Grand Canyon

About Grand Canyon : The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the state of Arizona in the United States of America. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile. Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While some aspects of the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists, several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down-cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon.
For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site and made pilgrimages to it

Duration of the Trip : For us, it was a one day trip from Phoenix, Arizona. Though it was enough to explore that area as a tourist, but 2-3 days trip is advisable in case one wants to witness the sunrise, sunset or perform trekking in Grand Canyon.

Transportation : We booked our 1 day Grand Canyon and Sedona Tour from Great Venture Tours. We booked the tour from Groupon.com. It cost us $129 per head which was inclusive of transportation cost (i.e., AC minivan), water bottle, and all the entry fees. We started from Phoenix at 6:00 am and reached back by 9:00 pm.

Details of the Trip: As instructed by the travel agency, we gathered near the ‘Ramada Hotel near 2nd Avenue 6:00 am. The van arrived by 6:15 am. There were 3-4 more pick ups on the ways before we had our first stop at Athena. Around 8:30 we had a 20 minutes stop at Camp Verde for breakfast. This place had many food joints like McDonalds', Subway, Tacobell, Starbucks etc.
Camp Verde is also famous for having a 32 foot tall Kokopelli which is the largest Kokopelli in the world. Those who doesn't know, a Kokopelli is Navajo Indian God of Wealth and Fertility.

World's Largest Kokopelli | Picture Courtesy : Google Image

As per the plan, we were supposed to visit Sedona Oak Creek Canyon and Bell Rock first and then head towards Grand Canyon. However, our driver cum guide suggested that it would be better to visit Sedona while coming back as traffic will be less and we can spend more time in Grand Canyon and hence the plan changed.

The first place we visited was Cameron Trading Post at Navajo. We reached at Navajo by 10:45 am and had an hour of stop there. During 1911, a swayback suspension bridge across the Colorado river which is now part of US Route 89. Soon after, two brothers, Hubert and C.D. Richardson established Cameron Trading Post, visited at that time only by the Navajo and Hopi locals to barter their wool, blankets, livestock for dry goods.
With the motels, art galleries constructed in red bricks, Cameron trading post, still carries the glory of past days. The art galleries here exhibits and sells the products made by native American of Navajo.

Bridge at Cameron Trading Post

Motel and Exhibit @ Cameron Trading Post

Buildings at Cameron Trading Post

This place has a good restaurant as well and we were suggested to have our lunch here.

After an hour or so, we started for South Rim of Grand Canyon and stopped at our first view point Lipan Point by 12:30 pm. Grand Canyon being one of my long-cherished destination, the view seemed to be birth taking beautiful to me.

View of Grand Canyon from Lipan Point

View of Grand Canyon from Lipan Point

View of Grand Canyon from Lipan Point

Formation of different layers @ Grand Canyon

This is a beauty that heart can never feel contained with. After enjoying the serenity of the place and a round of photo shooting, we headed towards the next view point.

Yaki Point was the next view point on our list. This place might not have the breathtaking beauty, but this place was definitely an adventure for us. There were no proper roads marked as Lipan point and we had to climb up and down to reach the cliff or the viewpoint which was really thrilling and exciting. This place has different sort of beauty which can't be described in words or captured in camera, it's only one's eyes and mind know what it is.

Crazy Photographers :)

Our next destination was Pipe Creek Vista, another viewpoint with mesmerizing beauty of nature truest form. We met here with a group of bicyclers who were cycling across the entire canyon, a definite and hardest travel goal!! :)

After visiting these viewpoints, our driver cum guide dropped us at 'Yavapai Point and Geological Museum' for a 30 minutes stop. Yavapai Point is claimed to be the best viewpoint of South Rim, however, I don't agree. The Geological Museum in-house a souvenir shop and lots of information about Grand Canyon.  I personally loved the 3D representation of the rims which elaboration of each level and the model of Grand Canyon.

After visiting the museum, we headed to Grand Canyon village. One of the famous places of the village is Hopi House, a native American style house which is also an  exhibit and shop for  native American products.

There were few more sale cum exhibits in the Grand Canyon village. The famous historical El Tovar hotel, which was built in 1901, is also situated in Grand Canyon village. We had a wish to have our lunch over there but it was so crowded and there was a big queue, we didn't want to take risk of our van leaving us behind :).

Around 4:30 pm, we headed out of Grand Canyon for returning back to Pheonix. Though we were promised to take Oak Creek Canyon and Bell Rocks in Sedona, our driver only took us to Bell Rock and that too just for few minutes.  We reached Sedona around 6 pm.

