Mom probably waited for few minutes for me to come home after Dad, knowing that I have a lot of things to do while walking those 3 floors up..

Mom: Where is Dil?

Dad: Hmm..

Mom: What? Where is she?

Dad: Looks like the boy’s flight (Yes.. that time he was just called boy ) from Delhi to US is delayed for the night. So Dil also went to Delhi with him. She will take tomorrow morning’s flight back to Hyderabad.

Mom: What? She left already ?

Dad: Hmm… (Imagine Raj Kapoor’s sad face here…)

Poor mom. She bought everything dad said. Sas-Bahu-Serial impacted Mom couldn’t hold it a moment. Yet, she had to act bravely. After all, if the daughter left her without even saying good-bye and without even telling her that she was going to Delhi, why should she cry? So she was feeling really bad, yet didn’t say a word out. And the Prankenstein Dad was sitting in the corner, calmly reading the newspaper without letting a clue out.

After three hours, saying good-bye to Murali, I came home. Mom opened the door. And when she saw me, for a second, she was confused, not knowing how come I was back so early. A moment later, she realized that this was one of my dad’s pranks, she laughed out loud. When dad filled me in on what he did, I couldn’t control myself. We three laughed and laughed non-stop.

Of course, the next two weeks, my dad and I attacked mom on the fact that she didn’t trust her daughter.  She had to endure our torture for a longer time, actually. Even now, when I say something and she doesn’t believe, I say, “Anyway, you never trusted your daughter. Remember that time, when Dad told you that I left you without even saying goodbye and you believed him…”. LOL. Poor mom.

That’s how my dad is. No matter how many pranks he plays, mom always falls for him.

And somebody had to take the Prank torch from him. Right? I did. Well, I am not as good as him, but I do try.

My mom is also the ultimate home-maker type. When she buys something, she would bargain for the last penny. If she spent money on something, she will expect it to work 100%.  Once she got a leaking brass pot repaired. The guy who fixed the leak did a decent job. But mom wouldn’t believe until she saw for herself. After giving the guy a hundred warnings that she will come back to the store if the leak wasnt fixed, she decided to put the pot to test.

She filled up the pot with water and left it in a corner. Her idea was that if it was still leaking, there would be water around the pot. She also decided to check on it every few minutes. Enter me. Right before the (few-1) minutes, I would sneak to this corner, open up a nearby tap and spill some water around the pot. And when mom came she would see the water and assume that leak is not fixed yet. Mom would walk to corner, see the water around the pot and start complaining that nobody offers quality service…etc..etc… We did this couple of times. It was getting damn funnier. I actually wanted her to go to the store again and complain that pot wasnt fixed, but she finally caught me spilling water. And my act was complete. Thank God she laughed instead of putting me to another kind of insanity test, but she did make sure she does a new test on the utensil for confirmation, of course, when I was not around. One thing I don’t understand now is when she knew the pot was still leaking, why did she need to check on it again? Maybe she was trying to find out how big the hole was. I don’t know.

Huh. I miss all these pranks. But on the brighter side, when I visit India…I can pass on the knowledge to Kousik. I am sure he will add his own touch.

Last year, even though we wanted to, we couldn’t go visit all the fall colors at those famous scenic drives. So all these pictures are from our home sweet home in Sunnyvale.

When my parents were here, the leaves just started changing colors. But mom and dad had to leave before the change was complete. Until today, this transition is so amusing to my dad. He keeps asking, each day, how much the leaves have changed. And we would update him saying that they are 10% red, half yellow, like mom’s that maroon saree etc. They would have loved it very much if they could see the real fall.

Meanwhile, our apartments turned prettier day by day. Leaves all over the place. Beautiful combinations of colors.

Ahh..I feel so nostalgic looking at these pictures. My mom, dad and my aunt used to go walking, shopping around our place. By the time I come home, they would tell me all their day activities. They even discovered a Murphy park behind our house. That park is still my favourite. Only because when I remember it, I remember my parents being there. After my parents left for India, my aunt was still with us. Poor thing, she was so bored after they left. I can’t forget her complaining about her boredom, the cold weather; All this while enjoying the pretty colors.  

