access structures that damaged the water systems of the caverns... their solution? Refill the caverns' pools using a hose! (If you couldn't guess, this also created long-term damage) Now, our national park service is doing their best to be VERY careful of how we use the caverns, but who knows what we are doing now that will later be discovered to have been a mistake. Oh well! We're doing our best! The night of the 24th, we left Carlsbad and drove to San Antonio. It was a quiet night, with most people celebrating Christmas at home. So the roads were quiet and the hotel was dead, which suited us just fine. A few of the special amenities of the hotel were not operating because of the holiday, but the hotel made up for it by bringing us two beers and a bowl of popcorn to our room, as well as offering us coupons for breakfast at a local bakery. The next morning we walked along San Antonio's famous "Riverwalk," a gorgeous boardwalk built in the downtown area along the river and canals. It was incredibly peaceful and relaxing, given that it was Christmas morning, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely (see some pictures I've attached of the riverwalk). From San Antonio, we drove to Houston to visit with my dad's cousin Linda and my great Uncle Max, but for those stories, you will have to wait until the next post!!! Best wishes to all for the New Year... be safe and careful tonight! All our love, Dena (& Amit)

Living it up in Arizona

What Amit forgot to mention in his last post is that we are also slyly "borrowing" internet at our hotel (on our private terrace, in our free room) to write these posts... life is good when you live with a techie! So we are trying to catch up on posts... not so long ago we were caught up, writing to you from Phoenix about the National Parks. Alas, now I am writing to you from Louisiana about Phoenix and Tucson a week later... wah! Time flies when you're having fun (and when you're changing locations every other day!). To summarize: our visits to Phoenix and Tucson were outstanding! The activity for the evening we were in Phoenix was to visit my cousin Seth at the restaurant he manages in Scottsdale, Sushi Roku (http://www.sushiroku.com/), and we took our local host, our friend Becky, and her boyfriend along with us. I'm not sure I can put into words what an incredible night we had. Seth was unbelievably gracious, bringing us all the most delicious dishes the restaurant offers and spending plenty of time chatting with us as well (while simultaneously keeping the restaurant running perfectly!). The restaurant decor was beautiful, wait-staff was exceptional, and - above all - the food and company were unbeatable! I tried to take pictures, but the low lighting made it difficult... so you will have to take my word for it and, of course, then go see for yourself! I can at least offer you some pictures of our friends and Seth. We stayed for nearly five hours... so let that speak for itself. After our knock-out visit with Becky and Seth, we drove down to Tucson to visit with my Uncle Kevan, Aunt Jane, and cousin Zach, where we had two fun-filled days of game-playing, sight-seeing, and (as in any good Jewish household) great eating. The first day, Jane made an amazing dinner and we had the good fortune of overlapping our visit with the first two nights of Hanukkah... so we got to light candles with our family and watch Zach rip open oodles of super fun gifts. We then proceeded to play with Legos (his favorite... and Amit's too!), Neo Shifters, Hess trucks, crayons and dry-erase markers, and then our gift... Jenga! Check out the pictures :). On day 2, we played some more games and visited the Desert Museum, a great zoo-like establishment that shows the Arizona desert's plants and animals in very realistic habitats (friendlier than a zoo... no cages or shows of animal tricks). An awesome visit overall! HUGE thanks to Becky, Seth, Uncle Kevan and Jane for having us and for making our trek through the southwest so easy and fun! Look out for the next post, as we move across the country and head into New Mexico and Texas (where we were warmly welcomed by a sign on the highway that read, "Don't Mess with Texas!")... Love, Dena & Amit P.S. Amit and I were also obsessed with Saguaro cacti, so I'm posting a picture of one for your enjoyment!

