Six days in Wilderness! (Travelogue)

I lay in bed in an ultra lazy mode, with a mind slowly moving into mundane life, thrusting into evanescence of time, the memories of an amazing journey that twined the lives of nine of us for six days in the wilderness along the eastern country side. It was a season of planning fiasco that kept us at the pinnacle of excitement and uncertainty at every moment, making the journey more interesting than what we were originally up against like the actors of an unscripted drama. It was a fascinating experience that is surely going to linger in our minds for the years to come.

We were eight of us in the beginning: Aruna, Deepthi, Gowri, Lavanya, Ankur, Pradeep, Venki and myself for the trip to the east, with plans of visiting Washington D.C. on Day 1, later driving towards Shenandoah national park in Virginia, camping there for three days and later driving to West Virginia for rafting on Day 5 and finally driving back to D.C. on Day 6. Lavanya’s sister Shobana, will join us at Shenandoah on Day 3.

Day 1:

I returned from Philadelphia on the night before the trip around half past nine calling up Ankur and Venki about the details of the trip and items I need to carry, fitting myself into the schedules. After packing whatever I could into a big pack backpack, I dozed off around 2 AM, with the alarm set for 4 AM. Ankur came with the car around 4:45 AM picking each one of us from our houses, with Pradeep cribbing over some miscellaneous items he had bought for the trip but was redundant and was forced to throw away due to lack of space. Everything went on plans and five of us: Lavanya, Ankur, Pradeep, Venki and I, reached the airport at 6:00 AM. We reached Dulles Airport, VA around 11:30 AM, took two rental cars from Hertz, with the assigned drivers Ankur and Venki, marking the start of our journey. Aruna and Gowri had arrived an hour before at Reagan, D.C and had been waiting for our arrival. Ankur and myself started off to pick them up from Reagan, when Venki, Pradeep and Lavanya started off to pick up Deepthi from her cousin’s house. We reached Reagan airport around 2 PM, to face the indignation of the two girls for keeping them waiting for more than 3 hours. Deepthi was picked up, completing the initial quorum to Hyatt Place, D.C, which was going to be our sojourn for that night.

We were joined by Lavanya’s friend Anila and her friends Ramesh and Prasanna at Hyatt Place. Together we started off to visit the monuments of Washington D.C. We took the metro to Capitol area, which was half an hour from the lodging, reaching there around 5 PM. Starting off from the state Capitol, we moved towards Washington memorial obelisk, Lincoln memorial and finally towards the White house, which was already pretty dark by the time we were before it. The walk was exhausting, but our minds were kept busy finding answers to what was the statue at the top of capitol or what does the statue in front of it stand for, or more interestingly the meaning of a painting in front of the agriculture building. The shining-creamy appearance of the Capitol under the shaded blue sky was majestic. The obelisk, which is the world’s tallest stone structure, standing at the center of the monuments in memory of the Father of the country, was an interesting subject for trying photographic maneuvers. But we were quite disappointed by the lack of cleanliness over the pond before the Lincoln memorial.

After roaming around till 10:30 PM, we started off back to our lodging, picking some Chinese food from some restaurant in Fairfax that made us to wait there till 11:30 PM, to customize our dinner for more broccolis and onions. Reaching back, we tried to regain our lost sleep of the day, dozing off not leaving a second on the bed, marking the end of Day 1...

Day 2:

Life teaches us a lot of lessons, one of the most obvious and annoying lesson being that the person who goes to sleep and the one who wakes up are actually two different people, the first being highly optimistic, hard working and the latter being ultra lazy. We had planned to start off from Hyatt Place towards Shenandoah, VA around 7:30 AM, but all woke up around 9 AM. Just before the complimentary breakfast was getting over, the quorum assembled over the breakfast table, picking whatever fruits and juices were available, also taking off stuff to eat on the way. Pradeep and Ankur was busy sharing the memories of the perfect breakfast they had in Yosemite, when we were all busy filling our bellies with the best food we could grab from the crowd. Around 11 AM we checked out of the hotel and started off to Shenandoah, which was our dwelling for the next few days. I switched to the other car, taking charge of the position as the navigator for the ferocious driver named Venki, and was slowly getting used to a new form of car driving, something called boorish driving, with an awesome GPS which has a major part to play in the story ahead!