One day when I came home from work,  the trio so proudly exhibited this plant to me. They said they plucked the pudina leaves from some where and re-planted it. Given how much they loves gardening, I wasn’t surprised to see the plant growing up very well.  And all of this in a yogurt container.

Miss you lots people. Can’t wait to see you all in December and hear your awesome stories about everything.

Wait. How did I come here? Wasn’t I talking about Fall? Sigh. Can’t help folks.

Okay then. I will leave you guys with more pictures. Wait for Washington fall pictures, which, btw, may not be as memorable as the earlier fall pictures to me. But definitely pretty. I agree

We are already in a dearth of good news in this world. So before any body from media starts pointing anything wrong about this, I am going to say I am happy for this one happy event.

Soooo…Hello folks…what I actually want to say first is that…finally…it paid off. Our moving here. One of the two ideas of us moving all the way from bay area (Miss you sweets..miss you..*A heavy emotional hug*) to this rainy land is that Murali can go to school. That is to do MBA. His dream; To go to a good school to do MBA. He got admitted to University Of Washington after we moved here. And poor thing, he patiently waited for his school to start. And now, it has. Things began kicking-in in the end of september and now he is officially super busy. I heard that classes, projects etc. can get pretty hectic and now I am seeing it. First week of classes and he already had assignments to finish. Last Sunday, he slept at 2 am and woke up at 6 am. Sigh. (Oh, btw, I was sleeping all the time, as if I am the one who is doing all the assignments.) I guess his schedule will pretty much be the same for the next two years. The last two weekends, he spent time preparing for his classes all the time and I spent my time wondering what should I do to make my weekends productive. You see, planning is very important. Especially, when you need to plan for two years. So, that being said, let us move on to what I wanted to say next. Oh, btw, Good luck Murali….Hamara naam roshan karo…:)

Just when I wanted to make my weekends productive, weather changed completely. It is now raining. Not that it wasnt earlier, but now the uncertainty of will it rain or not is gone. It is raining and raining. And I couldn’t find a better time than now to finish the scarf I was trying to make from last December. It was a bulky yarn and no pattern would suit it. Finally I managed to do a scarf out of it for Venna. As I was running out of yarn, I had to make it shorter than usual, but I am going to say that it is okay because she is just a kid. However, I did add a little something to make her forget about the length. Venna is all girly and she would love the extra color and jingles. I cant wait to see her wear the scarf.

And today, while I was trying my best not to disturb Murali, I started drawing a small smiley on a balloon for him and finally ended up drawing this. This, my friends, will come to know in the future as the first of my famous art. So order your copies today. Note: No funny comments on the picture will be accepted. You just have to say its awesome. Because it happens to be the first one that is decent enough to be displayed.

There you go. I wrote it all. Now, I have to get back to the fly. Where is it?

And that time is a trip to home. Coming up, during December, almost all of the month.

I can hardly wait after I booked my tickets today. Mom is already planning on what she will be cooking for me. Sis already slipped me a note offline that Poori-Boy will be busy with his exams and I can’t disturb him. (He is Five; How important his exams could be? Besides, who else am I going to teach the teeny-tiny pranks I know.) Dad, however, has asked me not to plan any trips to places than Hyderabad. He has a point; So I have asked my friends from Bangalore to come over. I hope they do. Thankfully, most of my other friends are still in Hyderabad. I just hope I would have wonderful time with them, making those trips to shopping, movie theatres, restaurants etc. I am also super excited to take my mom shopping. She loves it, when I buy her sarees. Especially, when she proudly exhibits our shopping bags to dad, who is equally happy too, but for some reason, says nobody should shop for clothes, but only for stocks. And mom starts rolling her eyes in the background. .

62 days to go. I can hardly wait.

