Family trip to Alaska

After kids' graduation from middle and high school, with my son going to college, we decided to take a family trip as the summer vacation started. After lot of debates, we ended up with Alaska. I had been to Alaska ~20 years back before kids but still had lots of memories as its such a remarkable place. 

Here is what we did:

June 9 - Travel around Anchorage to collect bear spray and go to Mt McKinley. The sights from McKinley Wilderness Lodge were unreal

June 10 - We took the evening flight to McKinley with Talkeetna Air. They were superb. We saw amazing views of McKinley up close but the most interesting thing was landing on a glacier. Even more interesting was that instead of landing at the regular spot, they landed at basecamp since they had to pickup a climber who had just completed the McKinley hike. We got to see the basecamp setup. I admired at both the mountains but also how minimalistic the base camp setup was.

June 11 - We spent this day inside Denali National Park. We did a small hike from the visitors center and then drove up to mile 15 to Savage River and the views were dramatic. On the way back, we saw a Moose at length eating shrubbery

June 12 - We spent the day at the Wildlife Conservatory watching bears and other animals up close on our way to Seward

June 13 - Our tour to the glacier got canceled due to rough choppy waters, so we went to Exit Glacier. The glacier is so beautiful that instead what was supposed to be a one hour hike, we spent a good 4-5 hours admiring the glacier from both the valley below and the hike end points

June 14 - The day had a lot of rain, so we did a small hike near the beach where we saw bald eagles circling and perching atop trees. It was a sight to behold. We also saw Hera Pheri while inside the AirBnb and discovered some good prepared meals in the nearby Safeway! That was a life saver!

June 15 - We did a 7.5 hour trip to see two glaciers with Major Marine tours. It was one of the best on water tours I have done in my life. The tidewater glaciers were a sight to behold. We saw some calving too with ice falling the water. The sound was bigger than I expected as massive chunks of ice fell in the water. We saw some whales, puffins and dalls porpoise (surprisingly fun as they swam on the waves created by the ship).

All in all, a lot of family bonding in a wonderful setting. We also had a lot of heavy philosophical discussions about life goals, which I am sure the kids did not love :).

Work trip to NY

 It was a work trip but not much to say, except on my son's recommendation, I went to visit St. Patrick Cathedral one evening. It was fun. Also ate some good south indian food at Annapurna near Times Square. A very productive trip work wise and the location of Uber's NY office cannot be beat, right next to the World Trade Center site! But from there I went for 2 days to Toronto where we also have an office. I met my sister and the remarkable thing was a restaurant we ate at where the food was ok but the live singers were out of this world!

Indian Wells for the 3rd time

 I have been to Indian Wells twice now and trying to make a habit of it. It would be fair to say that I am deep into Tennis these days. From Covid days when I started learning Tennis as a necessity as one of the few sports with social distancing built into it, I feel I have come a long way. This time, the "goal" was to watch Djokovic, Sinner or Swiatek live. I was happy that my schedule and their matches allowed me to achieve two of those 3. Saw Djokovic and Swiatek up close. The icing on the cake was Djokovic playing doubles with Tsitsipas. I also hiked the mountains near Palm Springs downtown which was fun

Visiting my birthplace after 16 years

We had taken Adi when he was 1 year old or so to my birthplace for his Mundan ceremony. Since then, I have been to Jaipur related to work and could not go back to Kuchaman City where I was born. This time my nephew's marriage gave us the perfect excuse!

Before the marriage, I spent a few days in Bangalore visiting my team for the first time. Work was very productive! On the fun side, we did one dinner at Gladia which was this amazing Greek themed Indian fusion restaurant. I don't think we find such elaborate architecture even in the US that often (except places like Las Vegas). I was super impressed. I also ate at Rameshwaram cafe meeting my cousin sister which was super interesting as well!

Now to the Rajasthan part of the trip. We spent a full day in Kuchaman City. Seeing the large Gaushala was humbling. Both my parents grew up in this place so they know a bunch of folks in the city. I met a many aunts on my Mom's side and finally went to my birth home that we rented when I was born. The new owners were gracious enough to allow us into the home and take videos. Understanding where you came from is such a human experience. 

The marriage was nothing short of spectacular, especially meeting all my cousins and the amazing food. It was a blast. We also went to the marble flats of Kishangarh where you see thousands of acres of marble dust formations that you can walk on. You could easily mistake it for Pamukkale in Turkey. I got my shoe stuck in marble dust muck which took quite some time to take off! I directly took off from Delhi back to SFO.