The scenic drive to Shenandoah was breath-taking, with all the amazing overlooks on the way. The sky was clear for a while, but soon the dark nimbus started whirling around like a small twister against us. We took a lunch break on the way, but were soon swooshed out by the impending droplets. We took some great pictures against the scenic backdrop, later running towards our cars, and moving out from the place which seemed to get a downpour sooner. The mountains far far away, with the streams flowing through their valleys, on the sides with yellow flowers at the green backdrop of the forest, with moist in the air and cold breezes rushing by, was mind-blowing a scene, taking us a while to take our minds out to get back to driving away. The whole scene was as if the nature had painted a blanket in yellow, blue and green colors, hanging it from the sky on the sides of the road we were travelling by. But we had more promises to keep and more destinations to cover… leaving out half of our minds stuck somewhere in the clouds in the mountains…

Mobile seemed out of range in the mountains that marked the beginning of all our problems. Lavanya went separate from us with her friends and we could not reach her on mobiles. We did not know where to pick her back to our crowd and thus got into a state of confusion. Deepthi just got lucky enough to connect to Lavanya’s mobile for a second and all she could decipher from the dying signal was the single name “Loft Mountain”. We inferred they were planning to visit Loft mountain overlook and thus we will go and wait for her there. We reached the overlook around 4 PM, which was like a small trail. We decided to go to the trail and probably will be able to see Lavanya on the way or get back to the parking place around 4:45 which was when Lavanya had promised to get back to us. We started off with the trail, spraying all the tick repellants we had carried, on our hands and shoes. People in the crowd had become so paranoid about the ticks and the diseases spread by them that bottles of spray seemed too less with the high ambition people were carrying in their minds of killing all possible ticks they might encounter on the way. The talk on ticks was a major theme for jokes on the way… There seemed to be a spring on the way and we decided to check it out. We reached the spring to see it to be just a small outshoot of water from a small pipe buried inside a rock, disappointing us. We got back to the beginning of the trail by 5 PM to see Lavanya and her friends. We departed with Anila and her friends there and started off more into the jungles of Shenandoah, towards our camping grounds…

We reached the camping ground in Shenandoah around 7 PM. The sky looked darker and light was fading away, when we had lot of work to do, raising our tents, firing up the crate and cooking the dinner. Tent creation was an easy process, but firing up the crate was not that easy. We did not know how to get the fire catch the woods and thus the girls caught us some help from the neighboring campers. They suggested us to break the firewood to splinters, fire up some paper pieces to begin with till the splinters catch fire and later put in the big firewood. We followed suit and fire was up after an hour of hard work. Vegetables were wrapped up in a foil and thrown into the withering fire which never really caught up to cook stuff. Later eating away the half cooked vegetables, we slowly moved into out tents, cracking some sick PJs on our ways before catching the bus to dreamland in the middle of the jungle. The travel to dreamland was not simple enough especially when I could hear a big fat snore from my left in all possible frequencies and amplitudes… marking the end of Day 2…

Day 3:

I opened my eyes to see Ankur and Pradeep in panic mode. I did not understand what was going on, when I could see only anxiety and disappointment on Ankur’s face as if something really stupid had happened. Not to wonder anything more, Ankur had put the locked car keys inside the trunk of his car, later closing the trunk while taking out something early in the morning. We did not have a spare key for that car and the daily items of all the members travelled in that car was inside, one of the worst mistakes you could possibly do in the middle of the jungle. For some time we did not know how to solve the problem, with Pradeep suggesting to use his Swiss-knife expertise to crack open the trunk. The idea seemed overwrought since the car had security on. Finally we decided to call the car company and get some help from a blacksmith who said to arrive around 11 AM. We waited for the savior to arrive; meanwhile Ankur and Venki went for breakfast at the hotel in the Meadows.

Venki got back around 10 AM with a satisfactory smile on his face and great words in his mouth over the taste of the breakfast items in the hotel, luring us increasing our appetite. The way to the hotel was also scenic, with some memorable things like the water tap on the rock, a sign board reading “water tables”, a small narrow passage surrounded by green grass, looking into the Big-Meadows lodge, where the hotel stood. The breakfast time had already passed and all we could grab was some coffee. We decided to spent time in the hotel itself for an early lunch, drinking our coffee against the scenic backdrop at the rear of the lodge, sitting over a few artistically placed rocking chairs and childishly swaying on it.

