Ruby falls, Rock hills, Incline train Tennessee

Once we are done with Atlanta trip we had plan to visit Ruby falls next day morning. So we already booked our hotels in Tennessee, else we had to drive 2hrs from Atlanta which will be hectic for us. So we checked in somewhere around 8:30pm and next day morning headed to Ruby falls.
Ruby Falls:
is a 145-foot high underground waterfall located within Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga, Tennessee in the United States. The cave which houses Ruby Falls was formed with the formation of Lookout Mountain. About 200 to 240 million years ago.  The limestone in which the cave is formed is still relatively horizontal, just as it was deposited when it was below sea level.
The Falls are located at the end of the main passage of Ruby Falls Cave, in a large vertical shaft. The stream, 1120 feet underground, is fed both by rainwater and natural springs. It collects in a pool in the cave floor and then continues through the mountain until finally joining the Tennessee River at the base of Lookout Mountain. It take 2-3hrs to visit the falls inside. We have to walk long and watch out our head if we are tall. The next destination was Rocky hills

Rock City:
Rock City will amaze you...it's in our nature! Located atop Lookout Mountain, just 6 miles from downtown Chattanooga, Rock City is a true marvel of nature featuring massive ancient rock formations, gardens with over 400 native plant species, and breathtaking "See 7 States" panoramic views. Take an unforgettable journey along the Enchanted Trail where each step reveals natural beauty and wonders along the woodland path. Experience the magic of Fairyland Caverns and Mother Goose Village, visit one of our regional gift shops and dine at the Big Rock Grill. Rock City is splendid year-round - "Each season there's a new reason to visit!"
Rock City claims that it is possible to see seven states from Lover's Leap, a point in Rock City, but this has not been proven.
Rock City features a long, convoluted rock trail lined with gardens containing hundreds of labelled local trees and plants. The trail also leads through a variety of unique and bizarre rock formations, including the 1,000 short tons (910 t) Balanced Rock and Fat Man's Squeeze. Two other sections, the Fairyland Caverns and Mother Goose Village, are rock caves decorated with blacklight-responsive sculptures.

Incline train:
The Incline Railway opened on November 16, 1895, and was the second of two inclines constructed on Lookout Mountain; the first was the Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. The railway is now operated by the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority, the area's public transit agency.
I personally didn't like it because its just an experience and they make you to wait long to come back once they drop you down. The two trains operate on each track for every 15 mins and whenever one train comes up other go down. They have huge iron cable rope tie each end of trains. They ask you to get down once you reach down and you have to wait in hot sun till the other train comes. For us it took almost 1:45hrs to get back to top by another train.

Atlanta, Georgia

We decided to visit Atlanta this time since winter is approaching we wanted to finish it up. So we had a bad experience in taking flights last time so thought of driving from VA to Atlanta. We got up early and somewhere 3:30am on Saturday we started our trip, four adults and one kid hit the i81S highway. Drive was good for 3-4hrs then rain started and when we go further it was pouring heavily. We took one break and continued, had breakfast in Mcd. So it was almost 12:30when we reached Swamy Narayana temple which was our first destination.


Swamy Narayana temple: The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Atlanta is the sixth BAPS traditional Hindu stone temple built outside India. It is also the largest Hindu temple of its kind outside of India. Its occupied almost 30acres. The temple is built by Italian marbles and Turkish limestones. The carvings and architecture looks so awesome and wonderful. I admire the beauty of the temple. They have built similar one in NJ and I almost visited 4 times. That temple also lovely and awesome but this looks bigger than that.

As per the update they have NJ's temple suppose to  be biggest one ans they almost acquired 160+ acres.
The canteen food was okay, nothing great but the sweets they sell in their shop was so delicious and I packed many of them. I felt like having sweets in India's decent shops.

