Summer Holidays - First long weekend trip

I didn't update this for quite long time... Fact is, I was not busy but my Laptop was very busy. Now we bought one more Laptop at home for our in-laws :)) I am using the new one. LOL !!!

Let me brief you about our third day trip and finish this looooooooooooong story. Even I am also feeling bit bored to write so obviously you people also think the same. Third Day, we went to Pittsburgh.
First went to the famous Venkateshwara Temple, as you all know it is one of the earliest temples built in US. After having good darshanam, had nice prasadam there, Pulisadam, Thayir sadam, Pongal, Sambar etc...

From there, we went to another downtown and Enjoyed the famous Duquesne Incline.

The Duquesne Incline is a inclined plane railroad, or funicular, located near Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood and scaling Mt. Washington. It was completed in 1877 and is 800 ft long, 400 ft in height, and is inclined at a 30 degree angle. It is an unusual gauge.

Originally steam powered, the Duquesne Incline was built to carry cargo up and down Mt. Washington in the late 1800s. It later carried passengers, particularly Mt. Washington residents who were tired of walking up footpaths to the top. Inclines were then being built all over Mt. Washington (From Wikipedia)

Thats all... Our trip ended nicely. Around 11 AM CST we started from there and reached Chicago at night 10'clock. On our way back, varuna bagavan started to pour without a break. So we took a break for around 45 min from the rain on the highway itself. Almost everybody pulled off to the shoulder.Still the drive was enjoyable and we reached safely, happily.

Summer Holidays - First long weekend trip

After a very long break I am continuing my long day trip...

Past couple of weeks myself and Karthik are so busy... Went to many shops in search of furniture and some kutti, kutti things for our home. Spent many nights in booking the flight tickets.
Do you like to know the reason, why ?
Its because my in-laws are in Chicago. After a great compulsion from our end, they accepted to come, that too on a condition. Only in summer as you all know winter is so bad here, specially in Chicago. They safely arrived day before yesterday and still recovering from jet lag :))

OK, let we go back to our trip. After having a very good time in Hershey's we went to a Hotel in Lancaster, PA. Its a pathetic hotel we ever stayed. Poor thing is its run by our people. No words to explain about that hotel. Nothing was good... stained chairs, bed with full of dust, a small frozen fridge, I am not joking the whole fridge was frozen and looked so fishy. Fact is we payed twice the normal amount for that room. It was a very bad experience in the whole trip. Since there is no other go we stayed there without touching anything.

Next day morning we rushed out from there and enjoyed a beautiful drive, it was very pleasant. It made us to forget about the nightmare at the hotel. On our way to Philadelphia we went to Dutch farmland, Lancaster Amish county.

The farmlands of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country are among the most productive in the nation. But many of the farmers here are different from most Americans; different by choice. These people trace their heritage back hundreds of years, and yet, despite all the time that has passed and the many changes that have taken place in society, they still live and work much as their forefathers did. Their families and their farms are their top priorities, second only to God.

Our Amish neighbors have been employing horse-drawn power since the days when horsepower had a whole different meaning! In comparison to our fast-paced society, the simpler, family-centered. The Amish have long preferred farming as a way of life. They feel their lifestyle and their families can best be maintained in a rural environment.While they do not permit the use of tractors in their fields, these old order Amish groups do use modern farm equipment pulled by teams of horses or mules.

The Amish are generally private people and often find all the attention and curiosity about their lifestyle disturbing. They believe that the taking of photographs where someone is recognizable is forbidden by the Biblical prohibition against making any 'graven image'. (From amish website)

The whole county was looking green, full farmland. If we cross a farm, atleast we can see minimum 15 horses, herd of grazing cows, 10 sheep, some cock and hens in there backyard of a small house. And the house will be midst of a big land.

Amish people use Buggies, a cart driven by a Horse to travel. We saw so many buggies going on the road. Without knowing our self we respected them and didn't took any pictures.

