BJ in Boston

Hi friends,
I completed the continent of North America fro tip to toe and side to side. I missed the east coast part as it was snowing heavily and I could not go on my motorcycle. But as my shipment to New Zealand was delayed, my visas for Australia and New Zealand expired and had to take fresh ones from Washington DC. So I flew from LA to DC and applied for the visas. When I contacted the embassies they said they require at least two weeks to process my case as I am supposed to take visas from my home country only. But when I finally went there and talked to them, they considered me as a special case and issued me visas the next day itself. I was too happy and now have a lot of time. So I rented a car and hit the road again only this time in the comfort of a heated cabin and luxury of silence and music. I went straight to Boston from DC. Boston is a very charming city full of young students and pubs and coffee shops and cheap eating and lot of music. This was the only place where I found the pubs and some restaurants open after midnight. If you think that America is a nightlife country, forget it. In America you can’t even get food after 10pm except in some 24hour supermarkets or a star hotel.


Boston University Campus

Boston University

But the whole place is frozen. Even the Charles river which separates Boston and Cambridge. It was damn damn cold. -15 degrees Celsius. If I really went there on my bike, I would be good only to be sold as frozen meat. But the beauty of the city and the liveliness made it worth the long drive.

Frozen Charles River - Boston

Liberty at last!
I finally came to Big Apple. Driving in New York was not easy but was not very difficult too for I have been on the roads for a long time now. High speeds, left hand steering or finding my road was not a problem but finding parking was a big problem. Parking fees are exorbitant up to $20 per hour at places like Times Square, Broadway etc.

Brooklyn Bridge - the filmy site.

Times Square - New York

New York skyline

New York from Liberty island

The Grand Central Station - New York

BJ Ice skating at Rockefeller Center

Here I met a gang of New York boys. Students from India studying their masters in various fields. I had the chance to look into the student life here in USA. I had good fun with them. Manish from Bangalore helped me a lot and spent a lot of time and showed me New York. His friends Kamakshi, Saklen, Dhanesh, Salil, Nauman were so nice and received me with enthusiasm. They wanted me to give a presentation in their university to the youngsters, but my program was unpredictable. Manish got me a ticket to Broadway show, Beauty and the Beast by Disney. It was a memorable experience. I need a lot of pages and time to describe all this, may be some other time. I did some ice-skating too at the Rockefeller Center.

New York Boyz - Manish, Saklen, BJ, Dhanesh & Salil

From New York I went to Philadelphia and visited the Independence Hall where the independence was declared and the constitution written.

Independence Hall - Philadelphia

American Constitution was written and debated here

City Hall of Philadelphia

From Phila I went to Las Vegas of east, Atlantic city. This is a small laid-back town with many casinos. Gambled a few million dollars at the Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal Casino (khayalon me J).

Donald Trump's Taj Mahal Casino - Atlantic city
In Maryland I visited another friend who was in touch with me by mail. He is from my home town. It is a nice feeling to meet someone from hometown so I went to meet him. Ravi and his family received me warmly and offered the best Telugu food. I felt very happy to talk my own language after a long time. They took me around to Baltimore and surrounding places. Had a picnic at Fort Mc Henry a historical site.

Ravi and family
Finally I was back to Washington and visited the White House and Smithsonian Museums. Indian Ambassador Sri Ronen Sen invited me to the Embassy when I was in Boston and so I could not meet him. When I came back to DC, I visited our Embassy and the First Secretary Sri Manish Prabhat gave me a warm welcome and took me to a very nice Indian restaurant. We had a great discussion and good lunch. Next morning said good bye to Washington and went back to Los Angeles for yet another road trip of a life time. From Los Angeles to Arctic Circle and Alaska!!! In winter!!! CRAZY

A Quick Update on America

Hi friends after I left Florida, I was munching miles continuously and had no chance to update my blog. I will just give you a short photographic update from where I left. From Miami I took this scary Sky Bridge and went to St. Petersburg. I was almost sure I will be blown into the sea by the wind. The Sky Bridge...

And reached Baton Rouge where I met Dr. Gopala Krishna and his nice family. He was very enthusiastic about the journey and we had great dinner at their own Indian restaurant.