World of Coco Cola
Now we thought of visiting World of cococola since it was almost 3:00pm when we start from temple. So we headed to World of Coco cola which is in Baker St. The World of Coca-Cola is a museum showcasing the history of The Coca-Cola Company that contains a host of entertainment areas and attractions, and is located in Atlanta, Georgia at Pemberton Place.The museum was located in a three-story pavilion and its entrance had a huge neon Coca-Cola sign (30 feet high and 26 feet wide). The tour started on the top floor and worked downwards, featuring approximately 1,000 Coca-Cola artifacts presented in chronological order, interactive exhibits such as a replica 1930s soda fountain, video presentations of Coca-Cola advertising over the years, and a 10-minute film called "Every Day of Your Life" about Coke around the world. One can taste more than 100 different varieties of Coke products from South America, North America, Europe and Asia continents. They have 4D show where they say they will reveal the secret formula which is a bluff..
So after the tour we went back to Hotel to check in since we tired whole day. At night we came back to see sky view and had few shots in pub as well.
Next day we checked out and went to Georgia Aquarium.
Georgia Aquarium:
Heard lot about this place, The aquarium is in downtown Atlanta on land donated by The Coca-Cola Company, The Georgia Aquarium contains tens of thousands fish and other sea creatures, representing several hundred species. The aquarium is the only institution outside of Asia housing whale sharks, which are kept in a 6.3-million-U.S.-gallon (24,000 m3) exhibit—the aquarium as a whole was designed around the whale shark exhibit. The aquarium's most famous specimens were four young whale sharks from Taiwan named Ralph, Norton, Alice, and Trixie.
The aquarium's animals are displayed in five galleries: Tropical Diver, Ocean Voyager, Cold Water Quest, River Scout, and Dolphin Tales. Each corresponds to a specific environment.
Next to River Scout is the AT&T Dolphin Tales gallery. This is the aquarium's newest addition (opened in April 2011) and houses the indoor dolphin stadium. The aquarium houses thirteen bottle nose dolphins, though this number fluctuates from time to time. The show lasts about 20 to 30 minutes and includes an informative/educational videos about the dolphins 30 minutes before the show. One should never miss this show. There are many more exhibits happening and I feel we should need whole day to go around to see all of them including 4D shows.
CNN Studio tour:
The CNN Center opened in 1976 as the Omni Complex, which was a development by Cousins Properties. The studio tour is informative to see how the news readers read the news and how the information or news getting from all over the world. What kind of monitors and cameras been used and all.

Chicago trip

Had been to Chicago since we had long weekend here. New place to see, so went on around Down town..exploring the listed places like Michigan avenue, Boat ride, Lincoln zoo, Shred aquarium, museum, parks and Venkateshwara temple. It was a good experience all together except delay in travel due to rescheduling of flight timings on bad weather. I didn't visit 360 and sky deck and I felt there were very less parking slots all over the city. So that was the main issue we faced through out our trip. So good to go for 2-3 days trip in Chicago.

Virginia Beach

We had been to VA beach recently, nothing much to talk about this beach since it was same as other beaches but I have to mention one thing here is the Chesapeake bay bridge tunnel. I was really wondered and astonished by looking at its architecture and applaud to engineers who were involved in building this wonderful thing.
Let me give some information on this bridge tunnel which was collected online:
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel (CBBT) is a 23-mile-long (37 km) fixed link crossing the mouth of the United States' Chesapeake Bay and connecting the Delmarva Peninsula's Eastern Shore of the state of Virginia with Virginia Beach and the metropolitan area of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

The bridge–tunnel originally combined 12 miles (19 km) of trestle, two 1-mile-long (1.6 km) tunnels, four artificial islands, four high-level bridges, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of causeway, and 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of approach roads—crossing the Chesapeake Bay and preserving traffic on the Thimble Shoals and Chesapeake shipping channels. It replaced vehicle ferry services which operated from South Hampton Roads and from the Virginia Peninsula from the 1930's until completion of the bridge–tunnel in 1964. The system remains one of only ten bridge–tunnel systems in the world, three of which are located in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Since it opened, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel has been crossed by more than 100 million vehicles. The CBBT complex carries U.S. Route 13, the main north–south highway on Virginia's Eastern Shore, and, as part of the East Coast's longstanding Ocean Highway, provides the only direct link between the Eastern Shore and South Hampton Roads regions, as well as an alternate route to link the Northeast and points in between with Norfolk and the Carolina s. The bridge–tunnel saves motorists 95 miles (153 km) and 1½ hours on a trip between Virginia Beach/Norfolk and points north and east of the Delaware Valley without going through the traffic congestion in the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. The $13 toll is partially offset by some savings of tolls in Maryland and Delaware on I-95.

Financed by toll revenue bonds, the bridge–tunnel was opened on April 15, 1964. It was officially named the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge–Tunnel in August 1987 after one of the civic leaders who had long worked for its development and operation. However, it continues to be best known as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel. From 1995 to 1999, at a cost of almost $200 million, the capacity of the above-water portion was increased to four lanes. An upgrade of the two-lane tunnels was proposed but has not been carried out.

