Arches National Park: Grandness

Standing beneath the Delicate Arch

Standing beneath this magnificent arch,
I realized,
I am nothing but a tiny speck.

Enthralled by its beauty,
I realized,
It is the tiny speck that accentuates its grandness.

Awed by a closer perspective
Of this amazing work of nature,
I realized,
The story of a moment can be rewritten by perception.

When busy moments flood my days,
I realize,
It is easy to get drowned,
In moments that seem insignificant,
And be overwhelmed by life.

Then I look at this picture that speaks to me,
And I realize,
Every moment is precious,
And a measure of the grandness of life !

Have You Found Your Park?

As a kid, a visit to a park was something I looked forward to. Back then, I just thought of a park as a place with swings, slides, merry-go-rounds and other play equipments. Then came amusement parks, water parks and a variety of theme parks with their own truck loads of fun. It is much later in life that I started thinking of parks as natural areas.

When I came to U.S, I was fascinated by the National Park Service (NPS), which preserves natural and historic areas, while making them accessible to the public. Staying in central California, it was easy to drive to numerous parks and make full use of the one year national park pass that we had purchased.  After moving to Austin, the busy-ness of life enclosed us for a while in the center of Texas. Eventually, the love for national parks resurfaced and we visited a few more including the two in Texas.

Many of these parks are world famous and swarmed by visitors. As much as I loved visiting the parks that were in the popular list, I also enjoyed the visits to those parks which I had thought would not be interesting. In fact, each has its own character and something unique to showcase, be it a distinctive landform, a peek into history, or biological and geographic diversity.  The National Park Service ensures adequate information to plan the trip based on one's level of physical fitness and length of stay. There are a wide range of activities suited for an adventurous rock climber, an enthusiastic biker, an avid hiker, an ardent horse rider, a laid-back stroller, or even a limited mobility or wheelchair bound person.

When I saw the FindYourPark initiative started by NPS as part of its centennial celebrations, I started thinking of all the parks that I have been fortunate to visit. Out came the park booklets collected over the last decade along with memories including those from parks where we missed to collect or save the booklet. Like the circle formed by these informative and picturesque pieces of paper, my mind runs in circles as I try to answer the question from the NPS FindYourPark movement:  Have you found your park ? 

#FindYourPark

The goal of this initiative by NPS is to encourage more people, specially the millennials, to visit these national treasures or any natural park. If you need ideas, check out this link. It could be an urban park, a small green belt or even something that makes one admire the history of a place. By encouraging folks to share their stories, pictures and experiences, they are trying to bring the intangible benefits that these parks provide. From promoting a healthier and active lifestyle, adding a sense of calmness, admiring nature's artwork, or getting a better perspective, parks help us in more ways than we realize. The aim is to have more people ask this question so it keeps echoing and reaching those who have not heard it before. So, let's keep asking each other "HAVE YOU FOUND YOUR PARK?"

Road to Infinity ?

The road seems to stretch to infinity,
Providing amazing visibility,
Spurring to increase the velocity.

With just mountains in the vicinity,
It takes me away from busy reality,
And makes way for peace and serenity

Road to Infinity?

Virtual reality ?

Zooming by mountains

Century plants along the way

Living in the Age of Airplanes

After watching the IMAX film "Living in the Age of Airplanes", I gained a different perspective of flying and airplanes. This splendid film with stunning visuals brilliantly conveyed how airplanes have changed our lives. They not only enable people and goods to cross land and water with great speed but also act as bridges between cultures and ideas paving the way to a truly global world.

Photo courtesy: National Geographic

It is ironic that flying, which was once a fascination for humans, has now become a frustration. As we wait in the long lines in airports and try to sit through cross-continental flights, we tend to forget that before the invention of airplane, most of us would not have dared to travel so much. What once would have been considered a slow migration is now an instant vacation. Today, we hardly think before buying perishable goods from countries far away, rarely fancying how they would have arrived fresh at our local store without this fastest means of transport. It is even tougher to visualize the intangible effects of airplanes which can even touch lives of people who may never have flown. Air travel has facilitated international conventions where bright minds across the globe meet, share and work on new technology and products for the whole world. In our frenzy to "catch" a plane, we seldom slow down to grasp any of this.

Caught a plane!

The film ends with an emotional note showing families welcoming their loved ones and stating that the best place to fly to is home. How true! With our kids born across the globe from their grandparents, flying makes it possible to bring them close to the family. To these twenty-first century kids, flying is nothing but another means of transportation. Well, they started flying when they were just a few months old! Compared to the people who lived a century before them, they need not be the most daring adventurers to travel across oceans and continents. A look at these airplane tickets created by them shows much of their pretend play is about traveling around the world with ease.

From kids born in the age of airplanes

As I envision the connectivity brought out by the vast network of airplanes, I also sense how much of this we now take for granted. My mind slowly drifts back to the time when flying indeed was a fascination for me. Growing up in a time when air travel was considered a luxury, I had not flown in one till my father planned to take us on a plane from the state of Kerala to Goa in India. It was the first flying experience for most of us who went on that trip. It was not that we traveled across oceans to a place where only an airplane could take us. It was also not for saving time as our plane was detoured through another city making it a long trip. It was just for experiencing the thrill of flying. I can still remember that exhilarating feeling of seeing the land disappear during take-off and then seeing the cars and buildings become bigger and bigger as we landed. Like mentioned in the film, we could see more in one glance than what our ancestors could have seen in their entire lifetimes.

As time flew by, flying slowly became part of life. The appreciation waned away, paving way for annoyance and criticisms. But today, as I walk, in a country so far away from where I was born, along with our kids hand in hand with their visiting grandparents, I concur with the message in the film. We are indeed lucky to be living in this age of airplanes.