Birthdays are so overrated. Especially when you are not turning 24 (Yeah. Turning 24 is better to me than turning 18). Of all the years of my life, my undergrad birthdays and those while I was working in India are the only best ones. I cannot recollect most of my childhood birthdays and its been a while I looked at any of those pictures. Apart from these, all my birthdays are very silent. They are nothing better than a normal day; probably a new dress and a quiet dinner. This, however, didn’t stop me from dreaming. After all, if there is an eternal optimist society, I could be a grand member of it. So, each years birthday ends with the hope of having a great birthday next time. (yeah, yeah, I am thinking surprise parties, everybody calling me, wishing me, with friends, movie, dinner, gifts, loads and loads of fun, laughing out loud, a day in Disneyland with non-stop chatter and laughs and etc. )

So what happened today? Two of my best friends I was expecting to wish me didn’t wish; Nobody in the office knew about my bday; I walked to office alone in the cold weather; Had another unproductive work day; And still stayed at work until 6:30,that too on a Friday evening; And now I am here writing this and watching some stupid show on TV. And that’s it; Birthday celebrations are over.

Today, I have to recollect my best birthday moments, otherwise, this time, I don’t think I will hope for a better one next time.

My first teen birthday, our phone wouldn’t stop ringing. When I had friends over for a party, we talked and talked and talked. All my friends were there and all of them got me gifts . 3 or 4 hours of masti time. I spent the next couple of days looking at the personal notes my friends wrote on the gifts. Of course that time, I didn’t have the after and before birthday celebration idea. But when I started working, my friends at work made up this idea. So those 3 years, I almost celebrated my birthday 9 times. . But the best among those 9 was the one when they all brought me small gifts. Took me to a small restaurant near office and each of them started popping up a present. That was so cute. The minute I thought I got all the gifts, another one would give me a present. Not expensive gifts though, but very nice ones. My all-time favourite Jurassic Park: The Lost world DVD was also a part of the package. Oh, I almost forgot. They also got me another new dress and made me change in the office wash room. Interestingly, most of the people at work noticed that I was wearing a different dress than in the morning and then I had to tell  them (if they didn’t know already) that it was my birthday. And then there were many more ‘Happy Bday’ wishes.

Hmm…I guess my expectations will stay the same. But, I don’t even want a bday like the earlier ones, but something better than a quiet birthday. I don’t want to be treated like a princess or etc, but I just want to laugh. But I know, when my daughters are here, they will. I will make sure their birthdays are the best day of their year. I swear.

   ♥ I love my morning sleep. That is the only time of the sleep when I actually sleep.

   ♥ If you are thinking all wives should rise and shine before the husbands do, is it fair to compare me to a human who is waiting for the clock to strike 6 so that he can get out of the bed?

   ♥ When I have kids, would they let me sleep? Or even worse, what if they are like Murali and wake up at 6?

   ♥ All of my beloved grandmas and grandpas complain that they can no longer sleep because they are old. If I am going to be one of them in future, why would I want to spoil my happy sleep now?

   ♥ What do I do waking up so early? (Okay! fine. This reason is no longer valid)

Anyway, never mind my reasons not to. Again, the problem here is how-to-wakeup. And so, like a normal aaj-kal-ka human, I binged “How to wake up early”. (Binged..Sheesh…I dont like the sound of it. ). And what I found was very uninteresting and stupid. For example,

   ♥ First stupid idea: Setting alarm and keeping the alarm far away from the bed. The idea is that one will wake up and go switch it off. Yeah. Sure! As if that is going to happen. Do you know what will happen…

             ♣ On the first day, I will get up, switch off the alarm and come back sleep. Just as in trance and like that alarm was far away for no reason.

             ♣ On the second day, Murali will get up, switch off the alarm and try wake me. Instead of me waking up, I would make him sleep again.

             ♣ On the third day, Murali will get up, switch off the alarm and keeping yesterday morning’s experience in mind, he would silently slip away from the bedroom.

             ♣ On the night before the fourth day, Murali will give me some silent-cold-killer looks and switch off the alarm and I just can’t care less.