Official name Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge–Tunnel
Total length 17.6 miles (28.3 km)
Opened April 15, 1964; 50 years ago (northbound)
April 19, 1999; 15 years ago (southbound)
Total cost $200million


One can visit the Aquarium as well which is also near to the beach.

Bandipur, Mysore trip

This time we decided to go to Bandipur and stay in govt. cottage over there. So Naveen told me about his plans and I agreed for it. Even Neeta was here so I thought it will be good we go together. So Naveen planned to drive and he found rental car where we can drive. So he got it on previous day and saturday early morning around 5.30am we started. Neeta prepared vada on that day. Our plan was to avoid city trafic and if we could reach Ramnagar before 8.00am it will be good and later there won't be much traffic. So we stopped for breakfast in Amaravathi hotel in Mandya. We started after our quick breakfast, we took Mysore, Nanjanagood road. Reached Bandipur around 10.00am. naveen already booked the cottage for us but the staff said cottage will be free after 12.00. So we just tried to kill the time. We ordered lunch there. Once we thought of going to Goplalaswamy hills but it will be more than 35kms. Moreover it will be closed at 4.00pm it seems. So we cancelled our plan and waiting for our room keys. They gave it after 12.00. There were big group of monkeys following us for snacks. We dumped our bag inside the room and went to have lunch. After lunch we thought of taking evening safari ride. Since we are staying there they were charging 100 Rs per head, else it will be 300. So we took 5 o'clock ride. We have to stand in queue 30mins before to get the ticket. There were only 4-5 vehicles which go inside the jungle and we may not get ticket if the crowd is big.
We got to see Elephants, Bison, lot of deers. Even we saw peacocks as well. Couldn't find tiger but. So we thought of taking early morning ride. So we came back to room had our dinner and slept.
Next day Naveen got the tickets. It was 7.30 trip. This time our bus took different path and again we got to see Bison, few birds, deers, couldn't find tiger but.
We finished our safari drive and came back to room, decided to vacate the room since we wanted to go to Mysore. So we started at around 10.00 and reached Mysore around 1.00. We went to Chamundi hills first and the temple was heavily crowded. We went and see Nandi and after that we had lunch in Gurushree hotel. Later visited Mysore temple. We left Mysore around 4.00pm and as usual there was heavy traffic on the high way. It was 8.30 when we reached Malleshwaram. We handed over the car and came by Meru.

About Bandipur
Bandipur National , is a national park located in the south Indian state of Karnataka. It was once a private hunting reserve for the Maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore. Bandipur is known for its wildlifePark, established in 1974 as a tiger reserve under Project Tiger
The park spans an area of 874 square kilometers (337 sq mi), protecting several species of India's endangered wildlife

How to reach.
We took Mandya Mysore highway and the road goes to Ooty(via Nanjanagud and Gundupet)

Journey to SFO

We booked our ticket with southwest airlines and our scheduled departure was at 12:00pm. Unfortunately due to bad weather it delayed for 1:30hrs. It was in Newark airport. We finished security checking and got inside. Had to sit for longer time. We had a connecting flight from phoenix to SFO and that also got delayed. We suppose to reach at 3:00pm but we got 5:00pm flight from phoenix. There is 3hrs time difference between east coast and west coast. We reached SFO at 7:10pm local time. The climate was very chilling outside and I was literally shivering. We called our cab driver and he came 30mins late. He drove almost 30mins from the airport and we reached our hotel crown plaza in sanjose.
The next day we started early morning around 6:00am. Bus was ready outside our hotel. We headed towards SFO city. We went to Chinatown first and we had breakfast there. We ate egg sandwich with hash browns,Begal and Mocha.
Next we went to see crooked street/Lombard street. It is very nice and beautiful. The houses are realy colourful and artistic. We went to the top of that street and took some pics there. There are internal shuttles moving around which runs in electric.Even we could see trams moving around. Pretty nice place and seems to be posh area where rich people can afford to stay.
We went to see Golden gate then. Really amazing one which is painted in orange colour and its unique colour. That colour has patent and no one can use it either. It will take a year to paint whole bridge and every year it painted. So its never ending process.Its connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge. Technically, the 'gate' is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, while the 'strait' is the water flowing in between.
The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California.
When completed in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet (1,280.2m). Since 1964, its main span length has been surpassed by nine other bridges. However, it still has the second longest main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.

