Situation..Situation.!!

Before the CNN crew tracks this blog...let me tell you there is NOTHING going on here! For people who are familiar with CNN, I am talking about ' The Situation Room'.

Since when has news become a show than the real thing? Why is it that we need advertisement for a news show? I say this because I hear reporters on that show say things like - 'CNN - your Hurricane headquarters'. I kind of get the feeling that people here are waiting for things to happen! Though nothing against CNN itself, they do seem to be the 'World Leader in News'. Firstly, do we need anything like a news channel? Aren't we all just satisfied with the evening news for an hour, which summarizes everything that happens around the world? Why do we have to know EVERYTHING that happens around the world every single minute?

This, in my opinion has just led to an information overflow and partly responsible for people being scared and over precautious about things that they normally wouldn't have, only because they heard about a rare incident happen to someone somewhere in the world!

I know, I might differ from people who think information is key and it is the 'Information Age' which has driven this world into globalization. And that is why you have the Internet! For people who really need all the news, there is CNN.com, which has enough and more news than anyone would possibly desire! Why have a TV show with anchors trying to impress people so they can make a career out of it? Isn't this what happened with Anderson Cooper? He literally had a TV show, filming himself and his thoughts during the Katrina crisis and now he has a book, exactly during hurricane season this year! As much as I beleived he did a good job about being there and covering the story, wait a minute.... he has just made business out of it!

We do need journalists and I respect what they are doing when it comes to covering stories at places you and I wouldn't want to be. But are they doing it because they want the publicity, or because they really like what they are doing? A musician myself, I would think journalism is more like music, more like an art....something for which you need a passion to do. But there is a fine line that journalists have to tread when it comes to covering stories, because they deal with stories about real people and it is very hard to see them do business with it! I miss Peter Jenings for this. He was a journalist too, a news anchor, but there were no frills around him - no Situation Room, or PeterJennings Live, or PJ tonight! Yet, he remains one of the respected journalists in the country.

Like one of them aptly said on the radio about the hurricane season, reporters are just waiting for one storm to leave the coast of Africa, and you can see reporters rushing into Florida already talking about a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic! That's how much they are waiting for 'things to happen'!

Tartlets!

Here is a recipe that I tried last week. It came out real well. I hadn't even heard 'Tartlets' until I saw Giada from the Food Network do it on her show.

Here's the link for the recipe
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_30222,00.html

Trust me, it is really simple and easy to do. I made 2 batches of the phyllo cups, one with just enough butter, and the other one with a little less butter(just so I don't feel as much guilty while eating it!), and found quite a difference. Lesser the butter, the layers don't stick to each other that well, and the phyllo cups tend to flake. A great party dessert! Quick n' easy!

'Mission' accomplished!

Last Sunday was like a dream come true! I have been wanting to hike up Mission Peak in Fremont, ever since I moved to California and I finally did it last weekend. I know of a lot of friends who do this regularly, but I always used to think of this as an ultimate body fitness challenge! The first time I did this about a year back, I hardly could make it beyond the 1/3 mark, but I should say it wasn't what I expected. As much as I had heard about this one, didnt really imagine this to be like a mountain climb!

The second time I knew exactly what I was getting into. I kept telling myself, that this time I'll probably return at the half way mark, but I think that's what kept me going. It was more challenging getting down and you had to watch every step as the body tends to run at that incline, while you are trying to hard to control yourself from going that fast.

I always beleived strenuous hikes are more of a mental challenge, rather than physical. Any normal person should be able to do it as long as you have the perseverance and most of all enjoy what you're doing. I guess it is true for most things in life!

There are not really any excellent views on your way up, and you are only thinking of reaching up the top! On your way down, if it not a foggy day, you can see excellent views of the Bay area, Dumbarton Bridge, SanMateo Bridge, SFO skyline and clearly the valley. It took us about 2 hrs. to go up and an hr and 15mts to come down.

I already feel like doing it another time!

Rockies!

Just back after a trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park! Was it beautiful or what! We had an incredible time 'up' there. We landed on a Saturday evening in Denver and drove to Estes Park the next morning. This is a small town on the East side of RoMo park. This town itself is at an elevation of about 7,000 ft, with views of the Rockies any side you look.

