Recollection Time!

Divya of dnambiartravelblog.com asked me to list the posts from my blog in some categories as mentioned below. 

Truth - I am overwhelmed at her invitation, I don't know what else to say. 

Fact - She has about 140 posts and I have only 35, it at least makes sense to her to see her stats,  but still I will attempt to do this!

So my list is as follows -

1. My most beautiful post - It will be the most difficult to determine this one. All my posts are my photographs and it is difficult to pick one, but I am going to lean towards - Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. To be fair and honest, Michigan is the most beatuiful state I have seen from what ever I have seen in US (18 states only so far!), and every place I have been there is mesmerizing. It was difficult to point out one of the three posts, but Sleeping Bear is my favorite among the three!

Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, Michigan

2. My most popular post - It is a no brainer. Going by the number of people who have visited the post, Palace of Gold, or the ISKCON temple in West Virginia is the sureshot winner of this category. I have already expressed my gratitude to the people of the temple for sharing my blog in their website and thus, the higher traffic on that post. But if you are ever in the region, just visit the temple, it is a trip that no one will ever forget.

Palace of Gold, ISKCON Temple in Moundsville, West Virginia

3. Most helpful post - The post on Tulip Festival was very helpful to a lot of people planning to visit it during summers. 

Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan

4. Most controversial post - I will probably never have one! 

5. A post whose success surprised me - Again, I do not think I can think of any post of mine which has been so successful that it would surprise me. I am just very happy to receive all the adulation my posts get!

6. A post I thought that did not get the attention it deserved - I want everyone to take time in their lives and visit the Mackinac Island. I wish more people read about it and made plans to see it some day. 

Mackinac Island, Michigan

7. A post that I am proud of - Honestly all of them, but if I had to pick one, then it would be Hyderabad (1st part). I am just proud that I did this and everything I do today has been driven from there. The photographs in this post are not mine, but that's what drove me to actually be an explorer and a photographer, thereby, giving me the most endearing hobby of life I ever had!

Thank you all for reading the posts and keeping me busy planning my next trip. I just realized that my love for Michigan is very visible in this post and I hope I find more places like that soon :).

PS -- I will ask other people to continue this chain as soon as I figure out 2 more people to my list!

Ohiopyle State Park

Ohiopyle state park is located right outside the city limits of Pittsburgh, PA. It is a great place for rafting, fishing, hiking and sight seeing. Laurel highlands are one of the most beautiful part of the state offering amazing sceneries for the onlookers. I would like to write a lot more than this, but in my last visit, I did not roam around much, but just went to the Cucumber falls, which is very easy to access by all. Like I said in my previous post, in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, fall might be a great season for photographing colors, but the waterfalls are really thin at this time of the year. However, the heart of the park is the Youghiogheny [yaw-ki-gay-nee] River Gorge which rushes through the park in a way that some people call it the Niagara of Pennsylvania. 

People usually park their car outside cucumber falls and start walking around the river till they reach the bridge and then cross the river and walk in the other direction, completing a loop. We however, took our car to drive around. The drive was just way too beautiful that day, with mild breeze and amazing colors all around us, it was easy to get lost. On the other side of the road, one can find some nice small eateries  rentals for cycles and other shops, making the trip last a whole day. 

Photography tip - Go out there when it is cloudy, I did it and the resultant rainbows and other scenes were just out of the world. More on that towards the end of blog. 

 

 

 

Photos  - Drive enroute the Laurel Highlands, to the Ohiopyle State Park (Cucumber falls precisely). 

Photos - The Cucumber falls in Ohiopyle State Park

 

 

   

Photos of the beautiful Youghiogheny river gorge 

While heading back to the city, it started raining in the hill top and we started turning our heads around to check which direction could show us any hit of rainbows. And after driving for a while, the sky covered with clouds bursted open in to sunlight. While the clouds played with the sun, a rainbow started forming, which in my life, was nothing like I ever saw. A fully formed rainbow, on the clouds and with such saturated colors, that I was afraid to even touch those photographs in my computer. It was worth the 20 minutes we spent on a field nearby, running and chasing around the rainbow, forgetting the age and surroundings. I hope to go the park many more times to develop this post in to a full fledged Ohiopyle post. 

 

 

 

 

Photographs of the rainbow over the laurel highlands after a brief rain.