Revisiting the Tulips

Roosengarde near Seattle is famous for its Tulips. Three years ago, we visited the place but were too late to the Tulip fields. They had topped it off. 

This year we got a chance to go there. We miscalculated on multiple fronts. We had 5 hours in the afternoon to go and come back, before we had to drive to the airport to catch our flight back.

It was probably the first sunny weekend in Seattle area. The entire population was out on the freeway. The traffic made a 90 minute ride into a 3 hour ride. Also given we were in two cars and were using the iPhone as a GPS, the phone battery drained in the middle of the drive. That meant that we could not communicate between cars. We were thinking of turning back multiple times but given the communication gap, decided to go all the way and meet at the Tulip place. 

We spent 20 minutes there. Ran to the fields, took pictures and raced back to the parking lot. That was when some of the kids in the group said "pee pee". The attendant in the fields pointed us to a restroom that was half a mile away, or what seemed half a mile away. So we told the kids to hold it and started on our drive back. 

Made it back in a lot less than 90 minutes after some fast driving and we also made it to our flight as it was boarding!

Here are some pictures.. 

It is quite a sight. If you are in the seattle area in Mid April, don't miss it.

Loved this color.. 

This was my favorite strip.. bright yellow!

Finally a photograph that my mom will appreciate! She always complains that I am not in the pictures.. 

Next time we go, we will plan an extra day in Seattle instead of a Friday evening to Sunday evening trip and spend a day here.  That way I can go crazy with the photography. 

When the hairline receedeth

A clump of hair was caught in the hood of the jacket after coming back from one of those deep freeze long haul flights. Turns out the hair that is already clinging on for dear life is easily uprooted, much like the stumps after a batsman misses a Malinga yorker. 

Unfortunately, I cannot come up with an analogy for the gray hair. 

So there were two choices.. start to dye the hair and comb what is left acros the head or get rid of it.

It was an easy decision. Nothing says "Do I look like I give a $hit" like a Tibetian Monk look. 

Jr. also decided to join in the haircut experience with me. So we took some prefies and postfies.

Looks like I have aged 2 years in the first half of 2015. Now it feels like some huge burden has been removed!

Jr. looks a lot younger than she is. At first she was complaining and all teary eyed because of her "new look". Then she realized it is easier to manage this hair and it does look cute and was all smiles. 

They are all getting used to my new look though.

On the plus side, my smile is widening now with the hairline. So we are all good!

Infrastucture

One thing I have recently cherished is trips on the Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) trains in Asia. On a given day they do 300 km/hr speeds on the steady stretch and on a good day 420 km/hr. Was told that this is not the top speed and it goes higher on other days. 

The recent record in Japan is 600 km/hr! 

This was going to be a long post on "why can't we do this in the US of A?" The country that built the Hoover dam cannot build a single high speed rail line? at least for a "we can also do this" reason?

Then realized that the answer was simple. Our politicians are inept. Hoover dam came about because of some clever interstate deal making by visionary politicians. Today the country is so polarized that bullet trains have something or other to do with abortions, gay marriage and desert salamanders. 

We live in a funny world. I am glad that at least I got to ride in a train like that in this lifetime. Going to take my kids on one of these trips and show them that the outside world is not necessarily what the local news media portrays it to be! 

The best education we can give our kids is to take them around the world and let them experience firsthand what is going on in other parts of the world, where it is safe to take them. 

Like I said on FB before, have train envy now!