The coffee was over and we were getting a little bored, thus deciding to take a tour of the surroundings of the hotel. Aruna, Gowri, Pradeep and I were game for the plan, while Lavanya and Deepthi stayed back at the hotel; Ankur and Venki still waiting for the blacksmith at the campsite. The hotel stood in a beautiful setting; we climbed the rocks at the Blackhawk cliff looking against the mountains with full of greenery in between. We did not forget to capture snaps in all possible panoramas we could get the right light on. Later started the hunt for the Lewis falls, which was a trail of over 1 mile. It was downhill and the trekking was very easy. I was a bit worried of losing track on the way and was taking photos of all possible signs, while Pradeep was cautious of putting sticks and stones on the way to mark the road. Gowri was leading; followed by Aruna, Pradeep following, while myself lazily moving clicking photos of a deer I found on the way.

In a distance we saw the swooshing sound of water, and thought we were very close to the fall. But unfortunately we did not find any fall around and walking over further found that we had just covered 0.4 miles only of the 1 mile trail. It was almost 11:30 and we had to reach back to the hotel for the lunch and we decided to trek back. The ticks-o-phobia had switched sides and now everyone on the walk back seemed to have stick-o-mania, trying to make comfortable climbing sticks with all sorts of tree branches they found on the way. Pradeep got a good piece of stick and was very happy maneuvering with it, maundering the extra capabilities the twigs projecting out of it might be useful for. Aruna got a “freshly dried” branch for the staff which was later sharpened to perfection. We reached back to the hotel around 12:30 PM and started ordering our lunch. Lavanya and Deepthi joined later followed by Ankur and Venki after dealing with the blacksmith and opening the car. We discussed over the unplanned trail we took to Lewis falls, later switching subjects to what to order for lunch. The waitress, who was an old lady, seemed uncomfortable with the way we ordered items, but we did not forget to tip her well for bearing us and keeping with her patience. The lunch, at least, the non-veg one I had was one of the best I had had in the recent times…

After lunch we decided to take some more trails. Lavanya was feeling feverish and thus we decided to take some of the easy trails. We found the easiest one with a waterfall and which was closest to our camping ground. One the way, we could find a big meadow on our right, with deers grazing by and wished if we could drop over into it, ran around like kids playing some silly games… but time was limited and we had to take the trails, thus we moved on… Ankur’s car had already arrived there and people were once again getting ready with tick repellants. Pradeep and Aruna did not forget to carry their staffs and Lavanya and Deepthi wanted similar ones. The trail was mostly downhill till the waterfall and we posed for a few photos on the way against springs, water sprays and trees fallen against streams. Finally we reached the waterfall, which was like the frock of an angel and we did not forget to click group pictures with all the stick paraphernalia we had. Later we started off back to climb up, which was an exhausting experience. But we managed to reach back taking a few strong gasps in between during a few second breaks.

It was prognosticated that there was going to be thick fog in the night and thus it was suggested to make early dinners. Pradeep had bought petrol from a nearby gas station and we started off firing up the crate. Meanwhile Lavanya’s sister also joined the gang. Together we started cooking our dinner. This time fire was pretty strong and we decided to cook corn, which we had bought one for each of us. The corn was foiled up and thrown in fire, until it was cooked. Later we did the same for vegetables and finally put the naan and tortillas on the grill over the fire. Pradeep as always was specific about cooking broccolis and cooked a separate foil marked with a ‘P’. By the time the dinner was ready, the rain was getting stronger and eating in the rain was becoming difficult. We used the tarps to make a roof for the dining room with treads going through the tarp holes tied to four adjacent trees. The dinner was ready and we had an amazing feast of half baked vegetables, potatoes and rotis.

The rain was very strong by the time we finished our dinners and only thing to do was to get back to tents and sleep. The near-by campers had all vacated hearing the bad weather warning and thus we were the only ones in that region. Water was gushing on the camp ground and fear was building on if our tents will sustain the wind. Thunder storms were also forecasted, and we started thinking of the worst case scenario of sleeping in the car. Finally things settled down for some time and we moved into our tents. We could hear the nature shouting tick-tick on our tents, with muddy water flowing under the tarp, over which we lay, in the middle of the jungle, alone, under a thunder storm. It was an amazing experience, marking the end of Day 3…

Day 4:

We had grand plans for day 4. We had already messed up with the trekking plans of the day before by misplacing the key. So we had decided to get up by 5 AM and go for trekking for over 6 hours before we start packing back to our next destination. Like I said before, the people who go to sleep and the ones who wake up are really different ones and as always we did not open our eyes before 7:30 AM. We found that the rain had not stopped still and fog had covered the whole region. Trekking in that climate was close to impossible and gushing muddy waters in the trails might cause chances of slipping. There was no option left but to pack up everything and leave the place at the earliest. Venki checked with the visitor center, who seemed to have informed him that the fog is mainly in our region and thus moving out from there and taking a drive might be a good way to spent time over the scenic overlooks. Thus we decided to pack.