The Grand (amazing, stunning, snowy) Canyon

Hi everyone! I write to you this evening from the private terrace outside our (free) room at the W French Quarter in New Orleans (Platinum status has its perks), but details will have to wait for a future post. First, I must update you all on our trip to the Grand Canyon. We last left you in snowy Bryce Canyon, and suffice it to say that the snow did not stop there. Our drive out of Bryce was almost as exciting as visiting the canyon itself. We were "driving" in 3-4 inches of packed snow, without snow chains, or snow tires, or four-wheel drive. So we took it at a nice easy 25 m.p.h. until we got to a low enough elevation where we could see the pavement again through the snow. We thought we were in the clear once we escaped from that, but when we arrived at the eastern entrance road to the Grand Canyon, we discovered it was closed (again, due to snow). SO, we had to take a 2 hour detour to get to the southern entrance. Anyway, by the time we actually got there it was a little anti-climactic, as we couldn't actually see the canyon. That was quickly remedied the next day, when we took a hike into the canyon on the South Kaibab trail (or, as I liked to call it, the Shish Kebab trail). For anyone who has seen a picture of the Grand Canyon, you can imagine what it looked like, but it's just awe-inspiring in person. It is vast beyond what I could have imagined (17 miles wide at points), with entire mountains (mesas, technically) rising in its midst. The Shish Kebab trail descends the full vertical mile (5000+ foot difference in elevation) to the river, but we only did the first 2000 feet (about 6 miles round trip), as there are warnings at every turn that tell you that "What goes down must come up". They STRONGLY discourage you from trying to hike to the river and back in one day. The amount we did was just right for us (especially trudging through the snow, as usual), and we even got to do a nice picnic halfway down the canyon, which is way better than having lunch at the Cambridgeside Galleria food court by my office, that's for sure. My computer is running out of batteries, so time to post pictures and run. Hope everyone is doing well! -Amit

Our highly anticipated trip to the national parks...

On Monday (12/15), we said goodbye to Jeff and headed from LA to southern Utah, via Las Vegas, to start our tour of the national parks (Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and the Grand Canyon). It was pouring rain in LA, but we figured once we drove a few dozen miles, we'd escape the storm and be fine. You'd be right if you guessed that we hadn't been watching the weather channel. Little did we know that the southwest was being hit by a HUGE storm of rain and snow all over southern CA, southern Utah, and Arizona. But we naively drove out of LA toward Las Vegas, and about an hour outside of LA, we discovered that the CA state troopers (or Dept. of Transportation, not sure which) had officially CLOSED our highway through the Cajon Pass (where the highway goes through the mountains). They suggested on many flashing signs, "Seek alternate route." So we heeded their advice, reviewed our map, and found an alternate route that took us around the mountains and joined us back up with I-15 (our highway) on the other side. Alas... this ALTERNATE route was ALSO closed! Or rather, they required chains on your tires to pass through... CHAINS, in southern California! For Bostonians like ourselves, this seemed absolutely absurd! So despondant, we sought another alternate route... and we ended up driving an extra six hours to get to Zion National Park. Unbelievable! (See the picture of snow-covered palm trees for proof of the absurdity!) But the next morning, we woke up to a beatifully snow-covered Zion National Park... a description you can only ascribe to Zion about once a year, given its generally warm climate. But we put on our hiking pants, long underwear, multiple layers of fleece, and set out for our hike. At this point, I think both of us imagined that the snow would only add an extra detail to the scenary, not a huge hurdle to the hiking... what we didn't realize was that they don't actually clear any of the hiking trails when it snows. They rely on hard-core hikers (not us!) to hike the trails anyway and leave footprints for the occasional hikers to follow. So we found ourselves hiking through 6-24 inches of snow for the next two days!!! At first, we tried out best to step ON the snow and avoid getting snow on our shoes... but we quickly realized that was futile and proceded to thoroughly enjoy tromping through the snow full-force and watching the dry, sand-like snow fall right off our shoes. Moving past the basic logistics of the hiking, both Zion and Bryce (we'll leave the Grand Canyon for the next post) were AMAZING! Zion was stunning in the snow, with gorgeous red mountains and high, peaked rock formations. While in Zion, we (well actually I) spotted two difference groups of mule deer... the only real land mammals we've seen this trip. They were very cool (see picture) and we felt particularly victorious for finding them!!! Then, Bryce Canyon was a lot like Cappadocia, a region of Turkey we visited in 2004, with "hoodoos"... tall spires with funny rock caps on top... and other incredible tower-like stone pillars. We took TONS of pictures, which we will post eventually (to Picasa, YouTube, or Facebook), but I'll put up a few here so you can see them. Our hotel in Bryce was also of note... Ruby's Inn, a hotel that has been housing visitors to the canyon for almost 100 years (since 1916!). It had a GREAT lobby, with huge plush leather couches, a great fireplace, and (yes, I'll admit they were pretty cool) large, stuffed animals (deer, stags, mountain lions, goats, etc.) adorning the walls. We also got to enjoy a great indoor pool and hottub... perfect after our long day of hiking! Anyway, we hiked through both parks in the snow, and we were completely mesmerized... special shout out to the National Parks Service for doing such a great job helping visitors like us enjoy incredible national natural wonders! That's all for now... we'll post about the Grand Canyon soon, and then we'll finally be caught up on our blog! We hope to hear from you too... don't forget, as our loyal followers, that we also wait and hope for comments from you. Lots of love, Dena & Amit P.S. For those of you who are interested, Amit and I found out the other day that we were both accepted to UChicago Booth School of Business. Hurray! Still waiting for other responses, we'll keep you posted...