Finally, we headed to Pheonix and reached there by 9 pm.

Note : I am not really satisfied with Great Venture tours, the reason being they didn't make all the destinations as they promised, the driver was extremely talkative and annoying and gave lots of unnecessary breaks and wasted lots of time. So, I personally wouldn't recommend this travel agency.

Disclaimer: We went for this trip in July’2016. There are changes of rates and timings getting changed with time. I tried to provide as much as details are possible for the trip. For any further clarification please feel free to contact me @ dutshilpi@gmail.com

Philadelphia

About Philadelphia: Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the fifth-most populous in the United States. In 1682, William Penn founded the city to serve as the capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787. Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals in the Revolutionary War and served as temporary U.S. capital while Washington, D.C., was under construction.

Duration of the Trip: It was not exactly like other trips we normally take. I don’t remember how but all of a sudden, the idea of celebrating-nation’s-birthday-at-nation’s-birthplace’ occurred to me and we planned to visit Philadelphia on just the previous night. We had booked for Statue of Liberty and tickets back to Chicago on the next day, so we had to fit Philadelphia on 4th July.
For a normal Philadelphia trip, 2 days are enough.

Transportation: We drove to Philadelphia from Parsippany, New Jersey and came back on the same day.

Details of the Trip: We were visiting NYC the previous day, which turned out to be very hectic; we couldn’t manage to get up from bed before 10 am. After getting ready and finishing our lunch from one of the Indian Restaurant nearby, we started from Parsippany by 12 at noon and reached Philadelphia by 2:30 pm.
We couldn’t find any free parking in the nearby area of American museum, so we parked our car at the car parking of the museum.
As it was Independence Day, most of the visiting places were closed or were closing early. The places we managed to visit were,
National Liberty Museum is dedicated to preserving America’s heritage of freedom by encouraging people to find their own place in the story of liberty. Visitors to the Museum enjoy an inspiring and entertaining experience, as they interact with incredible stories of heroes and a collection of contemporary art. The core themes of National Liberty Museum for young people and adults include leadership and good character; diversity and inclusion; peaceful conflict resolution; and civic engagement. The primary art form of National Liberty Museum is glass art, as it makes the point that freedom is as fragile as glass.

I liked the Liberty Museum as it’s a very different kind of museum. Unlike the other museum, it is not a gallery of old memories, weapons, and cloths. But museum displays what exactly independence means and from what all we need to get independence.

Flame of Liberty - A Glass Structure at National Liberty Museum

A Glass Structure at National Liberty Museum

Abir Found the Hero within Him

All dressed up for Independence Day

Hiding Under the Flag - A Glass Structure at National Liberty Museum

Liberty is Alive

Entry fee for National Liberty Museum is $7 per head. But as it was Independence Day, there was no ticket as such. One can pay any amount they want.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding father of United States spent his last few years in Philadelphia. Franklin Court or the house of Benjamin Franklin is complex of museums, structures, and historic sites situated right behind the National Liberty Museum, one of the must visit places in Philadelphia.

House of Benjiam Franklin

Posing outside the house of Benjiam Franklin

Abir is waiting to rent the house of Benjiam Franklin :P

This place operates between 9 am to 5 pm every day. However, we couldn’t go inside as we reached there after 5 pm.
Independence Hall is a red brick building designed in the Georgian style. Independence Hall is definitely the most important building of Philadelphia; probably for the entire nation. This is the place where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted. This building mainly has two halls, Supreme Court room, and Assembly room.

Independence Hall 

Assembly room is the place where the United States got its independence. As I have already mentioned we went Philadelphia to celebrate ‘nation’s-birthday-at-nation’s-birthplace’; in a literal sense, while we were standing inside the Assembly room, we were the actual place where the biggest nation of the world was born. It was definitely a goose bump moment for me.

Birthplace of America

Independence Hall operates daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. from May 28 - September 5, 2016, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. July 1 – 4 and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from September 6, 2016, to May 2017. There is no entry fee for Independence Hall.
The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence. Formerly the bell was placed in the steeple of the Independence Hall; the bell today is located in the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park.