We pulled our car near a stream and had our brunch under a big tree. Felt as if we were in Tanjore farm field. The whole area was calm, clean, green. Just fantastic.

After few hours journey we reached Philadelphia. Went to all historic places like Declaration of Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin's house, first Congress Hall, Liberty bell and remembered 'National Treasure' movie. Crossed the Franklin bridge that links Pennsylvania with New Jersey. The highlight was  the ride around town in a horse drawn carriage under the hot sun.

Philadelphia, very small town. Since it was a first long weekend the whole place flooded with many people from different countries. Since we could not stand the heat we started early and went to a place called 'Valley Forge' a forest preserve park. This is the same place where George Washington stayed along with his army in Winter during the Revolutionary War period.

Had our lunch cum dinner in the forest, relaxed ourself for some minutes in the nice breezy forest and started our drive back.
Successfully 2 days ran off...

Summer Holidays -- First long weekend trip

After having our lunch in a parking lot, we started to go to a sweet place. When we decided to go PA, this is the first place which everybody agreed without any second thought. I was so excited to see this place, so took the front seat with my camera ready.

Yes, Hershey's Chocolate World.
Hershey's is the largest and the oldest chocolate company in US. This company was founded in 1894,by Milton S. Hershey. Did you know Milton S. Hershey purchased his first chocolate making machinery at Chicago's World's Fair.

Hershey's Chocolate World was built as a replacement of the Hershey chocolate plant tour. This tour was discontinued as it was no longer able to handle the large numbers of visitors every year. (From Wikipedia)

Though its not the actual factory, we will not miss anything. Initially, I felt bit disappointed and wanted to go back to our room. Everything changed when we stepped in to the chocolate world omnimover, its a kind of a trolley moving on to a fixed rail. Once we get into the trolley, it starts moving and takes us inside the chocolate world, where we can see all the process involved in making chocolates. Right from the coco been arrival to the factory till the packaging and shipping. It was fun, the puppet cow will narrates all the process with a nice background song. Even if I had visited the actual chocolate factory I would have not enjoyed this much.

Once we were out from the chocolate tour, I directly headed to shopping. Wanted to buy loads of chocolate but only bought 2 small box, since we were travelling in hot sun I didn't buy much. Even these chocolates melted next day itself. But took many photos in the chocolate world, between the aisle.

These are only a part of the shopping complex. After having a big Chocolate Ice cream with mini chocolate topping, we waved a big bye to the chocolate world and started from Hershey's to a hotel in Lancaster, PA

Summer Holidays - First Long weekend trip

We are still driving and few miles away from the great historic place. On our way we crossed a nice 2 mile long tunnel. The lights in the tunnel were so dramatic that it felt as if we were in the middle of a 'Batman' or 'Men in Black' movie. We all were so thrilled to drive in.

In fact, to watch the full video you can click this Youtube  link :)) Enjoy !

Sudharshun and Thani took the front seat and me and Karthik shared the back seat. As soon as we were out of the tunnel we took an exit and started driving in 'Lincoln Highway'. Let me tell something about the great Lincoln Highway.

The Lincoln Highway was the first road across the United States of America. Actively promoted by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, the Lincoln Highway originally spanned coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California.

The first officially recorded length of the entire Lincoln Highway was 3389 miles (5454 km) in 1913. Over the years, the road was improved and numerous realignments were made, and by 1924 the highway had been shortened to 3142 miles (5056 km). Counting the original route and all of the subsequent realignments, there is a grand total of 5869 miles (9445 km).  (From Wikipedia)

This highway is called 'US Route 30' in PA. This one was so different compared to all we come across earlier. Its a one lane road, had sudden ups and downs, more sharp short curves. Also had very less or no shoulders. Karthik forced Sudharshun to take over the back seat and he drove the car, because we all felt little scared. Absolutely not because of Sudharshun Driving, the road was like that.

I really cant explain that in words, once you drive in that you all can understand what I am telling. Though we were little scared we enjoyed the scenic view around us.