             ♣ And for the rest of the days, I wouldn’t even remember that I was trying to wake up early.

   ♥ Second stupid idea: Get a friend to call you in the morning and keep talking until I wake up.

             ♣ Sounds good. But who is going to wake up this person? And where does he live? On Pandora?

             ♣ Instead of trying to help me get rid of one bad habit, are you asking me to develop another bad habit of talking before brushing? Yikes.

   ♥ Another stupid idea: Take a hot shower and cut the heat and blah blah and blah blah.

             ♣ Did you say a hot shower on a cold winter morning that would make me feel very warm and cozy and soothi…..Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Now you get the point. Don’t you? These ideas are so superficial. Given that, I used my brain cells (in their most active time, i.e. night) and came up with a personalized plan to help one wake up in the morning.

  ♥ Have kids. I bet one won’t be sleeping a minute more than he or she can. Even better, follow this.

             ♣ Send your children to far far away schools (No matter how old they are)

             ♣ Make sure you spoil them so that they only eat exotic breakfasts, lunches and snacks.

             ♣ Even if your work place is close to your home, take a busy city bus/train, tour the city and then go to work. (It is important to stand in the bus/train)

  ♥ Get a nagging husband. Otherwise,

             Murali: Please wake up ra

             Me: Just  5 more minutes.

             Murali: (After 10 minutes) Please..You are getting late.

             Me: Just  2 more minutes.

             Murali: (After 10 minutes) Please…

             Me: Its late anyway. 10 more minutes.

           …… and the story continues.

  ♥ Get addicted to coffee. Why do you think Murali doesn’t wait a minute after he is awake to get out of the bed? To meet his best buddy. He goes by the name ‘Folgers Classic Roast’.

  ♥ Miss out on satisfying things in life. To wake up early, we got to sleep early, remember? That means no more reading blogs, writing on blog, no more commenting, no more.. etc. etc. etc.

  ♥ Follow the 90 minute sleep pattern cycle. Oh, btw, that means sleeping 90 minutes early. As we know that all the tv shows run for either 30 minutes or 60 minutes, this means that one might have to watch TV for at least 3 hours before going to bed. Isnt this idea better than the others?

  ♥ Devise a machine that will automatically throw you out of the bed at a certain time.

  ♥ Than eating a bit of yogurt or protein after waking up, drinking a little something before sleep has proven to solve many of the major problems.

Now,did you read all that? Tell me, is it worth it? Not you coffee lovers! But people like me. The Morning stars..because we sleep and let others sleep….

♥ Because I heard  a set of ‘wow’, ‘very good’, ‘nice’ from my mom and my aunt (who has even increased the probability of her visiting me).

♥ Because we cooked two sabjis, pulihora, sambar, two appetizers and two desserts in one evening and managed to come out of the kitchen without any traces of soot on the face. And the best thing is feeling good after cooking. Oh boy, when was the last time that happened?

♥ Because the pleasantly surprising sight of a clean kitchen after so much of cooking, lots of visitors, things moving all over the place is perfect (Thank you-know-who).

♥ Because cascade loop scenic drive is really a scenic drive and eating a so-called one scoop ice cream that is as big as a three scoop ice cream is heavenly.

♥ Because it is exciting to be getting down to see a waterfall, but instead getting scared on seeing the ground some 200 ft below your feet through the bridge gaps.

♥ Because it feels very happy to sing along “Phoolon Ke Rang Se Dil Ki Kalam Se…” with every one in the car.

♥ Because it is surprising to drive some 200 miles to a place called Winthrop, only to find that it is a two lane old cow-boy styled town.

♥ Because it is funny to pick on one large scoop of ice cream all day and bring it into the conversation every time.

♥ Because it is comforting to come back at 11 in the night and have food ready to eat.

♥ Because the cloudy and rainy Sunday is a perfect reason to stay home and play “Apples To Apples” and perfect time to learn a new card game. (My first ever)

♥ Because it’s wonderful to sit together with friends and eat lunch, ice cream, almond swiss chocolate and have coffee in a row.