Packing the tents posed the biggest of the problems. It was completely muddy dispelled by the rain and packing it as such was not a good idea. We decided to take the tents to the water fountains near to the restrooms and spray water on them. Aruna, Gowri, Pradeep, Ankur and I carried one of the tents, while other carried the other one later. It was a time of playing in water to clean up the tents, later removing the water out from it by holding it the four corners, and billowing it like old aunts in India used to do to dry their saris. It was fun and finally to remove the air from the tents for folding, we wrapped it on Ankur’s body tying his hands making him immobile. People took advantage of the opportunity to give him his pending birthday bashes. Later, we folded the tents somehow pushing them into their bags.

The thunder storm was still on and we were all getting wet. Our shoes were getting completely wet and drying them was becoming a big problem. Pradeep suggested and tried to put the shoe in the dryer at the laundry against the resentment of Aruna and Gowri, but could not get much dried even with his different experiments. Finally we had packed all our items, stacked up in the cars and were ready to get out from the area after our final lunch at the Big-Meadows lodge. That was another awesome food we all had.

We started off from the area around 3 PM. The next problem to be tackled was to drive in the heavy rain through thick fog, which had reduced the visibility to less than 2 meters at some regions. The GPS was useless and the only thing was to follow the roads, syncing up the cars at designated overlooks tracing the maps. This time marked the height of Venki’s car driving skills, when he was driving at well over 35 mph. We had all set our eyes on the odometer and the road one after the other looking out for any small light that was appearing against us. Once we had decided to sync up with Ankur’s car at a scenic point which was very down the road path, Venki taking the path down into the drive seemed as if he was taking the car out of the rocky side curbs, making all the girls in the car scream to stop the car. The fog was not only over big-meadows but had proliferated over the complete national park and all we could see was thick blank fog on either sides of the road as if some painter had erased away his drawings that we had seen when we had been into the previous day. After a big session of uncontrolled driving we finally came out of the skyline drive leaving behind Shenandoah national park in our memories…

The next destination to catch up was West Virginia for the rafting we had planned for the next day. The roads sides were again starting to look beautiful, though the rain was still on. We marked the GPS with the destination address, stopped at a couple of places to take breaks, changing the music cds playing songs from all possible languages of the south, even Deepthi singing for a while, finally we entered WV downtown driving for around 3 hours. It was already dark and the GPS was so messed up with map that it took us round and round in a spiral to reach the hotel where we were going to stay that day-Microtel Inn. We checked into the hotel, went to Subway, grabbed some simple dinner and got to our beds marking the end of Day 4…

Day 5:

Five seemed to be the most exciting day of the whole trip, which I am sure will linger in our minds for a long long time to come. It was scary to some, fun for others, might have shown the end of lives to a few and added a bit of ignominy to future endeavors of a few others. Anyways let me get back to the story of day 5.

This was the day we had planned for white water river rafting on the New River Gorge in West Virginia. We started off from the hotel. Ankur and team had already started. We were supposed to reach the rafting station at 11 AM. In between Venki remembered reading somewhere that we might need our identity cards to prove our ages or getting discount for the rafting, while we were half way. We started back, punching in to the GPS to get the shortest time route possible. Here started the trick of the GPS. It showed us a circuitous way away from the freeways, through the jungles with a lot of turns in between. Taking turns with a driver like Venki was a complete disaster, who cannot drive the car less than 20 mph and by the time we come closer to the turning point and looked around for road names, that road must have passed behind, making the GPS to find the next possible reroute to get us back, again a circuitous one. The combo of Venki and GPS was like made for each other with finally we landing in a dead end, with a house at the end of the road, with horse barns and a dog just waiting to bark on us if we made a little bit more into the house. Finally we somehow managed to come out of the place, with the GPS to take more freeways. Ankur had already reached the place and was waiting on us. He suggested to search for Little General petrol bunk and search for Minden road near to that. We reached a little general gas station, but Minden road was no where around. It was already a quarter passed eleven and the guide along with other rafters was waiting for us to start the bus. We figured out that there was two Little General gas stations and we were at a wrong place. Taking the 16 North we finally found the road, which later took us to the Ace adventures center.

Ankur, with others, were waiting for us, and we ran changing our dresses into the nylon ones in the car. We were asked to sign some papers for non-responsibility in case of any emergencies in the water. After dressing up in life jackets, with a helmet and a paddle, we moved towards our ten seater paddle boat, with our guide for the day; an old American. Before getting into the boat, our videos were shot asking how we felt and what we were going to do. Instructions were given on what to do and what not in the boat, the most important being to paddle in sync with all others.