Liberty Bell

The crack in the bell is probably more famous than the bell itself. There are multiple stories behind the crack of the bell. No one recorded when or why the Liberty Bell first cracked, but the most likely explanation is that a narrow split developed in the early 1840's after nearly 90 years of hard use. In 1846, when the city decided to repair the bell prior to George Washington's birthday holiday, metal workers widened the thin crack to prevent its further spread and restore the tone of the bell using a technique called "stop drilling". The wide "crack" in the Liberty Bell is actually the repair job! Look carefully and you'll see over 40 drill bit marks in that wide "crack". But, the repair was not successful. The Public Ledger newspaper reported that the repair failed when another fissure developed. This second crack, running from the abbreviation for "Philadelphia" up through the word "Liberty", silenced the bell forever. No one living today has heard the bell ring freely with its clapper.
Liberty Bell Center operates daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. from May 28 - September 5, 2016. Open 'til 8 p.m. July 1 - 4. Open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from September to May 201 and closed on Christmas Day. The security screening area closes 5 minutes before the building closes.

Philadelphia City Centre

Street Art near City Centre

Street Art near City Centre

Street Art near City Centre

Another famous place in Philadelphia is The Rocky Statue and the Rocky Steps. This is the steps of Philadelphia Art Museum. However, because of the Rock Concert of 4th July, we couldn’t visit this place.
Next place we visited was Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The Parkway is the spine of Philadelphia's Museum District. Most of the famous buildings of Philadelphia is situated across this parkway. What I loved the most about this place is the display of flags of the different country. There is not a single country whose flag is not available on this street. The flags are hosted and displayed in an alphabetical order.

Franklin Parkway. Could not capture all the flags

I read somewhere that Philadelphia hosts nation’s biggest Rock concert and Fireworks. A rock concert is organized in the Franklin Parkway, in front of Art Museum and fireworks are displayed on top of the Art Museum. So we find our self a comfortable place and settled there. I am not a big fan of Rock music (except Bengali rock) and didn’t actually like the concert over there. The fireworks were scheduled to be started at 10:30 pm but finally it started at around 12 at night and continued for 30-45 minutes. I was a bit disappointed with the fireworks as well. I personally felt the fireworks in Niagara is much better than this one and is definitely not worth of comparing with the fireworks of Navy Pier Chicago or Macy’s Fireworks NYC.

We had our dinner in Subway in Franklin Parkway and headed to the parking spot where we parked our car. Finally, we reached Parsippany by 3 am in the night.

Disclaimer: We went for this trip in July’2015. There are changes of rates and timings getting changed with time. I tried to provide as much as details are possible for the trip. For any further clarification please feel free to contact me @ dutshilpi@gmail.com.

Skydiving - A trip to Cloud Nine

Me on Cloud Nine

Skydiving can’t actually be called as a trip; however if one wants to make an experience of the lifetime in just one day, skydiving is probably the best way to do.

What is skydiving and how it is different from paragliding: I have often heard people referring skydiving as paragliding or parachute jumping; some people even consider both are the same sort of sports. However, to clear that, no, skydiving is not at all same as paragliding and it's an advanced version of parachute jumping or Parachuting or sky jumping.
The main difference between skydiving and paragliding is, Skydiving is performed as an assortment of aerial maneuvers and stunts like the acrobatics before deploying from a parachute. People having different levels of physical fitness participating in skydiving. Paragliding is a sport in which a wide canopy resembling a parachute is attached to a person's body by a harness in order to allow them to glide through the air after jumping from or being lifted to a height.
Skydiving is considered as a terrifying and exhilarating type of sport because the participants jump or fall from the aircraft at the desired high altitudes. The parachute, used in skydiving slows the descent and allows the skydiver to land gently on Earth. So people, never call skydiving is same as paragliding, as I know many takes an offense for the same. ;)
Tandem Skydiving is skydiving for beginners where a professional skydiver will be tied through harness with you.

Booking, Cost, and Transportation: Upon doing my bit of research about best tandem skydiving places, we finally settled with Adrenaline. We booked the weekday package of Skydiving Chicago – 9000ft jump which ideally cost $169 but they also give a flat $15 discount on booking online. So it cost us around $159.
The skydiving center is at Rochelle, IL which is around 90 miles from Chicago downtown. The only option to reach there is a personal vehicle or rented cabs as there is no option for any public transport. If in case one doesn’t have any personal vehicle, can avail the free round trip shuttle from Chicago downtown but it's available only during the weekend only for 14000ft which costs $219.
We drove to Rochelle from Chicago downtown and it took approximately 2 hrs. It is advisable to reach there at least 1 hour before your scheduled time.
Three different type of photography packages are available there for skydiving, $99 – Any one of Still or Video, $129 – Both still and video photography, $149 – Still, video and One camera will be attached to the instructor and will shoot the entire jump but it will be more of a selfie sort of video. I opted for $129 package under the assumption the photographer will cover entire jump, starting from getting on the plane, jump, freefall, parachute trip and landing. However, they don’t cover the parachute part. But still the outcome was good enough.