♥ Because Murali said,”If you are worrying now about going back to work tomorrow and not having fun there, you are missing the fun this moment”.

 Whats next? Shuttin up crying babies, nagging wives?

Oh wait. Before you make some assumptions and ask me the obvious question, ‘No’. It’s for Shardul. He is not here to wear the hat and model it for my pictures, but, look, Ms. Little Kitty volunteered to model.

Oops. Well, She was too small for the hat. (Wait don’t say that she was too ashamed to wear my hat ) And also, when they said practice makes everyone perfect, they were right. Here are some of the first hats I knit. Although, they can be hardly called hats. They were expected to become one, they just didn’t. However, I absolutely loved this color and kept knitting. It did work out finally.

Again, if you have to know, here is miss highness endorsing the hat.

 It could be a while before Shardul gets to wear this, until then, lucky Ms. Kitty can have it. Poor thing. Now she is worried about the modelling contract she signed with me.

We changed our hiking goal this time; Instead of hiking to a summit, this time we wanted to try something else. Like, hiking into meadows. Especially now that summer is kinda over here, this might be our last chance to see some wildflowers.  A friend suggested Snow Lake. Images on the web were breathtaking. It was not too far from our place and it seemed a perfect destination.

And it was definitely. Snow Lake is about an hour drive from our place. It is in Snoqualmie pass which is usually covered in snow except when its peak summer.  The parking place where we started our hike is actually a ski resort. Come winter, this place would be covered in snow and bustling with skiers. ( I would surely go back to this place in winter, definitely to compare the pictures with now).

Although this time of the year there were only small patches of snow here and there, the place was still breath-taking.  From the parking lot, we hiked about an hour up the mountain. There were not as many wildflowers as I was expecting, but whatever we could see was very very beautiful. Snow lake is on the back side of this mountain; Between couple of mountains. It’s decently big. Water is so serene. Plus the day we hiked was cloudy and it made the place look even more serene. 

To do justice to the beauty of this place and hike , I went to the trouble of installing Flickr plugins for word press, only to find out an easy solution. So please click on the above picture and enjoy the Snow Lake.

I am not sure if the trail would be open in winter. But I hope we can get back to this place to catch it in its original form. It would be worth the snowshoeing effort.

I am too sleepy to write any thing else about the place so I will leave you with the pictures. They tell a better story. Of course, tomorrow Murali is going to be very pissed off that I neither wrote about the mosquitoes all the way during the hike nor about how many of them bit him. Hey…there you go..I said it.

Here is why each of them think that I should do what they expect me to do.

Mom:

        ♦ It’s for God.

        ♦ We get to wear a new saree every friday.

        ♦ Another occasion to buy jewelry. This is where I picture my mom, wearing all the jewelery I can imagine and then she says, very emotionally, “This is all for you”. Then the picture suddenly changes to me wearing all that jewelery and I start screaming.

        ♦ The little bit of exercise. i.e. the namaskaras to pati parameshwar lose a calorie or two. Plus it also makes the husband feel important.

Mom-in-law:

        ♦  It’s for God.

        ♦ Besides, its the sacred month of the year.

        ♦ Also, the holiest.

        ♦ Feed my son, at least today, at least once in a year.

Aunt:

        ♦ Ofcourse God.

        ♦ The younger and newer generations should try to, should, must follow <Fill in the traditions name here>.

        ♦ Please cook at least today.

I don’t really see any problem with their reasons for me to pray. It’s for my good. You see, new clothes, good food once in a while are not that bad. But the real problem, you see, is the almighty himself. Stepping back a little, there was once, a time in my life, when, what ever I asked for went in the opposite direction. It was like a baseline rule established in my life; If I ask it , I don’t get it. Okay, Initially I thought I was being tested. But I kept my faith. I continued to pray. And then things changed. The baseline rule changed; If I ask it, I don’t get it and in addition to not getting what I wanted, I would get the worst possible ever. Sigh. I said enough. I said to myself, when you think there is a God who can help you, you will keep looking for help. And I called it quits. I stopped praying, I stopped asking and eventually the small deities that were supposed to be in pooja mandir went into a safely packed box (Only to resurface, squeaky clean,before my parents landed here). 

