It was a chill evening in NJ where I was to celebrate my cousin's surprise birthday bash and I happened to call a friend of mine. It was around 7 PM on Wednesday evening, just two days before TG break would start and as usual we were clueless what destination was awaiting us. I could hear Jitha saying, these people are planning for Seatle trip. When I asked who all are planning, she said, Binoj, Vinay and Mithun were planning for the trip. I was excited and by default I was added to the trip. Later on, I continued with my birthday celebration least knowing that the plan they were making was really serious one to drive down to Seatle via CA-1/101 HW. I had to travel back next day to San Jose and suddenly I tuned to see the latest weather report in the flight. I couldn't believe what I was seeing in the news. A storm was hovering around West Coast and was expected to hit the coast on Saturday , Sunday & Monday and North-West was expected to have heavy snowfall over that weekend. I got down from my flight and asked my friend to pick me up from the airport. As soon as I sat in the car, I told about the news that I heard in the flight. Later on I told to all and all were shocked and started thinking what else we could do. Next day, we still decided to leave for Seatle and drive through CA-1 (supposedly the best freeway to drive on). Car was booked, hotel was booked and to top that my friends also had planned for Hot Air Balloon ride in Sonoma on Saturday @ sunrise. However, predicting the weather, it was sure that Balloon ride was not going to be possible. Later that night, we called up the Balloon ride and they said it has been cancelled. Everyone was happy because to go for the ride we had to start @ 4AM in the morning. After calling it a day everyone slept and planned to leave early for Seattle next morning.
It was around 8AM, when I opened my eyes to see sun-light outside. Started to woke everyone up and finally we started @ 11AM and by that time it already had started drizzling. We picked some items to eat and headed towards 280-N and then to CA-1. Missed the CA-1 exit and had a adventurous 10 mile ride to finally get back on track. CA-1 indeed turned out to be beautiful drive. Sun was also peeping out bright but it was chilly and windy too. We clicked some snaps near the beach before looking out for a lunch place. We stopped at this place called as Lucas Wharf. Being a vegetarian, I always had lesser options whenever we go out & especially on a coast region I din't expect anything great. However burger at that place was fresh and nice. It was a good lunch there and then we headed towards Eureka. It was getting darker and it started raining too. To add to this Restaurant owner scared us to be careful while driving on CA-1 as it turns out to be very slippery and dangerous during such climate. We got some picturesque scenes on the way to Eureka and we reached Eureka @ 8:30PM. We checked into a Hotel and then rushed for Dinner @ Pak-Indian Cusine. We had a standard buffet and then headed back to hotel and spent the night in Eureka.
Next morning, again it was around about 11AM when we got up and headed towards Seattle. Interesting thing during this drive was going through Redwood National Park. Although we din't plan to go anywhere except to drive through that forest but ended up in going to a State Park. It was freezing cold and hence we decided to take a small trail after inquiring for Information center and walked in the Redwood Trees. A cup of hot coffee made things better before we left from there. We took a narrow route and indeed it was small to pass only one car per lane in certain areas. I had heard of Redwood forest and saw many amazing pics but din't get that experience due to weather and time. We continued further to reach a small town where we hoped to get Lunch. We located a pizza place just to find that it was a to-go place. We looked for chinese restaurant name Dragon Queen and finally could manage to get some decent food. Funny thing happened when Binoj ordered "Curry Chicken" in Chinese ascent just to ensure the chinese lady understand but she got "Garlic(Curry) Chicken" and she was explaining Binoj how its pronounced. However lunch was filling and good because all were hungry and it was almost 3 when we could get anything :). We finished lunch and headed towards Seattle. I think this was the boring drive as we din't have anything to do except search for Dinner and everyone wanted a bed badly. We quickly finished dinner at Burger King and finally reached Seattle @ 1AM. It was freezing cold but still it hadn't snowed that time. Binoj already had booked rooms in Ramada Inn and we got to our rooms and dozed off.
