But it is moonless night...!

Ever imagined how it would be to daily get out of the house and have a conversation with the nature and how the absence of the moon could probably dull the moment where you all used to have group chat? I here present to you such world where a young girl is missing the moon who slowly vanishes every fortnight from her sight. When I read it again, I felt this could be applied to any one who is in love and have a regular separation written in their fate.... sip it up one word at a time and let me know what you think :)

Freeze the time, now!

There are often moments, which we want to be over as soon as possible and there are some moments which just flash like a falling star and you wish it lasted for some more time. What is your moment, which you want to freeze in time and lock it up? Do the lines in this poem reflect your thoughts? Share with me  in comments :)

In the pic, one of my beautiful friend Akanksha,  who was admiring first super moon of this year! :)

ಸ್ಪೂರ್ತಿ!

In the pic : Maneet, my friend's son :)

dinavu udayisuva sooryanalla
tampereva irulalla
beesuva gaaliyalla
suriva maleyalla
naguva maguvalla
aluva mogavalla
hita mitavada mishranadi adugeyu poorti
anteye kaviya manadalli mooduva spoorthi

novige nalivina lepana
malagida nenapina sinchana
bhavodvegada narthana
sallapada aalaapana
jagake hidida darpana
kaledukonda ashrutarpana
bhavanegalu aadaga bharti
kavite geechalu mooduvude spoorthi

Translation:

It is neither the rising sun

nor the soothing night

It is neither the wind

nor the pouring rain

It is neither the smiling baby

Nor the weeping face

Inspiration to a poet is

Such that the essences of a satisfying recipe

Smearing of happiness to the pain

Sprinkle of memories to sleeping heart

Dancing of the emotions within

Beginning of romance

Mirror to the world

Mourning to the lost

Inspiration to a poet is

That which happens when emotions can't be held anymore!

ಹಳೇ ಬೇರು- ಹೊಸ ಚಿಗುರು!

I saw this pic which my friend had as her WhatsApp DP and I was inspired to write something from a point of view of the woman linking the root and the bud :)


PS: I am not sure I could provide enough justice with the translation. This was a small effort as my friends kept demanding me to translate :)

PC: Shreedevi (Thank you!) 

ಸಂಗಾತಿ ಜೊತೆಗಿರಲು,
ಜೀವನದಿ ಹಗಲಿರುಳು,
ಬಿಂಬವಾಗಿ ನಿಂತಿರಲು
ಹಳೇ ಬೇರು- ಹೊಸ ಚಿಗುರು....

While the compainion
is there through the walk of life,
standing there I see the reflection,
Old root - new bud......

ನನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ನೆನಪುಗಳ
ರಾಗಗಳ ಗಾಯಕನು - ಹಳೇ ಬೇರು
ನನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ನಾಳೆಗಳ
ಸಾಗರದ ನಾವಿಕನು - ಹೊಸ ಚಿಗುರು
Singer of all of my past memories
beholding all my emotions - old root
Navigator of all my
future ocean of hopes  - new bud


ಕಳೆದೆಲ್ಲಾ ದಿನಗಳ ಮೆಲುಕಲು,
ಬರುವೆಲ್ಲ ಕ್ಷಣಗಳ ಕನಸು ಕಾಣಲು,
ಜೊತೆಯಾಗಿ ನಡೆ ನೀ - ಕನ್ನಡಿಯಾಗಿ
ಜೊತೆಗಾರ ಬೆಸೆದಿರು ನನ್ನಯ..... ಹಳೇ ಬೇರು- ಹೊಸ ಚಿಗುರು!

To reminiscence all my past,
to dream together a dream of tomorrow,
to reflect on my life, to see along with me,
Stay my love and bond with my - old root and new bud!

ಆಲೋಚನೆ

You arrive without an invite
your exit is not in my might!

you travel boundless
pouring on me like a storm,
soothing like the night,
a company in loneliness,
forsaker in the crowd....

you throw questions high
to quest the answer, day and night

When I loaf around like a nomad
in bits and pieces you arrive - oh my thought!

ಕ್ಷಣ

ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಕ್ಷಣಿಕ.... ನಿನ್ನ ಕ್ಷಣಕೆ, ನೀನೇ ನಾವಿಕ! 

ಮುಗುಳ್ನಗೆ

PC : My friend Deepa :)

Wild West road trip through 5 states, through my lens

It had been couple of months since a road trip that we had taken from Seattle to many parts of Oregon, which I have shared with you all in my previous blog  and I got too excited when my husband decided a road trip with my visiting mother-in-law to Las Vegas and nearby tourist attractions, instead of taking a flight.
I have my own inclination towards a road or train trip which lets me float away into my own world looking at the never ending road or the passing by terrain.

I must say our trip was pretty packed due to the fact that it takes a day to get out of Texas! We started our day 1 pretty early in the morning with a target of covering at least 75% of our journey the same day(it was a 15.5 hrs drive one way to Vegas!) and pretty much started regretting within the first 3 hours as we had absolutely nothing to look at because of the flat terrain Texas had up in the North(that doesn't mean you have nothing to see in Texas. Check out some cool pics and details about one of the places in Texas Hill Country  and there is a lot more to Texas).