And then started the fictitious stories. No matter what we talk about, in our conversations with parents, we hit ‘Pooja’, ‘Temples’, ‘Prasadam’ etc. very often. When asked if I prayed before starting a new task, I would very casually say, ‘Yes’. So it went on. I made virtual kheer as prasadam, had fake head baths on friday mornings, wore mangal sutra every day, even polished it every 3 months and so on.

Considering the environment we all grew up in, I guess its difficult to stay that way. Now, slowly a feeling of guilt is seeping in . Not that I want to pray or believe in God now, but it’s that I am lying to the people who care the most about me. Besides, this time, out of no where, my dad got into this conversation. He said ‘Wear whatever you have. Just sit in some corner and pray’.

I was surprised to hear that. He knew it. He knew I didn’t have any thing like the small pooja mandir, my mom was expecting me to have. Yet, he didn’t say anything. That hit hard. All of sudden, I wanted to open up the box we safely locked and make the pooja mandir. But it wasnt just possible. May be, I felt guilty or I was scared that I would be disappointed again. I just couldn’t do it. But I so wanted to do what my dad wanted me to do. Even that I couldn’t. 

However, it was meant to happen. Our friends invited to Pooja at their house. So at 10.30 in the night, we went there. They were doing the pooja and without complaining I sat with them. I had my corner. I was wearing whatever new I could. More than wishing for some thing to happen, I was happy that I could do what ever my dad wanted me to do. And that makes it a good friday.

P.S: I know this doesn’t belong in here. But I can’t leave this post without telling you about my dream. So, whenever I am in this pooja session, I dream of this. Murali and me, doing the same pooja, at a beautiful house (which is ofcourse ours) and every person from the family is at our house. And there are also our twin girls, with us in the pooja. Yep. Twin girls. Okay, twins or not, it’s definitely two girls in my dreams, any time. Huh. One can only dream.

Now was the time to actually do something. Murali already clarified that we had already finished our weekly quota of walking. (On a side note, I am the one complaining about aches all over the body, but Murali is the one saying no to walking. He must either care too much about me or simply, he must be lying. These guys, I tell you). So the next thing to-do, is implementing an idea from no where. That is a trip to Everett. Everett is about 25 miles from where we live. That is where we drove. Not that we had a plan to go there nor that Everett is a tourist destination. We don’t even have driving directions to the place. It’s totally an ad hoc thing to do and we are just two people driving on the high way. And this is what we did for the rest of our trip.

♥ Everett has good views of Mount Baker. May be our future hike destination. I am not really sure why would they call a snow mountain, Baker. It’s not like anybody can bake anything there in the open. Nor it is like it’s too hot that all apples are automatically baked into apple pies. Weird people, I tell you. On the other had, don’t you think Mount Dil would make a perfect name?

♥ Everett has a Wal-Mart. As usual, I jumped at the sight of Wal-Mart. It’s not like Wal-Mart is my Disneyland. But in general, I love the shopping areas where I can find something that I like and also be able to buy. Especially for home decoration. I love to have new decoration items, replacing them once in while (read every two weeks). And with just two pay slips a month, I can’t afford to do that with Pottery Barn and that’s why Wal-Mart. Well, looks like now-a-days I am losing that right too.

Me: Yayy! Let’s go to Wal-Mart.

Murali: Is there anything you wanted to buy there?

Me: No. But if we go there, I can buy something.

I swear, he almost took a u-turn to take me home. 

♥ Some of the architects in Washington do use their brains while constructing shopping malls. Others just don’t. These others construct outdoor shopping malls, where people must get drenched in the continuous rain, hop from one shop to another in the brutal cold wind. But the architects in Everett are not these stupid types. Everett does have an indoor(read usable) shopping mall. And the best thing is that this is on our way back home. Now that we have crossed the town without finding anything useful, Murali is now obligated to take me to the mall. (Going to Everett was his idea). Dhoom Taana ta Jhum ta na na na. Dhoom Taana.