Dr. Krishna and Mrs. Rani
And in Houston, I met another amazing and enthusiastic person Dipak Patel. A net friend who followed my blog and got in touch with me and invited me to his home. His enthusiasm made me go to Houston. I really enjoyed being with his family. His wife Ila and his son Ravi was good company. I had great Gujarati food. Next day Dipak took me to his office Bechtel where a lot of Indians are working. We all went for lunch. I had good time with them.

Dipak and his friends at Bechtel, Houston

Ravi, Ila, Deepak Patel and BJ
Then I hit the never ending and never bending roads of Arizona….

More Indian and Telugu friends in Phoenix.

Chenchayya, Suresh and BJ

A gang of Harley rider gave company till the outskirts of Phoenix. After having a good breakfast I left for Grand Canyon.

Surprisingly, after the scorching heat of Phoenix soon the temparatures came down as I reached Williams a small town on Route 66 which is the gateway to Grand Canyon. And I hit snow soon. Grand Canyon too was very cold the the North Rim was inaccesible due to snow. I took helicopter ride over the Canyon. I hated taking pictures of the canyon as no picture can show the enormous canyon the right way. You need to be there to see it.



Into snow at Williams, Grand Canyon

Then that proud feeling of being at a special place on earth with my bike, the big hole in the ground, The Grand Canyon.

I was riding on the Historic Route 66. Actually there is nothing historic about it. This was the road that connected Chicago to Los Angeles. But when the Freeway network came up, no body was using this small two lane road and all the towns were by passed by the big roads so the small towns lost a lot of business. When something becomes useless, America names it as HISTORIC and makes it a tourist attraction and sells a lot of memorabilia.

The Hoover Dam which you had seen in the James Bond movie. A real architectural wonder. They say that with the amount of concrete used for this dam, they can lay a road across America.

No I did not go back to Paris. This is the Sin City. The city of lights. Las Vegas. What you see behind me is the Paris Casino there is a restaurant in the tower.

Grandeur at the world famous Bellagio Casino. People come here to gamble. There is no place on earth where gambling is handled as professionally. Managing a gambling den is a university course here. You can see their professionalism in every inch. In Vegas I met another Telugu family Rao, Laxmi and Sahiti. Mrs. Laxmi was very talkative and asked me about each and every place I went. Sahiti, a software engineer gave me good company and told about Vegas life. They coocked spicy Indian food for me and that was the best thing I can ask for.

What you see here is a shopping mall the top you see is actually the worlds largest screen where they project specially made animations. Las Vegas burns so much of electricity, the whole place is electrified and you can feel it every where. You will get mild electric shocks when you touch metal things or doors or even when you walk on the carpets. So from this gambling city, I went to the city of dreams, Hollywood, Los Angeles.

My friends near LA Rajashekar his wife Madhavi and Vinayak.

Then I met another crazy biker whom I wanted to meet because of his enthusiasm and encouragement, Mr. Bharat Reddy from Bangalore. He is here for his Masters in Business Leadership which he just finished and was cooling off. Like I said he is another crazy biker who owns an Aprilia Tuono a real monster of a bike, a Suzuki GSX sports, a Triumph Scrambler retro and a BMW GS1200 and real enthusiasm to be on the road what else you can wish for? So we made a good combination and were riding all over California. I need a separate chapter for him and our rides and drives. These are just a few things we did…

My biker friends in Los Angeles Bharat Reddy, Pradyum and me on Venice beach.

Bharat Reddy on Suzuki GSX

Bharat on his Suzuki GSX on the Pahrump Race Track scraping pegs...

We did our advanced off road training in California. Me and Bharat (on the right with a beaming smile) with our beautiful instructor Tanya, a Motocross Champion (center). We had another ride of our life time up the mountain which seemed almost impossible.

Los Angeles Balaji temple. Bharat on his Triumph Scrambler and me on my Rambler.

The gym on the Venice beach, LA where Arnold Schwarzenegger built his massive muscles.

Mera Bharat Mahaan…

Yosemite valley in California is a wonderful place. With mountains and waterfalls. It was very cold and snowing too. What you see is the Bridal Veil fall.

Then I went to another nice city San Francisco. It has the most dangerously steep and crooked streets in the world. All the drivers there must be very experienced in handling gradients. My friend Bharat thought my bike can not climb the steeps and I am going to topple. But are yaar mera bike to Pushpak hei aur hum bhi kisi se kam nahi hei. So I went riding up and down on the

‘Most Crookedest road in the world’.

And then another proud moment of riding my bike on the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco…