siddhartha saha dot net

I had this thought for a long time now – since the time I had seen the google map api. Today I had some free time during the day, and I decided to give it a go. I was fumbling around the gallery code – trying to find out how to extract the list of albums. I did a few search in google, and I was surprised to see that the idea has already been implemeneted. Not exactly the way I wanted it to be, but quite close. The howto and the relevant things I got from this forum post. As of today, I ended up using the module found in that forum.

One useful link to find the latitude and longitude of different places: (I didn’t use it though, I came to know of it much later, after I recorded all the Latitude/Longitude from google maps using a script that I wrote using google map api ): http://www.robogeo.com/latlonfinder/map.asp

This is a nifty little fun thing. I spend almost 3 hours today to find out the Latitude/Longitude of all of my photo albums. But this is a work well done and time well spent.

Feel free to have a look at it: click here or at the travel link at the top of this page.

I was soooo tired last night that it was well past 10 when I woke up. It made me sad – as being late in starting was one of things that I don’t want to do. I got ready as fast as I could. The motel that I was sleeping in offered free breakfast from 7:00 to 9:00 am. I went to check out at around 11:00. The receptionist there, Grace, was really nice. It was not proobably in her job description, but she asked me if I had breakfast or not. I told her that I haven’t. She asked me if I am hungry. I nodded. Then she brought me a bunch of donuts and a bottle of orange juice from inside. She also gave me some directions which turned out to be extremely useful.
After I gobbled down a couple of donuts and a glass of orange juice, I started my day.
Today’s agenda for me was to see as much as possible of the Redwood National Park and then reach San Francisco at night. Redwood National Park is composed of a few Redwood State Parks – mainly three State Parks. The one just 5-10 mile from Crescent City was Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. That was my first stop. As I was quite late and I had to start for San Francisco by 4pm latest, I did not have time for long hikes. Nevertheless, I walked around for a couple of miles along two trails. After that I went to Stout Grove – this is where the fattest Redwood trees are. These trees were just amazing. They are Huuuuge. Some of them were over 300 feet tall. Also, the whole place was gorgeous. I have seen may rivers, mountains, lakes, waterfalls – but I have never seen something like this. If you have the opportunity to visit this place – you should never miss that. On my first hike I did not take the tripod with me – that was a mistake – it was foggy at that time and it was quite dark inside the forest. I d!
idn’t want to use flash – that would have ruined the photos. A tripod was necessary. So, on the second hike I took the tripod with me and took quite a few beautiful photos. As an added bonus, I took a number of photos of myself with some Redwood trees as the background. I tend to get somewhat Narcissistic about photos when I visit beautiful places. After spending a lot of time in those areas, I started south. It was so cloudy and foggy all the way. It was quite late – so I did not stop anywhere in between. I passed this beautiful city named Eureka. There were quite a few things to see but I didn’t have time. Rather, I just had lunch there.
The next thing that is worth mentioning (and definitely something that you woundn’t want to miss) is The Avenue of the Giants. True to its name, this 34 mile strip of road is a marvel – a wonderful feast to the eye. I have a few photographs – but they don’t do justice to the beauty of this place. Imagine a road, and you have big 200-300 feet tall, big Redwood trees on both sides of the road. The road, the car and everything about you seems to tiny – so small. It is a must have experience. The Avenue of the Giants is a side road that criss-crosses the 101 Highway for about 34 miles. This small detour and 15-30 minutes extra time is definitely worth it. If you ever go there, don’t miss this one.
After that it became dark pretty quickly. Nothing interesting happened for the next 250+ miles.Only pitch black dark, windind road – sometimes narrow, sometimes wide, sometimes going uphill – sometimes downhill. I finally reached San Francisco at about 10:45pm – and to my utter astonishment, I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge which I have wanted to see for such a long time. I didn’t know that Highway 101 crosses this bridge.
Anyways, I had some tough time after that. There were not a single place in any of the motels around. So I decided to drive further south towards San Jose hoping that something will have some vacancy there. But before I could get to one, my good frind Sumeet returned my call and finally I ended up staying at his place in Sunnyvale.
Wonderful day I would say.

The night in the motel was really comfortable. I was tired as hell and I slept really well. I made a glass of coffee for myself for the road and started at around 10:30am. After 10 miles or so I reached highway 101 and continued south. I crossed the awesome 4 mile long bridge in Astoria (I have posted a cell phone photo of that bridge earlier). The bridge is exactly 4 miles – my trip odometer reading went from XX08.6 to XX11.6. Anyway, after that I continued south – the drive was slow and tedious with numerous narrow stretchs and winding turns and ridiculously slow speed zones. But at times the view was rewarding. I stopped for a short walk in the Cannon Beach. I also stopped at several viewpoints and took quite a few photographs. It was pretty. I cannot write much about it, you have to see to understand the pleasure of driving when on the left side you have high cliffs and in the right side you have the ocean. But off course, it was not like this all the way and the drivin!
g can quickly get boring sometimes (Also I am driving alone – that might be one major source of boredom). I crossed the city of Tilamook on the way. It was a cute little city with large meadows and a lot of cows :). They also have a cheese factory – and I was planning to chekc that out as they have factory tours but time didn’t permit. Instetad I drove throgh the Three Capes Scenic route which was totally worth it. I also stopped at a small state park called Meader Cape. Continuing south I finally reached the Oregon Dunes at sunset. Took a couple of nice sunset photos on the dunes. As it was getting dark there was no point in driving on slow 101. I took 38 and then 138 to come to I-5 and then continues south. Had dinnet at one Applebees. Then took 199 south towards Redwoods National Park. After driving for what it seemed like forever (I crossed Steven’s Pass at night, hence missing the view)I reached Crescent City at about 1:00am. I was thining of camping in the Redwood Park, but after driving on that winding and narrow roads for that long my head was hurting and so I checked into a hotel and went to sleep while watching a movie called ‘Don’t Die Alone’

This is a snap of the four mile long bridge in Astoria where the Columbia river merges into Pacific Ocean.