Around the bay with Parents

With parents visiting across two visits in the summer, we did a bunch of day trips. Highlights were going to Santa Cruz with extended family and the Ritz Carlton, associated beach in Half Moon Bay and Muir Woods. We had many picnics with family as well as did Ganpati together at home. It is worth noting that Anu and Surabhi spent a few days in London on their way to India where they had a lot of fun with the sights, shopping and food. They also did a waterfall hike in India that looked interesting.

Toronto, Niagara falls and New York

Adi and I took my parents back from the bay to visit my sister and spent some time there. The trip was brief but not without our pigrimmage to Niagara Falls. This time I made it a point to wake up early to see the falls without the crowds and it did not disappoint! I also had work both in Toronto and New york. Then we headed to New York for work, where I did my well, work and Adi and his penpal from NY spent the days traveling in downtown. He told me to visit St Patrick Cathedral the next time I am there and I took note. It was also humbling to see the 9/11 memorial. Uber's office is right next to that, so we also got an exclusive top down view of the memorial. It was memorable trip.

A quick trip to India

 While Anu and Surabhi planned to be in India for 2 months, Adi and I made a quick trip to meet my ailing father-in-law. We just went to Surat and Mumbai. Adi got to meet with a lot of extended family and understood our family history directly narrated by my dad to him. Unfortunately, my aunt (dad's sister) and uncle tragically passed away during the same time, so all in all, I came back with a heavy heart. 

Tennis at Indian Wells

 Given the success of the last trip, I couldn't help but plan it again for 2025. It is so easy to fly in and watch world class tennis that if I can help it, I will try to make it a yearly habit. This time, I flew directly in Palm Springs instead of outskirts of LA and spent 3 days with my friend Abhijit and his daughter just watching tennis. The schedule was simple - breakfast at a diner, followed by tennis all day and go to sleep! We saw matches of Sabalenka, Alcaraz and a bunch of really interesting singles and doubles games. Hoping we go again in 2026.

Big Island - Lava edition

I love going to Hawaii even if the kids are now older and don't align all the time. But this time around, the "new" thing was ability to see Lava flows. Lava eruptions are uncertain, so I wasn't sure if luck would favor us or not, but even without that, I felt that kids are big enough now to do the Caldera (Kilauea Iki) hike which we missed the last couple times due to various reasons. Last time we did see the smoldering Lava but not the flows. 

As usual, we spent a 3 days on the Kona side and 3 days on the Hilo side. On the Kona side, this time we stayed at the Hilton Wailokoa Village for a few days and kids had a blast. The highlight was kayaking into an artificial waterfall which we all enjoyed. We also loved the dolphin show, ate some great food an saw turtles and beautiful fish at the lagoon. 

Once in Hilo, we went to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We did the Caldera Hike and it was breathtaking! From there we went for late lunch and then were contemplating whether we would see lava flows in the night when some visitors told us that lava was erupting and we could easily see it from one of the view points. We rushed to that view point and the scene was breathtaking, we were in the midst of vapors from the lava flow and once we got to a point where those vapors were a bit away, we saw a clear eruption of lava in the caldera. It was breathtaking and even though it was getting cold, we watched for roughly 45 mins. 

The final day we went back to Kona where I snorkeled in King Kamehameha beach with beautiful fish around. But the highlight was parasailing undoubtedly! The kids loved it! Surabhi got to go twice because the group was uneven and while bringing us down, we could dip our feet in the water.

Work trip to Paris

After 8 years, I was back in Paris for a business trip. Outside of work, I went to the Eiffel tower and watched the sunset. That was a unique experience! Getting an advance ticket was really important as it was still very crowded even in late Oct on a weekday. I also went to Fontainebleau to see the beautiful palace. The paintings and sculptures inside the palace were nothing short of spectacular. And one of my colleagues took us to a live performance by local artists as well as a rooftop bar with views of the Eiffel tower. It was a productive and fun trip!

Boys trip to Napa

With a close friend visiting from India, a bunch of us spent a couple of days in Napa. The highlight was playing pickleball for hours and going to the Black Stallion Estate Winery where we hung out among the vineyards in beautiful weather! The dinner in Napa downtown was nice as well!