Windmills tried to add some motion to the rather boring drive!

Too early for snow in Texas, so here is some cotton! ;)

Since I have so many different experiences to share, I will break them down into multiple blogs so that I don't bore you to the extent the drive till Texas border bored us ;)

Checkout
The drive, the divide and the crater

Walnut Canyon in Arizona

Vegas, Antelope and Horse Shoe bend


Details:
5 days of travel through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Utah

On the way attractions(Not listing everything):

• Texas : Paul Duro Canyon
• New Mexico : Plan a separate trip to cover this amazing place. Based on what time of the year you travel, you have a lot of action here (Albuquerque for skiing, baloon festivals, Santa Fe, Santa Rosa etc)
• Arizona: Options to stop at Flagstaff or take a little detour and cover Sedona and Grand Canyon
• Nevada: Vegas strip!
• Utah: Lots of national parks (Zion National park and also the drive itself is picturesque) 

Wild West road trip through 5 states - (2) The drive, the divide and the crater

Our initial plan was to target and reach somewhere close to Flagstaff and go to the mountains. However, once we were out of Texas and in New Mexico, the flat land was replaced with beautiful stretch of huge orange/reddish walls parallel to the road, as if it was some sort of a fortress.
I googled up while we chatted about the possibility of it being Continental divide and this natural mighty rocks  guarding and standing tall indeed was the Continental divide, which was unbelievable. I will not bug you with some geographical information, however it is important to know the brilliant the natural phenomenon looks. The icing on the top is the match box like goods train passing by in the opposite direction right in front of you, reminding of the old wild west movies ;) As the dusk arrived, it seemed more like sun was kissing goodbye to these blushing rocks!

Continental divide standing tall while the herd peacefully graze with a constant chugging train

A small clipping I recorded while my husband kept driving parallel to the Continental divide (This video is no justice to what your eyes can really see!)

We continued our journey talking about the UFOs since we were still in the land of the sightings and I got curious and started looking at the nearby attractions, which popped up lots of options. Since it was too late for us, we decided to halt in Winslow however, it also meant we could not visit  the painted hills desert or the petrified forests, which came up on google search, as it was already dark, however Winslow boasted of a meteor crater which I had never heard of from any of friends. Since it was not much of a deviation from our original plan, we decided to give it an hour the next morning before reaching Flagstaff and I am so glad we decided to halt in Winslow.
Day 2:
It was a very short deviation of 15-20 mins from I-40 again entering into a place which looked like No Man's land! As we started to enter the premises, we started to wonder if we were on earth or Mars(guess the movies spoil us!). We decided not to take a guided tour because, of course we had to keep going to reach Flagstaff and did not want to spend an hour and a half there just watching crater. But you know what? We spent probably a lil more than that admiring and wondering about the universe and it's beautiful science as well as mystery! I had read someone blog about how the drive along continental divide made him think of how small he was and seeing this put me into the perspective!

This huge crater, though looks small in this pic is as huge as 20 football fields put together!

This is one of the best preserved site and I learned about this place being  used for Apollo astronaut training as it so closely resembled moon's terrain (the crater).The pictures I have is no comparison to what you can see right there - the impact a meteor can create! While this was universe at work, I would like to mention that who ever built the observatory had an eye for beauty. While the whole observatory has wall, he made sure to leave big wide open window for the distant mountain to fit in it perfectly like a beautiful wall painting!

No, it is not a LCD TV put on display! It is the actual mountains in distance which you can see standing there (Imagine a night/early morning on full moon!)

Also checkout:

Walnut Canyon in Arizona

Vegas, Antelope and Horse Shoe bend

For the whole trip plan, visit: https://soumya-innervoice.blogspot.com/2017/11/wild-west-road-trip-through-5-states_7.html

Wild West road trip through 5 states - (3) Walnut Canyon(Arizona)

After walking up and down the deck at different levels until we were satisfied, we started our journey to Flagstaff. It was our mistake that we did not look up to see if it had snow (I tried checking live cameras, which never gave me the view of the peak) and were disappointed to see that it was a good warm day with nothing but dried up mountain. With a little disappointment as we headed to our next location, we learned about a local canyon and drove there. Walnut Canyon was something which we had not remotely thought of but were stunned by the beautiful houses which were carved out of the mountains by the Sinagua tribes hundreds of years ago. It is one of the national monument and is well maintained, providing staircase and walkway around a central mountain to walk around and learn about how they had built their houses, conserved and lived with minimal water which was available.

The carved out pathway in the mountain

Remains of one of the house

Remains of one of the swelling on a flat land

A view from the view point

 I could not resist but compare this one very closely to what we find back home in Ajanta/ Ellora caves - both with their own set of history and beauty. One cannot resist but think of the distance we have come as humans looking at all the things I have mentioned in this series.
Oh, make sure to carry enough water while you go down the trail. Also, there is a mile's stretch of trail which leads you to the spot where they built their houses, while also learning a bit about some herbs on the pathway.

Also checkout:

The drive, the divide and the crater

Vegas, Antelope and Horse Shoe bend

For the whole trip plan, visit: https://soumya-innervoice.blogspot.com/2017/11/wild-west-road-trip-through-5-states_7.html