siddhartha saha dot net

This is a photo of the Cannon Beach and the 232 feet tall single rock formation.

This had been an awesome summer for me. Much better than the last one. The work was nice but not killing, I had plenty of free time and I did a lot of things that I haven’t done before: including (but not limited to) Sailing, White Water Rafting, Going to a concert, Going to a live music recording, Seeing several shows where local bands played, Playing softball, Owning a car, Watching a drawbridge go up, Learning Salsa, Poker and a hell lot of other stuff – some really trivial and some quite significant.
Anyway, thanks a ton to Jennifer for being such a nice roommate and landlady. She also taught me a lot of things – starting from how to mow a lawn (as well as start the lawnmower) and ending in how to change the tire of the car in case I have a flat.I wish her alll the best in her life and I hope to see her again sometime soon.
I started my drive back to San Diego today and this is a last glimpse of this beautiful city from my cellphone while I was driving.
Goodbye Seattle.

Today I started this long drive from Seattle to San Diego. I could have driven straight through I-5 and it would have taken me around 20-22 hours to reach San Diego and I could have done it in 2 days. I know a student from UCSD (he was also doing an internship at Amazon) who drove from Los Angeles to Seattle in about 19 hours in a VW Jetta GLI. But I did not want to do that – rather I thought it would be a nice opportunity for me to see a lot more of this region of this country on this drive. So, I have planned for a 5 day long driving trip – mostly along the Pacific Coastal Highway – and today was the first day.

I will try to post something about the places that I am visiting on my way to my blog as time and/or opportunity permits me (not because many people are keen on reading them – but because it is fun for me, and for me it would be interesting to read them later )

Today’s post is going to be short one – because (1) I am totally exhausted (2) I was so late (characteristic of me) in starting that I could not cover as much as I was originally planning to do. Also I seriously need to redo my road trip timing calculations as most of the time I find my calculations off by about 100%. (i.e. it takes double the time that I had expectetd). My plan was to visit mount St. Helens and then take the coastal highway (HW 101) from Chinook, cross the 4 mile long bridge at Astoria and then drive to another 100 miles south and then spend the night somewhere there. Mount St. Helen took a lot of time … a lot. The place was so beautiful that I stayed till the sunset to take some photos of the sunset in the mountains. I am glad that I did so – I think the scebery was worth it. I don’t know if I have been able to successfully capture then in the camera – but being there and enjoying the amazing views were worth the time spent in going and staying there. The only regret is that there was a patch of cloud covering a portion of the top of Mt.St. Helen – and that stayed there for one and a half hours – i.e., all the time I was there.
After St. Helens, I retraced my route back to I-5, and then took Highway 4 towards Long Beach to reach Highway 101. One bad thing happened on my drive from St. Helens to I-5 through highway 12. It was a 55mph limit highway and I was cruising at 80 (I don’t know why) and I got my first speed ticket . Thinking about this maked me sad and makes me want to kick myself in the a**. Oh well…
Anyways, I didn’t want to cross the Astoria Bridge in the dark – so I am staying the night in a motel on HIghway 4 – about 10 miles from Chinook. This place does not have any cellphone signal (my parents are really worried by now I know) – but this is a nice and comfortable motel. I was thinking of camping but dropped the idea after driving through thick fog. It is very cold outside.
That was my day! I wil post this tomorrow sometime when I have cellphone signal.
This photo is of Mt. St. Helen – but the cellphone camera is terrible.

Well, I finally made it. I am sitting at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls. It is absolutely gorgeous. The first time I saw the picture of this falls, I knew I have to come here. But still, I had to wait till the my last day in Seattle (or maybe second last, if I leave on Monday) to come here. But I am really glad I did not miss it. Its quite late – almost the end of the day. I don’t see anybody here – and it is going to be dark soon. I hope I don’t get eaten by a bear. It is kind of cold and damp up here, and the sky is cloudy – but these things make this experience even more worthwhile.
Since I plan to do this kind of travel blogging from wherever I go, I bought this really handy, small and cute bluetooth keyboard so that I don’t have to endure the pain of typing in the cell phone keypad. It is really neat to see that the letters that I type in that keyboard appear in my cell phone window. Whether you like it or not, I have to put some amout of geekiness in everything, and this is no exception. This kind of cool little things make amateur mobile bloggin quite fun.
Anyway, back to where I was. The driving: Being extremely confident in my skills in maps and direction, I did not even look up the directions to this place in the net. All I had were a AAA map of Oregon and Washington and the book 100 Hikes in Alpine Lakes (which is an extremely good book by the way). As usual, I was late in starting. I got lost and drove mostly based on a compass for half an hour before I reached Highway 2. Continuing east on Highway 2, past Monroe (a really small and cute town) you have to turn right on Mount Index road, just after crossing milepost 35 and then follow the signs to Lake Serene trailhead to reach the parking lot in the trailhead. I did not have the parkign permit and I didn’t have the time to get one, so I have parked my car without permit and I am hoping that I don’t get a ticket.

The Trail: I was planning to go all the way to Lake Serene, but I don’t have time and physically it is not possible for me to go 1000 feet more elevation. My bad knee is starting to hurt agin – I will have difficulties in going down – and it is going to be dark when I get down. Anyway, the trail is damp, slippery (it rained today) and quite rocky. If you ever plannin on coming here, wear hard soled good hiking shoes – else you feet will be uncomfortable. Elevation gain around 900 feet in 1.5 miles.Sometimes it was quite steep.
I think I am getting used to these kind of hiking. It took me 40 minutes to reach the falls, and I was out of breath – but not dying. It is so quiet, calm and serene – I am feeling wonderful. There is nobody around, and I needed a photo of myself with the falls in the background. After some careful and risky placements of the camera, I finally was able to take a couple of shots :).
What more to say, it is getting dark. I better start the return journey. I have to pick up Jennifer, my landlady, from the airport at 9:30pm today.