The Pacific Coast Highway and LA

(After some significant technical difficulties, we are now up and running!) Still lagging behind a little in the blog, but about a week ago we left Palo Alto and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to LA. This is much longer than the freeway route (~8 hrs instead of ~5), but certainly worth it. It reminded both me and Dena of the Great Ocean Road in Australia, minus all the flies. In addition to the stunning views, taking the scenic route also has the advantage of visiting Hearst Castle in San Simeon (about halfway between SF and LA). Built in the 1920's and 1930's by the world's first media mogul, William Randolph Hearst, the castle is like no other place I've seen. Depending on your perspective, it is either eclectic or gaudy, but impressive either way. Basically Hearst gathered all the artistic and architectural artifacts he could find and put them together in one compound (according to our tour guide, Hearst purchase 25% of the all European art sold in the 1920's). As you walk around the mansion, you see architecture ranging from European Cathedral to Classic Greek / Roman to Asian / Oriental. The art ranges from sculptures of Egyptian gods to Baroque paintings to medieval tapestries. He imported an enormous fireplace / mantle (~15 feet wide by 30 feet tall) from a French mansion, ceilings / choir stalls from European cathedrals, etc... My favorite part was the heated outdoor pool (not to be confused with the indoor pool), overlooking the Pacific ocean on one side and California mountains on the other. At this humble abode, Hearst hosted the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, etc... All in all, very impressive... From there we drove down to LA to spend the weekend with Jeff, my good friend from high school, and his girlfriend Quirina. The first evening we were there we went to a great comedy show at Hollywood Improv Club. I can't remember the name of the comedians, but there was one tragic but funny joke that was particularly memorable: "Recently a young gentleman was at an amusement park when he was decapitated by a roller coaster. He was not riding it at the time. Rather, he was standing underneath the roller coaster, having climbed over three different fences to get there. Apparently he was trying to retrieve his hat, which, as it turns out, he didn't need after all." We also had our mandatory celeberity siting at the comedy club. As we were leaving, we spotted Darryl from the office... VERY exciting. The following evening we went back to Hollywood, to Sunset Boulevard, to see the Walk of Fame (with all the celebrity names in stars in the sidewalk) and to watch a movie at a LA's famous Hollywood movie theater. The tickets were $14.50 each (OUCH), but the movie, Slumdog Millionaire, was EXCELLENT. One final note... we've been carrying out air mattress around with us all around the country, and we finally had the opportunity to use it at Jeff's place. It turns out that sleeping on an air mattress with a hole in it is not the fun at all... It also turns out that duct tape is not air tight... lesson learned. That's all for now. Hope you're all doing well! -Amit