At last, by 1.00 pm we reached the Great historic battle field in Gettysburg. This was the most important battle field and was a turning point in the US Civil War. The battle was fought for 3 days starting from July 1, 1863. The causalities were horrible, around 8000 killed and 36000 wounded or missing.

US government painstakingly restored the whole battle field to the way it looked during those fateful July days. States which contributed troops for this battle have erected individual memorials for their regiments who served in the battle.

We spent around 3 hours in this place, Sudharshun and Karthik were so excited they both were talking about all the events happened here. They both like History a lot. After seeing this battle field we went and saw a huge painting called "Gettysburg Cyclorama"

 The painting is the work of French artist Paul Dominique Philippoteaux. It depicts "Pickett's Charge", the failed infantry assault that was the climax of the Battle of Gettysburg. The painting is a cyclorama, a type of 360° cylindrical painting.original painting was 22 feet (6.7 m) high and 279 feet (85 m) in circumference. The version that hangs in Gettysburg, a recreation of the original, is 27 feet (8.2 m) high and 359 feet (109 m) in circumference,[1] although that version has lost some of its size due to the ravages of time. Its original size is estimated at 42 feet (13 m) high and 365 feet (111 m) in circumference. (From Wikipedia) 

I was so shocked to see that painting. It doesn't looked like a painting at all to me. It was looking so real like a 3D picture. When we were planning this trip, Karthik was telling me about this painting but it was much bigger and breathtaking than what I imagined.
Just posting some photos, these are only a small part of the big cyclorama painting

It is fantastic isn't it !  Oh, I enjoyed it...

Its 4.00 pm we all were hungry, couldn't find any place to sit and eat. So drove out few miles away from the battle field pulled over near a Wendy's parking lot, opened our bag and had our lunch in the car itself. It was a different experience for us, 4 people eating inside a car, where all the foods are to be served from the box and nothing was ready to eat.

If you get a chance to pass that place, don't miss the US 30 route and the Cyclorama painting. Those were the highlights of our day.

Hm, from there we went to sweet, yummy delicious place. I m not kidding. Will tell about this in my next post. Bye !!!

Summer Holidays -- First long weekend trip

Friday morning, my hubby, Karthik went to office and promised to come early. Sudharshun, good boy didn't go to office at all and one more friend, also joining us in the trip. His name is Thani and this was his first long trip in US. I was busy in lot of preparation. Do you want to know what I prepared for this trip, pls check here. By 3.00 pm we all started. For the first time Karthik and myself sat in the back. Yes, Sudharshun was driving the car.

We were struck in heavy traffic for the first two hours. Karthik knew this before, so he said he will drive after taking first break. Poor Sudharshun. Once we crossed Chicago, the traffic was normal. Our first stay point is Youngstown in Ohio, 7.30hrs drive from our place. this is as per the Google, Map prediction. But for us it will differ because we will take some breaks in between.

We stopped in Ohio, turnpike service plaza for dinner.

It looks so tempting isn't it !!! But we didn't enjoy much here, because lot of mosquito's, since we sat in an open area. After the mosquito bite dinner, got our energy back and started our journey again. We like to drive a lot in night time rather than day light. After 3 hours we reached the Hotel and slept nicely.

Saturday Morning, we planned to start from Youngstown at 6.30 am. Since we wanted to go for a early morning drive hearing 'Rudram" (slogam) in the background, to see the misty, foggy dark sky dawning into a clear, bright, blue sky . Unfortunately, everybody except me woke up very late (as always), so we started at 8 o' clock only. I thought we missed that morning drive :( God heard us and gave a big surprise !!!

We were speechless and felt extremely happy. Its almost 9.00 am and we saw misty cloud all over.  I started clicking everything. Once we entered Pennsylvania turnpike I thought we were in the midst of forest and mountains. Wherever you turn, you can see green all the way.

    

See its looking as if somebody sketched the whole place with green and blues. I loved it !!!

In my next post I will say where we were heading and what historic piece we saw... BYE BYE