Water was shallow and calm to start with and we were all rowing comfortably, with Ankur and Venki as the heads initially. Venki seemed to row independently losing in sync with Ankur and rest of others making the guide to shout at times to get back to sync. Easy sections of water were slowly moving away and came a rock which was some 10 ft tall. All of us were very excited to take a jump from the rock into the water. None of us except Lavanya and Venki knew swimming, but it was exciting to see how it goes! Ankur, Pradeep, Venki, Gowri, Aruna and I climbed on the rock. Pradeep said some prayers and jumped out first, followed by Ankur, followed by me. Looking down Aruna felt acrophobic and backed out switching to a smaller rock. It was fun to watch Aruna backing out on the video that was shot along with, as if one of the contenders of one of those AXN Fear Factor episodes.

Pradeep who had jumped first was completely lost when he was in water. He was terribly scared without knowing what to do next. Some how he managed to reach the boat that was waiting for him a bit far. With the floaters on I was trying to learn a bit of swimming towards the boat, but seemed quite impossible without a proper instructor. Anyways I managed to reach the boat swaying my hands and legs, when Pradeep was already there to grab me in. Later we pulled over Ankur, with him and me taking head of the boat to pick up each one of the floating people around. It was really hard to row a ten seater boat with only two rowers against the stream and we were getting exhausted. We picked Lavanya, and later Deepthi. Deepthi was floating with belly up like an overturned insect, that does not know what to do and just struggling with her hands and legs flowing slowly along the currents. Later we picked up Venki, Gowri and finally Aruna, who were float around at the same place where they had jumped to.

The jumping session was over and more fun was on the way. We started our paddles and started rowing according to the command of the guide. The instructor was pissed off at times at the lack of synchronization in paddling from us and once asked the shouted, “who is in charge here?”, with Venki saying, “I am”, and instructor shouting back, “Nope, you are not! I am in charge here”! We moved out from class two currents and class three currents were on the roll. It was like small whirls of water, if caught in might over turn the boat. That was pretty scary but nobody of us knew how scary it was. We continued paddling in sync as much as we could, when suddenly a current struck us, lifting the front of the boat, throwing down Ankur from his seat to the middle of the seat. It all happened in the split of a second and all the people in the boat were misplaced. I was pushed back and later recovering from the shock looked around to find that Gowri and Pradeep were missing from the crowd. They had fallen in water and were moving away from the boat. I showed my paddle to Gowri to grab and be pulled over while I saw Pradeep with a scary face as if his end was impending, shouting and crying for help. I grabbed both of them on their life jackets so that are closer to the boat. Later Venki pulled over Gowri and I pulled over Pradeep and all were finally in the boat, but the scare was still holding on to Pradeep’s face.

The instructor warned us that it was just a class three wave and down the line there was going to be class four and five rapids which were going to be stronger than we had witnessed. The quorum was upset and wanted to call off the idea of going further. We stopped for the lunch break, when we had a stomach aching laughter on the events that had happened on the river and how bloated the faces were when they were thrown into water. Finally we told the guide that we are backing out, who later asked us to help him pack the boat back to the rafting station. We later asked him for some flat water region, where we could spent our later day. He took us to a lake with a lot of floating toys in it. But unfortunately the region was closed due to an impending thunder storm and thus we decided to play throw ball over the nearby volleyball net.

We took bath in the arranged showers, cleaning up all the sand and mud that had got into from the river and the sand on the volleyball ground, changing back to normal dresses and picking our seats at 4:30 PM to watch the video of our rafting experience. It was really funny to watch how we had behaved in water. We started off back to our dwelling in Microtel Inn, but on the way we noticed that Venki’s car was making a screeching sound from the back wheels. The sound was becoming more prominent and we had to do something around it since we had a five hour driving to be done the next day back to Washington D.C. After dropping the girls in the lodge, Venki and I decided to check the car at some garage nearby, but could not find any open that time of the day. Thus we decided to call up the car company and ask for a replacement. The company did not have any agencies nearby and one they had was 40 miles away but was on the way back to DC. So we decided to change the car on our way back and moved on for having dinner…

We went to a Mexican restaurant, ordered the best food and had a relishing time, with jokes, photos and a perfect dinner. After dinner, we went to our cars, Ankur taking his car out, while Venki, taking a reverse gear to take out his car from the parking lot. Suddenly we heard a collision sound… shockingly looking back… seeing Ankur’s car at the back of ours. Venki had not looked back while taking the reverse and had collided with Ankur’s car on the friend door, making a dent on it and cracking our car bumper. That was the worst to happen, but fortunately it was Ankur’s car; otherwise it would have been a police case immediately. We told to discuss the issue at the hotel, since people were coming out of the hotel to check what was happening outside.