The first day we did a hike to Chasm falls. The hike is about 2 miles round trip, with a gain in elevation upto 500ft. The falls at the end of the hike is worth every bit of calorie you spend to get up there. We had lunch at the Endovalley picnic area and headed back to simple trails for the rest of the day. This was the really nice part of this park. There are hikes for people of all kinds. You could choose from a easy trail with absolutely no elevation around lakes, to others that climb up in elevation so fast, even before you know you are up 1000ft from where you started! Whatever may be your choice you are never disappointed. We experienced some really breathtaking views of the Rockies!

The second day we wanted to take the road called the 'Old Ridge Trail' that is the highest paved road in the US that goes upto 12,100ft. It is a 48 miles two-way road which run across the E-W, W-E sides of the park. This road is open only during the summer months and luckily for us, the road was opened about 2 days before Memorial day this year. All along this road are some fine vista points which offer some of the best shots for photography!

As the road climbed up we could clearly see the tree line. At about 11,500 ft. trees stop growing because of the extreme climate and you could clearly notice the tree line! At one point we were looking down on the trees, and looking at the mountains eye to eye. The day before, it had snowed in the mountains and the snow had been cleared off the road but the sides of the roads were still filled them and it added to the experience! We stopped by at several places to get a different perspective of how things are when you look from 'up' there!



We saw glaciers along our way and the headwaters of the river 'La Poudre'. The river Thompson starts in the rockies and so does the grand Colorado! I wish I could retake geography lessons that I took back in school, now that I have a better visual idea! I have read about Alpine(also Tundra region) - but now I know exactly. The only other places that you could experience this is Alaska and Siberia! Isn't that chilling ;) The Subalpine area of the park was the green belt and that's mainly the meadows and the forests. One of the popular points of intest was the Continental Divide - the rivers that originate to the east of this flow into the Atlantic and those to the west flow into the Pacific, the natural physical barriers running N-S! It was a great feeling to be standing ON the Continental Divide, and oh ya....we took pictures of it!

The third day we did 2 hikes. We started at the Bear Lake trailhead on the West side of the park. This one has a lot of trailheads starting from there. We took the one to Dream Lake, but we had to stop soon after Nymph Lake b'cos the trail after a point was totally filled in ice, and we weren't prepared for it. Nymph Lake at a height of about 10,500 was picture perfect, exacty like the ones you would imagine when you think of lakes in a lush green forest. Surrounded by tall trees , the snow from the mountains feed the lake and the water is clear with water lilies and barks of trees floating on it. The perfect place to unwind!

Since we couldn't go up to Dream Lake and we had most of the day still left, we took the hike to Mills Lake. This was a 3 mile one way, with an elevation gain of upto 750ft. At 10000 ft, the air is thinner, the clouds seem to move much faster and the sound of aeroplanes is so much louder! It is a totally different world out there! It took us about 3hrs for this hike. En route to Mills Lake is Alberta Falls. This is a nice place to sit on the rocks, relax, and watch the falls. It gets tougher after this upto Mills Lake. We reached Bear Lake(close to the trailhead from where we started), which is yet another beautiful lake.

We drove back to Denver that evening. Hung around Denver downtown, in and around Larimer and Writer Square, treated ourselves after all the 'hard work' to dinner at a modern Mexican restaurant, Tamayo! If you happen to be there, check this one out. Though they didn't have too many veg. options, their menu didn't seem anything like the Mexican restaurants that I have been before...its not the regular Enchilada, Quesadilla, Fajita, kinda Mexican restaurant...so different, that I don't even remember the name of the dish that I had! We took the next day early morning flight to SFO. This trip felt like a quick trip to the Tundra and back...like M calls it...'a shot of Tundra'!

And yes, we saw some wildlife too...bighorn sheep and elk. We also spotted a coyote with its cubs on binoculars that were set up by rangers at the meadows.



Tip: If you are looking at flying to Colorado try Frontier - We got a really good deal on our tickets. 200/person - round trip! Check it out!