Glacier National Park

I have visited many popular national parks like Yosemite, YellowStone, Zion, Great Canyon and Rainier, and Glacier was top of the list but somehow a trip never worked out. This time, after saying goodbye to our cousin in Calgary, we drove down to USA entering Glacier from the east side. We were wowed by the natural beauty and going to the sun road is totally worth the hype! We stayed inside the park at the Rising Sun Motor Inns and Cabins, which had a non-luxorious but beautiful setting with a view of huge mountains. We covered the entire park from there. We can't pick a favorite part of the park. The boat rides from Many Glacier took on Swift current Lake and then on Lake Josephine after a 0.2 mile hike were surrounded with beautiful vistas. From Lake Josephine, we hiked to Grinnell Lake which is about a mile out. We saw a huge deer literally 20 feet from us and a moose in the distance. We also went on a guided hike to the beaver pond loop where we saw meadows with beautiful wildflowers. On the last day, we went to Two Medicine which was another beautiful lake with mountains around it, straight out of a postcard!

Calgary, Banff and Yoho National Park

The larger area around Banff is one of my favorites in the world and yet we have explored so little of it. This time, we decided to explore Yoho National Park starting with Emerald Lake, then Takakkaw falls followed by a stay 20 miles from the town of Golden in the woods by a river. The next day, we did the Wapta falls main trail and the hike to falls as well as the view from the bottom was stunning! We again went to Emerald Lake for lunch as we clearly hadn't gotten enough of it. On the way back we went to Peyto Lake and Bow Lake each with their tremendous beauty and turquoise waters. We skipped rocks in Bow Lake which was fun for the kids. The icing on the cake was that my cousin who has moved to Calgary was with us with their family. Driving their big GM Escalade was also a lot of fun!

London, Cotswolds and Seven Sisters

I have been to London just once when my sister was studying for work. At the time, we really enjoyed visiting Cambridge and Burton on the water in Cotswolds. I fell in love with the quaint English picturesque villages. So this time, we decided to make Cotswolds as the base for part of the trip. We stayed in Cirencester at the Old Brew House which stood the test of time from the 1700s when horse carriages were prevalent. Then we went to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare and visited his parents house. They enact plays there and I got to play the bystander that gets stabbed :). On the way back we visited Stow on the Wold and Bourton on the water, both really picturesque towns. The next day we headed to Stonehenge and Bath, each with their own historical significance. You almost felt like living through different times in history. On the 4th day we checked out and visited Bibury, another beautiful Cotswolds town. From there, we headed to Oxford. Support for Palestine was high with flags and they had fully occupied Radcliffe Camera. The campus is beautiful and the school was in session so we got to see the real deal with lots of students around. Then, we headed to Cambridge where we did punting on the river and saw the various colleges with their significance. It was quite the experience seeing Kings College and a bunch of other colleges. 

We went to London for the last few days. First day, we went to Seven Sisters National Park in Eastbourne. The pebble beach with white cliffs is really unique and I haven't seen anything like it! The town of Eastbourne is a beautiful quaint town and the train ride was a lot of fun as well. We saw all the key sights in London like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge with opening and it was great. The only thing that was stressful was the Change of Guard ceremony with the crazy crowds. The shopping at Oxford Street was great for the family with Govindas being a highlight for vegetarian satvik food. I attended a Kirtan in the temple while the family shopped and it was really soothing. We also ate at Chokhi Dhani and Dishoom which was good too!

There was one major coincidence that I must talk about and that is meeting my sister in East London University when we were going to meet her the next day. It was really serendipitous and great to see her university.

Here is the itinerary for the whole trip.

June 1 - Drive to Cotswolds + rest day

June 2 - Cotswolds/Stratford upon Avon

June 3 - Stonehenge + Bath

June 4 - Go to Oxford + Cambridge

June 5 - Come to London from Cambridge

June 6 - Seven Sisters Eastbourne

June 7 - London

June 8 - London

June 9 - Fly back

Tennis at Indian Wells

Until this time, I had only seen Tennis live once, and that too a charity match for Africa where we saw Federer and Bill Gates in 2018. It had been a long desire since to go watch a tournament live. Six years later, the stars aligned for us to go watch the Indian Wells Open. It was a blast! We watched 7 full games and many parts of games. The games that stood out were Sabalenka nearly losing to Stearns in a hard fought match and Monfils beating Norrie.

Here are the full games we saw live

Mar 9

Sabalenka vs P Stearns

Medvedev vs $ Carballes Baena

Mar 10

Tsitsipas vs Tiafoe

A Kalinskaya vs J Paolini

A Kerber vs V Kudermetova

Zverev vs Griekspoor

Haddad Maia vs Pavlyuchenkova

The added bonus on this trip was spending half a day in the Palm Springs Air Museum which had planes from WW2 to the more recent B2 stealth bomber. It was amazing to see so many planes of yore and the museum is right next to PSP airport allowing you to see planes landing and taking off from a short distance.

India Trip

We hadn't been to India in the winter vacation for the longest time as it would end up being short, but we bit the bullet this time. The agenda was mainly to meet family but also do a trip to Ashtavinayak together. The itinerary including visiting 8 Ganesh temples as per the Maharashtrian tradition and we also added Tuljapur which is sacred to my wife's family. We rented a 17 seater with my parents and sister and there were 7 of us in what can be best described as a mini bus. Here was our plan

Dec 28

• Leave for Pune

• Lunch - Anu Jiji house

• 5pm - Morgaon

• 8pm - Siddhatek

• Spent the night at Hotel Swamiraj Executive on Pune Solapur highway

Dec 29

• 1pm TuljaBhavani temple in Tuljapur

• Drive to Pune to Hotel Majestique Pune near Theur Phata

Dec 30

• 10 am Theur

• 12 noon Ranjangaon

• 3pm Ozar

• 5 pm Lenyadri - This was one of the most beautiful hikes to the temple with monkeys on the side

• Hotel Orritel in Talegaon

• Special mention to Mayuresh restaurant was very good for veg maharastrian food

Dec 31

• 1 pm Mahad

• 4 pm Balleshwar

• 8 pm Back to Mumbai

I spent the rest of the time in Surat meeting family. One special mention for box cricket and a party at the farmhouse where we all cousins got together! Overall, it was a short trip but packed with action.

 

Thanksgiving in Pismo Beach

We have tried to make it a tradition for friends to spend time together during Thanksgiving. This was the second time we spent Thanksgiving in Pismo Beach with 4 families. We rented an entire B&B near the beach.  Both the older kids and the younger kids had their own bedroom as there was no dearth of space and each room was themed and retro in feel with wallpapers and all. The house has an entire room for dining which was nice so everyone could sit together.

We spent our time playing volleyball on Pismo beach for 2 straight days. We played bocceball in the house and a lot of catching up with friends. In the mix was lots of great food and cooking as well.

Business trip to New York

The business trip to New York was very productive work wise but I really enjoyed going to the Comedy Cellar. You had to stand in line to get into the Comedy Cellar and it was my lucky day to see Ronny Chieng perform live with a bunch of other standup artists. I absolutely loved the vibe of the underground cellar. I also met friends after a really long time!

With family in Canada and USA

This was the second time I spent a good time with my family in Toronto in my sister's house. This time, my wife and kids were also with us making it a full house. We went to the Center Island in Toronto where Anu hit a play structure while playing Tag and we had to take three ambulances - first one from the island to the ferry, then by ferry to main land and then from mainland to the UHN hospital in Toronto. The doctor assured us it was a minor concussion and should get better on its own. What an eventful start to a vacation! Then, as per tradition, we spent a weekend in Niagara Falls. Even with the crowds, I can't stop marveling the falls and the force of nature it represents.

Back in the USA, we went to Tahoe and booked a room on the water. Watching the views during the day and at night was quite an amazing experience. We had amazing Pizza at the local place called Jiffy's pizza. We checked out the Northstar Ski Resort as well and it was beautiful. Just before Ganesh Chaturthi, we heard the sad news that my dear uncle had passed away and parents had to cut the trip short.

Cannes and the french riviera

 This was my second time attending Cannes Lions, but this time the non-work part was a bit, shall we say, adventurous! I landed in Zurich to go with a colleague on a private flight to Cannes. My heart sank after landing in Zurich as it was a rare time when lights went off at ZRH airport and the line through immigration was long, but given my situation, they allowed me to go ahead so I could catch the private flight.

I took the train from ZRH airport to Bad Ragaz where my colleague was waiting for me. He took me to the airport which is just a couple of minutes drive from there and in 10 mins, we were airborne. We still had time to land on glaciers, so we did that a couple of times - a really out of world experience. Then we flew through plains of Italy finally crossing into France from the sea. The headwinds were much greater which used up more time and fuel and we went into reserve before landing in Cannes airport.

The rest of the trip was great, with business meetings and good food. I stayed in an ocean facing apartment which did not disappoint at all! In free time, I visited many of the towns along the Cannes to Monaco corridor by train.