At the hotel, we discussed on what could be said to the rental agency to resolve the issue as smoothly as possible at the same time not having a black spot on Venki’s name. We called up friends to ask for suggestions, but finally decided to tell the truth as any other reason seemed implausible. Curtain slowly fell on the most eventful Day 5 and the final day was about to start…

Day 6:

The sun had already risen for the final day when we all opened our eyes around 8 AM. Ankur had already started packing the check in items, and was wiping out the water from the tarps when we all joined to help him. Venki started making phone calls looking for options to solve the accident case at the same time to figure out the options to replace the car, which was making noise from the back side. Replacement of the car seemed an unviable option as there was unavailability of a car of the same size, thus putting the luggage in a smaller sized car was not feasible. The only option thus left was to go for maintenance, in a place nearby to our lodging. Ankur had started off back to D.C. by 10AM and we departed to maintenance almost at the same time. After making a few routine bad turns here and there, we finally figured out the Good Year car workshop. In between, Venki noticed that there was something leaking from the front of the car and that made things scarier. We could have otherwise driven the car to D.C. if the repair was going to take more time, but leaking in the front made us panic more, that we had to repair it or there was no other go. The mechanic was away and we had to wait till 12:00 PM for him to come over to take a look at the car. The car was lifted hydraulically and the underneath checked. The leak turned out to be water from the A.C and thus we were a bit relieved. The screeching sound was due to worn out break parts, which had to be replaced. The rental company gave us the green signal to go ahead to change the break parts, without any cost from our side, fixing the car by 1:30 almost. In between, the girls in our car went for shopping, coming back with our lunches, which was great of them.

We were on the road around 1:30 PM, with our flights at 8 PM and Deepthi to be dropped at her bus stop at 6:30 PM. That seemed a challenging drive over 300 miles, with a speed limit of 65 mph. We took the chance and drove as fast as we can. The weather was mostly good and the GPS showed the arrival time as 6:27 PM initially, which slowly moved to 6:13 PM due to the little over speeding we were making on the way. After an hour of driving, Venki felt like to have a coffee to keep him awake, and we detoured to an exit in search of a starbucks as shown by our GPS as some half a mile away. Unfortunately Venki made wrong turns again, landing us up in some other road once again, now the GPS showing the starbucks as 6 miles away. That was a costly turn to make and thus decided to ditch the plan for coffee, and sooner get back to our road. We wasted over 20 minutes in search of coffee making a loop at the place we had made an exit from.

Later Venki moved into the mood of chasing vehicles and that was more fun and engaging forgetting his sleep. We were struck with a few strong showers and it was really scary to drive in them, when the front glasses were completely opaque with water splashing over. Driving for a while more, Venki started to feel uncomfortable and started looking out for a restroom. Again in search of a Starbucks half a mile away, we took a detour on the exit, moving towards Starbucks, while missing the turns and finally landing up in a Target. But even target was fine, with Venki running out of the car without even closing the door and running into Target. Ah! Finally he got back with a comfortable face and later the rest of the journey was in a steady pace without any breaks. It was sure that Deepthi was going to miss her bus, so she asked her cousins to schedule a train so that she can be dropped at the railway station. Same was done with Shobana, saving us some time to reach the airport.

Finally after the entire eventful journey, we reached the airport at 6:45 PM after refueling our car. Ankur had already taken boarding passes and was waiting impatiently on us, with anxiety of whether we are going to miss the flight. The water in the tents we had packed back had made the checkin luggage heavier making us to pay 90$ more for checking them in. We dropped our car at the airport rental, when Venki had to fill up the insurance forms taking the responsibility of the accidents. It was a quick deal and we were all up passing the security clearance for flying back. Pradeep stood there with my boarding passes and we all moved into the Gates. Aruna and Gowri, who had their flights delayed by half an hour, were also there. Boarding of our planes started, Ankur, Venki, Lavanya, Pradeep and I started off into the plane. The flight was delayed due to bad climate in Minneapolis, but finally after a wait of 2 hrs it slowly started taking off… marking the end of Day 6… and a lot of memories to recollect on for the days to come…