Yurt Camping on the Pacific Coast

Hello to everybody! After a year long sabbatical for lots of reasons, am back with the photo blogs.

Last weekend which is mid-june, made a trip through the Pacific Coast along US-101 and experienced Yurt camping for the first time. Our yurt was in Grayland Beach state park.

In the morning, we headed straight for Fort Stevens State park in Oregon . We stopped at Raymond in between for brunch.

It is about 200 miles from Redmond. Following was our route to Fort Stevens.

Redmond to Fort Stevens

We stopped at the viewpoint before entering Astoria Bridge and enjoyed the view. Bridge really looked majestic.

 

Astoria Bridge

Fort Stevens state park still maintains the ruins of a ship, Peter Iredalw, which unfortunately was pushed to the coast by strong gusts of wind. The whole place is beautiful. There are 4 or 5 lots which are sequenced as Lot A - E. Each lot offers a different view of the Columbia river and the Pacific. Viewpoints are strategically placed.

View of the Pacific from one of the viewpoints.

After soaking all the ocean beauty we headed for Grayland Beach State park to settle in our Yurt. It is a nice tarp tent with a nice bunk bed, futon, electric charging points, electric light, even a heater! That was something in a campground. It was a very luxurious camping experience when compared with tent camping.

Our campsite - Yurt behind our picnic table

 Evening, we fired our charcoal grill and had some snacks and then headed for the beach for a beautiful sunset. This is the first time where we drove our car on the beach close to the water. Our 4-wheel drive got tested nicely and had a new-found respect for our car!! :)

Ummm......the taste of food mixed with charcoal flavor is something that is beyond description.

Sausages

Yummy paneer tikka

Our car with sunset beyond the horizon! The beach is so vast with no vertical intrusion in the view that one can truly feel the curvature of the Earth being spherical. All you can hear is the waves, it is so peaceful.

Sun set at the beach

There are well-maintained beach trails from the campsites to the beach. Once you are approaching the beach from the trail, you get a breathtaking view of the vast beach and the pacific.

After spending an hour or so at the beach we prepared our lunch and packed our stuff to return home.

In just two and a half hours from Redmond, this is a very beautiful place for camping and even for day picnic.

I shall try and add more photo blogs of our visits to places with novel experiences. It feels great to be back with the vast world of the internet web!

Concept Map - Why Math is hated by the majority?

For How to Learn Math: For Teachers and Parents (2)

Our father's first death anniversary

It was this day last year when I received the message about my father's passage from this material world to the ethereal world. We (my mother, myself, my brother and sister) learnt in our own way to deal with our grief and cope with his loss. We all were left with two choices - either remember him with tears or smile on our happy memories!  Our mother has shown amazing strength in making us see the bigger picture and always usher us into a happy and peaceful place.

It was like predestined when we all had a family reunion in December 2014, four months earlier to his passing. My parents enjoyed the company of all their children alongwith their families. With everybody literally spread out across the globe, we felt lucky to have spent quality time with our parents.

My father's loss has taught us the bigger meaning of life. Be in the present and enjoy the moment! At the end, we leave everything here in this world. So, do we want to reach the end with peace and happiness or with negative feelings of any kind? During this one year, we have continued to remove negative feelings from our heart and mind and make more room for only positive energy. The more positive is our mind, the stronger we are to face anything in life. Like our bank balance, we yearn for more credits(happiness) than debits(sorrows).

The date is just a mere time tracker,  but we remember our father every day of our life. Dates and times may fade but memories never fade. The memories are what makes our lives worthwhile. When you flashback and scour for happy moments, you'd be surprised at the limitless numbers.

We pray for his peaceful soul and urge all of you to send happy waves to the cosmos!

We all love you daddy, wishing for your happiness wherever you are in the Universe!

Some of the many happy moments together!

December 2014

When the whole family was together

With all the daughters of the family

2nd March 2006

June 2004 in Kashmir

Eulogy for my dear father

Dr. A.V.S.S.Sambamurty
09.01.1944 - 12.04.2015

When I had started my blog seven years ago, I never thought that one day I will be writing an eulogy for one of my parents. I have heard often that Death is the only truth of life but I understand the import of that statement now, after facing with the truth of my father. Here I make a humble effort to write a tribute to him.

My father was a scientist in heart and Genetics was his favourite topic of all. It was also the subject of his Ph.D. thesis. He loved to read books on Geography, History, Astronomy and Literature. Though Botanist by profession, he had colossal collection of many old sonnets, original works of Shakespeare and Critics' view of many literary works. Philosophy was another subject that captivated his interest. Plato and Socrates were beyond all of us but he would quote them so seamlessly and would explain the relevance too. Besides books on various subjects ranging from science to philosophy to religion, his home library also comprises of all of the twenty-two books he had written. 

My father was a quiet person and was at ease with his own company. The only people he yearned to be around were his wife and his three children with their respective families. He would wait for our phone calls and a talk lasting a minute or two was enough to satisfy his emotional needs. He always ensured that we were safe and doing well. He kept track of the progress of his grandchildren too. Whenever we used to visit my parents, he would sit at the dining table and enjoy watching them play. 