Second Stop in CA - Palo Alto

As Dena mentioned, we got a little behind in our posting, so in an effort to catch up, we're posting multiple times today. From Napa we drove down to Palo Alto (a.k.a. home of Stanford University, a.k.a. Silicon Valley), taking the scenic route across the Golden Gate Bridge and down the pacific coast highway. In addition to the stunning scenery, we also saw what may be the world's snazziest Taco Bell. The primary purpose of our visit to Palo Alto was to see my cousins from Israel, Ziv and Eynat, and their four adorable children (Omer, Shira, Ella, and Yonatan). We had a wonderful time, playing games like Guillotine (see here), Cro-Magnon (Cranium for kids), Karaoke Revolution, and Taboo. The girls wowed us with their artistic and performing abilities, and most impressively, their new-found command of English! While in town we also visited Heather (my sister's sister-in-law), who is currently 6 months pregant, and her husband Dave, who is currently attending Stanford's Graduate School of Business. He generously offered to take us on a tour, and so we walked around the GSB facilities for a while. The architecture of the main GSB building was clearly from the 70s, but the school recently broke ground on a brand new business school building that should be spectacular. Stanford is the last school we hear back from, so everybody keep your fingers crossed! While in Palo Alto, we also took a day trip to the Monterrey Peninsula, and more specifically Carmel-by-the-Sea, a very quaint artist's colony on the California coast. We visited a very nice Thomas Kinkade gallery, as well as Carmel Plaza and Carmel Beach (see embedded pictures). This is definitely a beautiful place, and a must stop for anyone in the area! From Carmel we drove to Point Lobos State Park, which had breathtaking views of the Pacific Coast as well as a some pretty awesome marine life, including a colony of sea lions (hard to see but very easy to hear), a couple of dozen harbor seals (easy to sea, but kind of like Koalas, difficult to spot in motion), and a handful of sea otters (i.e., small feet sticking out of the water). That's all for now. The next post will be about our trip down the Pacific Coast Highway and our quick visit to LA.

First stop in CA- Napa!

Okay, so we aren't keeping up with the blog very well! Sorry!!! BUT you are also not commenting enough! This blogging thing is a two way street... and we want to hear from you! Please, please comment on our posts :)! So now we have to backtrack a bit. Technically, we're in Bryce Canyon National Park right now, but since we haven't really had time to post about our various stops in California, I thought I would write a quick note about our first stop, Napa, to visit with my grandparents and parents. Napa, as usual, was gorgeous, albeit much colder than we expected (or would have liked!). I think we brought some of the Denver chill with us! The first night we got there, my parents also arrived and we had a great family dinner. Then on Sunday (12/7), we started the day by happily washing all of the crud off my car (see the imbedded picture in Amit's post about our drive), then we greeted my Uncle Steven, who joined us in the early afternoon (flying in from Seattle), and went out for a wonderful dinner at the Silverado Country Club (at The Grill restaurant) to celebrate my grandmother's birthday. Dinner was terrific! The food was great, the company was superb (the family was joined by two couples who are good friends of my grandparents), and we all had the opportunity to share with the group why my grandmother is so special to us... this was the best part. See the pictures in this post of our visit! The next few days (Monday and Tuesday) were full of relaxing time with my family... the BEST kind of vacation. It was wonderful to spend time with my parents and grandparents, both of whom I appreciate MUCH, much more as a young adult than I did as a child!!! I'm going to pass the computer to Amit now, as he is going to update you on the next leg of our California tour. Hope you like the pictures! Love, Dena

