Continuing from where I left off…
I was posting pictures of my visit to California’s water front areas, the Big Basin National Park which presents some of the most stunning view of the ocean. While at Big Basin we also took time off to hike on the Cypress Groove Trail which traverses the cliffs along the ocean. It is a great feeling to watch the waves thunder and collide with the rocky cliffs. The sound of water hitting the rocks and receding back appears like the drum beats of a rock concert. Along the trail there are places where the ocean is completely hidden behind a curtain of trees and suddenly comes into view between rock formations or between two cliffs. There is abundance of wildlife such as deer, seagulls and other herbivores. At least during the day we didn’t see any carnivores like the Cayote or Hyena or Mountain Lion. I guess hikers are safe in this region because the deer and rabbits wouldn’t harm us.

Ocean views along the Cypress Groove Trail at Point Lobos

Stunning Scenery….

Waves crashing into the rocks along the coast

The surf comes in….

Downtown dallas is one heck of a conjusted area with narrow roads, high rise buildings, very few parking facilities. Since all the major corporations, museums and galleries are located there lot of people travel to downtown for work and pleasure. Here are few pictures….

I was blogging about my love for waterfront getaways and was posting pictures of the various beautiful waterfronts I have visited during the past 2 years in the US. There are so many pictures that I had split the post into several instalments to be able to do justice to them. The vast azure oceans in California, frothy beaches of Santa Cruz, calm coves of Big Basin National Park, the numerous community lakes and small water bodies all provide great picture opportunities. Here are some of those pictures… would love to hear whether you like them or not.

Frothy oceanfront at Santa Cruz, CA

Big Basin coves, waters appear calm… but beware

The true vista of the ocean

Beautiful picture postcard scenery…

Perhaps because I am a piscean… I am simply enamored by large water bodies; lakes, rivers, dams, and of course the mighty oceans attract me like iron to a magnet. Standing and staring at the vast azure expanses soothes my soul. Of course I love to take a dip wherever possible… When I was in Bangalore, India weekends I’d head out to Manchinbelle dam, Kanva dam or YG Gudda dam and take a refreshing dip. Here in the US that is one thing which is possible only for the rich. All the dams and public water bodies are fenced up and the water front lands have been sold to private entrepreneurs who charge an arm and a leg to enter and access the water. The only ocean front I have visited is California where waters are so cold that it is impossible to get in without a wet suit. So here I content myself by taking pictures of lakes, rivers, dams etc… Here are some of my favorite water fronts in the US.

Lake Travis, Austin, Tx

Grapevine Reservoir, Texas

A large dam on the highway which links San Jose with Los Angeles

The Ocean at Santa Cruz

I was going through the pictures of my recent trip to New Orleans and thought that these river view pictures must be shared with readers of this blog. The river, man made shipping channel and the swamps make this state a naturalists paradise and I sure hope it remains as pristine in habitat for alligators and other wildlife for many centuries to come. For now I would simply say this is one place to enjoy nature, water and aquatic life to the fullest. For adventure lovers there are possibilities for kayaking, canoeing, jet skiing and alligator hunting too.

Strange looking trees by the river

Saprophytes hanging from the trees on the riverside

River with floating plants gets narrower as we get deeper into the swamps

A view of the river

Trees slashed by the lightning

Water hyacinth is a big problem in the US too. Apparently it was brought in from Japan for a show and then it spread like plague in the waterways

Beautiful water body….

While several places in the world suffer from shortage of ground water resources New Orleans, Louisiana has the opposite problem… too much water. Two feet into the ground would yield water. This has led to great challenges to the local population in pretty much every field of endeavor. Building homes, roads, bridges, commercial structures are expensive and takes lot more efforts than elsewhere in the US.

Perhaps this problem made the people to build cemeteries over the ground instead of digging graves. Over the past few centuries the mainly Christian immigrants from Europe and Africa to this place have started building graves above the ground. These graves look more like small rooms than places for eternal resting. I visited the St Louis Cemetery which was established in 1854. This is one of the Catholic cemeteries in the area. There are several mega burial buildings which have several members of the same family resting. Then there are small individual rooms where one person is spending the afterlife awaiting the judgement day. Here are few pictures of the cemetery.

We know that until the Civil Rights Movement African-Americans didn’t have several basic rights and were heavily discriminated against. Some of the books I read talked about soldiers of African-American origin who fought with the Union during the civil war and helped free their brethren. But what those books didn’t say was that even though both White and Colored (African-American) soldiers did exactly the same thing, they were treated differently.

Bywater War Memorial, New Orleans

When I was in New Orleans earlier this month I took time off to visit the Katrina-devastated and under-reconstruction Lower 9th Ward. In Bywater neighborhood of the Lower 9th Ward is this World War I war memorial. The structure which looks quite similar to the India Gate in New Delhi commemorates those from this area who laid down their lives for the country. The memorial is a great initiative and everyone listed there deserves the respect of one and all. But what stuck me hard was the fact that the memorial has separate boards listing the names of “White Men” and “Colored Men”. This is quite absurd in my opinion, a man or woman who serves the nation and performs the ultimate sacrifice of giving up his or her life is not to be perceived by color, they are patriots and that is it.

It seems like even after getting martyred some people are simply not accorded equal status.