♥ When you see an ice cream shop,especially as soon as you enter a mall, you use it. Does not matter if it is Coldstone or Baskin-robbins or Something-that-must-not-be-eaten-at. You go there, you ignore however it looks like, order the flavors you like and you get out with a cup in your hand and show-off your ice cream to all the kids in the shopping mall. (Sounds evil? yeahh..That’s me..)

♥ Showing-off and making kids jealous; I guess ice cream alone was not enough. While I was walking by, a lady handed my a balloon. That’s right. She asked if I wanted a balloon and I said yes. Bingo, ice cream in one hand and balloon in another. Now you kids better come to me.

♥ Now, what’s the deal with this hi-fi shops that sell a tie for $195? Again, I am never a brand’s person. What has it done to us wearing the expensive watches Tiger Woods wears, I ask? Uhhh.. I better move to another point, before any of you start answering that question.

♥ Craftsman DOG BONE™ Metric Wrench is a good product. It’s swivel head allows easy access and fits any angle. It has Cr-Mo Steel for strength and durability and is ideal for oil drain plugs. It’s triple chrome plated with full polish finish makes it really easy to clean. Good to know so, but the only problem is that I don’t need one now. I bet neither do you. LOL. I can’t believe, I made you all read that. Oh my god. I am all evil tonight.

♥ Insert some dinchak dinchak dances and drums here because after typing all this, I finally learnt that the right spelling of Everett is Everett and not N-ever-ett.

The other part of this hike is Little Si. Little Si is a similar and smaller version of Mount Si. Its only (notice only? ) 5 miles and also a steep  hike, but not all the way up to the summit. Little Si is less harder than the Mount Si. We hiked Little Si the week before Mount Si and so I cant help but compare. 

More than the hike and view of Little Si, what was amusing was how we were taken hostage by this dog. When we started our descent, we stopped for a minute at one point to take some pictures and there was this dog, very cute. It kept pushing the little stick you see in the picture towards me, obviously signalling me to play throw and fetch with her. That was the first time, ever (a dog wanted to play throw and fetch with me ).

I was a little scared that the dog would jump on me and kill me if I don’t throw the stick, so I kept doing as she wanted. At least 10 times, she would go fetch the stick wherever I threw it. I had to be really carefull while throwing because we were surrounded by the valley. The dog was running so fast that it wouldn’t even look before it would jump into the valley. Finally, I didn’t know what to do. I silently tricked the dog and got away and now, Murali was taken hostage. I was standing away, laughing out loud, looking at Murali’s face. I was just waiting to see, how Murali would handle the dog. And suddenly he said to the dog, “Go away” and the dog just did. I couldn’t believe it. Either Murali has the super powers to talk to animals or the dog went to college and studied english.  How come I didn’t know that talking to the dog will make it go away? Huh. I need super powers. 

Hiking Mount Si, we had also seen couple of dogs, trying to make it to the summit, some of them just gave up because it was too hard. But it was worth all the effort. The view from the summit of Mount Si was just breathtaking.  We started our hike in the afternoon and reached the summit by 4 pm. The sun was not too sharp, although there were clear skies around. The views were very clear. 

Snoqualmie Valley

Rattle snake Ridge lake

We could even see Bellevue downtown and as well as the Seattle downtown from the summit. The small center piece of blue water you see in the above picture is the rattle snake ridge lake, looking as beautiful as the last time. 

We stayed for an hour at the top of the mountain and started our descent, back to the parking lot. Coming down the steep hill is always easy, at that time. We try to walk fast and as well control ourselves to not go too fast. But what we don’t realize is how much pressure we put on our knees. While walking up, we slow down when we need to. But going down, we just don’t realise how painful it could be. Not until you come, get some sleep and wake up. And then the first step feels horrible. Legs super sore, calves so stiff and now, I wish I dont have to walk for another 10 days.