Video slideshow of the first half of our trip

The Open Road

Hi everyone! As Dena explicitly called me out in the last post, I must now oblige (although technically this is her responsibility as our family's Chief Communications Officer). Dena has given you a number of updates on our pits stops on our way out to California, so I thought I would give you an update on the driving portion of our adventure. First of all, check out the NASTY cake of dirt and filth that accumulated on our car as we drove across the country (through two snowstorms). Fortunately, once we arrived at Napa we had the opportunity to wash the car and change the oil, so our Pontiac is now much happier. One of the most difficult tasks of cleaning the car was picking out the traces of tumbleweeds from the engine compartment (in particular the radiator). On the way into Denver from Chicago we drove through seas of rolling tumblweeds, some as big as the car. It was a very windy, and they kept tumbling across the highway. At first we tried to avoid them, but then we gave up and starting running them over, which turned out not to be a big deal at all... A few of the highlights of our drive were (see pictures on the right, in order): Crossing the Rockies a day after a snowstorm Driving through Glenwood Canyon Visiting Colorado National Monument Park Chasing a beautiful sunset in the western Colorado desert Gazing at the vast expanse of the Great Salt Lake Driving past the salt flats in western Utah For those of you who are interested, here are the key driving stats of our trip to date: Total Miles Driven (including city driving): 3,757 Total "Road-Trip" Miles (excluding city driving): 3,451 (52% Dena, 48% Amit) Gas Mileage: 140 gallons (average of 27.1 MPG) Gas Cost: $251 (average of $1.81 / gallon, max of $2.37, min of $1.35) Tolls: $31.35 (none between Iowa and California) Two more important notes before I sign off. First, to simplify the lives of our dear followers, we have now enabled email subscription to our blog (enter your email address on the right and click "Subscribe"). Second, Dena's mom was aghast that our car has no name, so we are beginning a car naming competition. To enter, please submit a comment below with your suggestion. The winner will be selected by myself and Dena no later than January 3rd, and will receive a marvelous gift from the trip to be named later.

Two great days in Denver

Apologies to our loyal followers for not posting in the past few days! We've been doing a lot and hopefully we can post a few entries today that will catch you up on our activities. Since the last time we posted something of substance, we have driven from Chicago to Denver, spent two days in Denver, and driven from Denver to the Napa Valley in California (via Salt Lake City), and celebrated my grandmother's 80th birthday with my grandparents, parents, and Uncle Steven! This blog post, though, will mostly focus on our visit in Denver... and then Amit, for the first time since we started this blog, will actually author a post about our funny driving adventures! We got to Denver very late on Tuesday night and were greeted by Shawn Li, my friend Valerie's boyfriend, at their very cute house right outside the city. We went right to bed, and woke up early the next morning to meet Owen, Shawn and Valerie's amazing little boy, who turned 1 on Sunday (see the picture to the right)! We had a great time with Valerie, Shawn, and Owen on Thursday, and on Wednesday, we hung out with Talia Davis, one of my best friends from childhood/high school. Both days were great... we had lunch at Ted's Montana Grill, where Amit ate bison, and then we had dinner at Lola Mexican Restaurant, where the waiter made guacamole by hand at our table! Both great restaurants and great company! On Wednesday, we met up with Valerie for lunch, and then went out to dinner at a downtown sushi bar with Valerie and Owen. Owen, at the very least, had a terrific time... with a bowl of sticky white rice, he terrorized all of the waitresses and guests, and then immediately after bombing the restaurant with rice grenades, he broke out his HUGE smile, and everyone melted and forgave him for his horrendous behavior! Man... it's a good life being a toddler. In between hanging out with friends, we visited the huge flagship REI sporting goods store and took the guided tour of the Coors Brewery. Before we left on Friday morning, we had a wonderful visit to Denver Health Center to get our first of three Japaneses Encephalitis vaccines to prep for our trip to southeast Asia. Overall, Denver was terrific!!! Great to see Valerie (and family) and Talia, and two wonderfully relaxing days. Hopefully these pictures give you a glimpse into this stop... Love, Dena & Amit

Chicago Pictures

For those of you on Facebook, Talia has already beat me to the punch with posting some of these pictures. But for those of you who don't do Facebook or didn't notice her post, here are the previously promised photos of our fun in Chicago (and western Illinois)!

A Denver update and more pictures are on the way...

Love,
Dena & Amit