The total length of the Golden Gate Bridge, including approaches from abutment to abutment, is 8,981 feet (2,737 m).

At 692 feet (211m) (above water), the Golden Gate Bridge also had the world's tallest suspension towers when built. It held that status until 1998, with the completion of bridges in Denmark and Japan.

The bridge was originally painted with red lead primer and a lead-based topcoat, which was touched up as required. In the mid-1960s, a program was started to improve corrosion protection by stripping the original paint and repainting the bridge with zinc silicate primer and vinyl topcoats. Since 1990 acrylic topcoats have been used instead for air-quality reasons. The program was completed in 1995 and it is now maintained by 38 painters who touch up the paintwork where it becomes seriously corroded

Golden gate

Next we went to see Palace of fine arts. We didn't get much time to spend over there since we are running short of time. The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still situated on its original site. It was rebuilt in 1965, and was completed in early 2009.

It remains a popular attraction for tourists and locals, and is a favorite location for weddings and wedding party photographs for couples throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

We went to see Fisherman's wharf, Fisherman's Wharf gets its name and neighborhood characteristics from the city's early days during the Gold Rush where Italian emigre fishermen settled in the area and fished for the Dungeness Crab. From then until present day it remained the home base of San Francisco's fishing fleet. Despite its redevelopment into a tourist attraction during the 1970s and 1980s, the area is still home to many active fishermen and their fleets. In 2010, a $15million development plan was proposed by city officials hoping to revitalize its appearance for tourists, and to reverse the area's downward trend in popularity among San Francisco residents, who have shunned the locale over the years.
I like the fisherman's area, Nice hotels around and there are people who playing musical instruments. I saw one person playing drums. We had lunch in one of the mexicon hotel. I had berito.
We left to see the beach and from there we visited the church and bay area, which also known as gey area. There are few men walking without clothes.
Last we have seen the twin peaks. Which is a panoromic view of the SFO city. We took some pics there and left to our hotel and next day we suppose to visit Yosmite national park.

Niagara falls

We reached Niagara falls at around 10.00am and it was a 4hrs journey from our hotel. The falls looking stunning for me. It was very beautiful. We could see rainbows over there. We got almost 3hrs to spend because it will be night when we reach NY. There will be nearly 10hrs journey back to NY. So we had to rush.
Niagara Falls is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York. They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge.

From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls. The Horseshoe Falls lie on the Canadian side and the American Falls on the American side, separated by Goat Island. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also located on the American side, separated from the other waterfalls by Luna Island. The international boundary line was originally drawn through Horseshoe Falls in 1819, but the boundary has long been in dispute due to natural erosion and construction.

Located on the Niagara River which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world, with a vertical drop of more than 165 feet (50 m). Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by vertical height and also by flow rate.[3] The falls are located 17 miles (27 km) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York and 75 miles (121 km) south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York.

The Niagara Falls are renowned both for their beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Managing the balance between recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.

A powerful diesel-engined boat will take you from the Canadian docks past the base of the American Falls, then into the basin of the magnificent Canadian Horseshoe Falls.

Steamship departures from the Canadian side of the Niagara River are located at the Maid of the Mist Plaza.  Previously the location of the Princess Elizabeth Building , the Plaza was built in 1991 and is unique in that it is set into the gorge wall, with all buildings below ground level. The large brown stone tower, covered in split brick mosaic carvings of vines, houses four high-speed elevators that take passengers down to the docks at the river’s edge.  Taking a few steps up to the top of the tower provides a wonderful panoramic view of Niagara Falls and it is a very popular location for photographers.

 At the end of your boat tour, you will enter the Maid of the Mist Plaza, which includes gift shops, a quick serve food outlet, a Welcome Center and the ticket offices for the Maid of the Mist.   A two-level outdoor Marketplace features live entertainment daily throughout the summer, fun shopping like Misty Bear's Workshop where you can stuff and dress your own bear, and lots of tasty snack items.
Every dollar you spend with Niagara Parks helps preserve the nature and heritage of the Falls and the Niagara River corridor.  Niagara Parks has operated without tax dollars since 1885. 

We had lunch there and left to NY and reached back at 10:00pm.