My father was very loving person and very protective towards his family. He devoted his time ferrying us from class to class and waiting upon us while we were learning classical music or giving our board exams or preparatory classes, so that we receive the all-round development he missed in his childhood. He ensured that we get a solid foundation to grow as confident, self-reliant and successful individuals. My parents worked as a great team for the success of our family. 

My father complemented my mother in most ways and both worked as a successful team for our success. He always provided support to my mother for her growth in the career by sharing the load in the domestic front. When we were kids, I remember, they would prepare laddoos and other snacks at home for a fortnight or so together. We have lasting memories of them working together on household projects which taught us that a family is built strong when everybody contributes their best to support and nurture it. 

My father was always straight in his talks with minimal tact. He cared less for rules which hindered progress of anyone and generally took decisions which were right and truthful to his conscience rather than to please anyone. A trait which can hardly make you popular with your seniors but very popular with students and juniors!! He always maintained that Silence is Golden. Well, there were times when we would encourage him to express himself and he simply said, "I do not have to change anyone or their opinion and it is not my business!"

My father had great amount of will-power and endurance power that helped him get on his feet after many professional and medical setbacks. He would jump up on the saddle recovering soon from the previous set-back. With the strong pillar support from my mother, the recovery was always more easy. 

My father's favourite phrase was "antha mana manchike.." which means "whatever happens is for our good..." Most times it was relevant but many times, we just could not find the goodness but he was always sure that it is hidden. We have to find the bigger good in what happened with him in the course of time.

On behalf of my father and family, I thank everyone who have provided us great support during our testing times and help us through this time when we are trying to recalibrate our lives without him. We will always miss his physical presence and have to gradually learn to live with that but he is in our hearts forever. 

We send happy waves to the world from where he is overseeing our lives and pray for his soul to rest in peace.

Love you dad!

Mt Rainier at Sunrise - White River Campground

If we can call anything as perfect camping, it was our camping at White River Campground, right at the foothills of Mt. Rainier. The perfect site, perfect timing for everything, and perfect relaxation.

We knew that the camp is first-cum-first basis, so we left early in the morning and beat the traffic on the freeway and reached the camp at 8:00 am. At the entrance we found the CAMP FULL board. Soon our friends also joined us. Considering that there is no network available, we had decided to meet at the entrance. It was after 30 minutes that we observed that few people were vacating their sites. So we kept looping in Loop D, right next to White River and successfully found a good site.

Bugs
We had read that there were lot of bugs, so we carried our bug repellant. We reached there but did not really feel the need of using the repellant though there were some bugs around.

Restrooms
There were flush toilets there, pretty clean. Of course at night you need to carry your flashlight or lantern to the restrooms. Tap water was very cold in the morning but few minutes under that water and you will not feel that cold!

Activities

Ranger program
This was interesting part of the campground.
They have ranger program for kids to help them understand the wilderness. In the evening they had a one hour presentation about the geology of the Cascades by a geologist.


Hike to Frozen Lake
We had our breakfast and then left for Sunrise point, hiked on Frozen Lake trail and returned by the Wonderland Trail. It was an amazing 2.4 miles hike, took us 2.5 hours. We returned to our camp and had lunch. Since we knew that we will be spending time on the hike, we had prepared food from home so we just warmed it  up and ate.

Some of the hike trail photos to Frozen Lake.

Mt. Rainier visible from everywhere on the trail

Beautiful valleys everywhere

Dusty trail, supposedly the most steep part

Mt. Rainier, we are getting close and below Wonderland Trail

Shadow Lake from above

Trail gets rocky and there at a distance is Frozen Lake

Mt. Rainier, sky and above, if that is not heaven!

Frozen Lake

After a short siesta, we went on the Wonderland trail and took some photos at the White River. The river had strong currents and Mt. Rainier treated us with fantastic view.

Conifers

White River

Bridge on the wonderland Trail

Mt. Rainier right before the sun was moving behind the hill

Sun-rays from behind the hill in the evening

Majestic at all times!

We tried firing up the coal without the lighter fuel with the help of just papers acting as wick and were glad that it worked. So our grilled food had a great flavour from just the coal and no lighter fuel smell. The camp fire was also fun and enjoyed it till nearly midnight. We even enjoyed the Supermoon and caught a meteor or a shooting star too!

Mt. Rainier at Sunrise
Next day morning woke up early to catch Mt. Rainier in its best colour! :) We were in no mood to travel again to Sunrise Point so stationed ourselves with our tripod in the middle of the white river next to our camp.
Well, even the photos do not do justice to what we witnessed that morning! It was breathtaking and we were awestruck!

Gradually changing from white

Slight hue of orange

Orange peak of Mt. Rainier

View from White river adjacent to the camp

It lasted like this for some 15 minutes before fading away to snow white again

This view of Mt. Rainier just completed our camping holistically! Nature at its best, we feel lucky to have witnessed this phenomena and hope to come back here again and explore the other trails which must be equally breathtaking!

This trip was a perfect blend of hiking and camping!! Wish to come back soon! :)