Snow, Snow, Snow ...Thats the only thing we saw in the morning 9AM when we got up. Everything was freezing and all we could see was white color everywhere. Plans to roam around Seattle had to be re-thought on what should be done first. Everyone was ready by 11:30AM and everybody looked pale due to hunger. We looked for some Indian place and found 'Best of India' restaurant nearby and though of trying. On one side it was snowing outside and once we reached inside Hot Hot food was waiting with freshly cooked Nan. We enjoyed the lunch as it was the first meal on a freezing day ! We then headed towards Boeing Factory Tour. Due to snow and slippery road conditions it took quite sometime for us to reach and we could barely manage 3PM tour which was the last one for the day. We got the tickets and saw the Boeing Factory Tour. It was a 90 min tour with a highlight of how Boeing makes those airplane. It was worth watching and proud to say I saw 3 Air India DreamLiner (787) in making. Tour got over around 4:30PM and it started to become very windy and it was snowing too. Plan to see 1st Starbucks of US was shattered due to bad weather. We planned to have dinner @ Space Needle , a revolving restaurant on the tallest tower in Seattle. Unfortunately, traffic & bad weather played a vital role and we were stuck on a Bridge for close to 2 hours before we could reach Downtown of Seattle realizing that revolving restaurant servers dinner only till 8:45PM on weekdays. Hunt begun to look for a restaurant as it was almost ~10PM and we were worried if we might have to go to hotel without any food. Finally we got a "Jai Thai" restaurant in downtown and we decided to eat there. Food was decent there for both Veggies and Non Veggies. We finished dinner and started to head back to Hotel unknowingly that at 12AM also freeways would be jam pack. We managed to take internal routes and reached hotel after 2 hours. Everyone was fast a sleep and once we reached hotel everyone crashed.
It was 8AM when my eyes opened and saw sunlight outside. Was happy to see sunlight after a snowy day yesterday skies were clear. Binoj had gone to drop Jitha as she was flying to Detroit for her extended TG break. Funniest thing was she drove all the way to Seattle to take a flight and go all the way south to Phoenix and then to Detroit. Binoj dropped her and we got ready to leave for Portland. Temperatures were below 32F and snow wasn't melting but converting into Ice which is a dangerous thing to hear if you are driving on the roads. We started started for Portland at 11AM but decided to stop by and eat something. What else could have been better than to have a Pizza in the cold weather. Owner of Dominos was a Punjabi lady and damn she was getting so many calls for delivery that day. It was like a call center there for sometime and on top of it she was short of people because of weather. We got our Pizza and got a coffee from Mike's Coffee shop (next to Dominos) just to ensure Mike allows us to have Pizza in his coffee shop :). We finished our lunch and started for Multnomah Falls. We reached there around 3PM and it was worth spending time to watch the falls. The upper fall area was closed due to bad weather but we could see those and it was really beautiful. Next plan was for shopping. Oregon state is well known for its 'No Tax' policy and hence famous of many shoppers. While going to Multnomah falls, we saw a mall named "Columbia River Gorge Factory Outlet". We reached the outlet and spend rest of the evening there. Trunk of the car was completely full while we finished the shopping. This was the best moment of the whole trip for everyone and especially for Jyothsna this was only NOT boring part of the trip and shopping made her trip worth. After 4 hours of shopping we left that place and had dinner @ Swagath Indian Cuisine in downtown Portland. The best part of this dinner was a drink named "Lotus Milk" (a blend of chai, 151 rum, frangelico and Irish crème---served flaming). It was nice and unique drink I had ever tasted. With this dinner we summed up our trip and headed back to Santa Clara & with courtesy of Mithun and Vinay we reached home by 7AM (I'm saying this because they drove 650 miles in 8 hours). In all, it was a longest road trip covering ~2k miles and driving through 3 states California, Oregon and Washington.
Happy Thanks Giving to All !!
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