Dressing: You can wear absolutely anything you want to wear but it’s advisable to wear something comfortable. If needed, they provide a jumpsuit free of cost. Sports shoe is a must.

D-Day: Our booking was for 2 pm slot on the Memorial Day. We wanted not to have any sort of surprises and not late at all, so we started from Chicago downtown by 11 am and reach Chicagoland Skydiving Center, Rochelle by 1 pm. After reaching there, we had to go through the quick checking process. Actually, during the checking process, one has to go through a big form and sign that but as it was much crowded because of Memorial Day, CSC had sent us the form in an email a day advance and we had to fill that before reaching there.
After reaching, we had to go through a quick procedure of showing our id proof, signing up for the photography package (optional), checking the weight, they showed us a video to make us aware of the risks involved in skydiving. All these took a max of 15 minutes.
We then roamed around for a bit and saw people jumping from the plane until our names were announced. I met my instructor, Chris Rea, and photographer, Beau Riebe in the meeting lobby. They gave me a jumpsuit to get dressed up and once I was dressed up in a jumpsuit, he set the harness around me for jumping and gave me the required instruction to follow during jump and landing.
In tandem skydiving, the parachute is tied to the instructor, not with the person who is attempting the jump to avoid any short of the unwanted situation and as I told earlier the instructor was tied to jumper using the harness. So it’s a very important thing to make sure that harness is tied perfectly. He also attached an altimeter to my wrist which will show us the altitude we are at.

Our Flight

Me and Chris boarding Flight

I was literally counting every moment as we boarded the plane. I was about to achieve my longtime dream. It was the first time in my life when I was in a plane without any air hostess, and almost no do’s and don’ts. Also, it was the first time ever I could literally feel the temperature change with height. My eyes were constantly glued to the altimeter, with lots of mixed emotions, the joy of doing something very different than my regular routine, a bit of worry if I will be okay after doing this and a lot of excitements; I was continuously grinning like a fool.

Inside the plane

When we were at the altitude of 8000ft and was getting prepared to jump, our pilot announced due to some restrictions from O’Hare Airport, we have to make the jump from 14000ft instead of 9000ft and the upgrade is free. Now, what can be better than that! As an Indian, I always love free stuff and this free thing, was like 'Sone pe suhaga'
Once we are at the height of around 13500ft, we were signaled to get ready for the jump. Chris double checked all the attachments before jumping. There were a couple of professional skydivers in our flight, they jumped before us. Their jumps were so effortless, it never felt like they were jumping from a height of 14000ft but looking like they were jumping just from a small stool to ground.

Professional Skydiving jumping alone

Finally, it was my turn to jump, the moment before to jump, I was little skeptical about my ability, especially seeing those professionals. But trust me, I never realized when I jumped and once I realized that I am actually out of place and under the open sky, it was an out of the world feeling.
Due to the extra height of 14000ft, we got extra free-fall of 60 seconds. Many people asked me if I was feeling the hollowness what we feel while getting down in a lift or during the landing of an airplane. But it was nothing like that; in fact, it was a feeling of floating in the air. I was literary on cloud nine.

During Freefall

During Freefall

During Freefall

Once Chris deployed a parachute, I felt all of the sudden someone hold me tightly from the top. Though the feeling of floating was gone but it was also awesome as it felt more secure.

Deploying the parachute

With the parachute, we flew in the air for some more time and Chris showed me different tricks of flying and then slowly we started to come down to the ground. Though I couldn’t manage a perfect landing, but the experience was more than perfect.

Landing

Once I landed, Chris helped me removing the harness. We had to wait for another half an hour for collecting the photographs and video.

Celebrating Success

Yaay :) !!

By around 3:30, we left the place with lots of memories (physical memory as pen drive which contains the photos and videos of the dive and my own memory which will be the proudest possession of mine for rest of my life). I was too ecstatic about the entire thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about the same entire day.

Disclaimer : We went on this trip in May’ 2016. There are chances that price and timing have got changed. Please check with Adrenaline about current timing and rates. I have tried to provide as much as details are possible for the skydiving. For any further clarification, feel free to post comments on the blog or contact me @ dutshilpi@gmail.com.