Having been bitten by the travel bug in the 1980s, I fulfilled my dream with several visits to Europe. However, I restricted my wandering to this continent although friends and family spoke in glowing terms of their holidays in the United States. Somehow the thought of undertaking such a long flight put me off.
Then, late last year, a golden opportunity presented itself when I was invited to join two family members who had planned a trip. Travelling with like-minded companions would be a boon. We decided on a coach tour that would take us from the east to the west coast, criss-crossing 18 states. Although we had friends in many states, we were not going to visit them specifically. If they happened to be in a city where we had a stop, it would be an added bonus.
We started the tour in New York and this vibrant metropolis was everything we expected it to be. We continued the tour, stopping at Arlington Cemetery and cities such as Washington DC, Cedar City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and picture postcard perfect Sausalito. Other highlights included a tour of the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit and Warner Brothers studio.
In Washington, we caught a fleeting glimpse of US President Donald Trump as he was returning from a visit to the Pentagon as it happened to be 9/11. My travelling companion said wistfully she wished it had been Obama instead.
I was thrilled to encounter prairie dogs in the state of Utah. I had always been curious about these creatures after reading about them and finding out that they were not from the canine family but rodents.
But what took my breath away were the magnificent national parks ... Bryce, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Yellowstone, Yosemite. These were names that I was familiar with, but had no idea that they were truly marvels of Nature. Seeing is truly believing in this case. We viewed the Grand Staircase, the world’s most complete sequence of sedimentary rock, rocks formed over vast time spans from sediments built up in lakes, inland seas swamps, deserts and forests. From Grand Canyon at the bottom, through Zion National Park in the middle, to Bryce Canyon National Park near the top of the staircase. This rock record recounts a history of 525 million years.
At Bryce Canyon, weathering and erosion have shaped the most amazing rock formations called hoodoos. Staying in a log cabin at the Grand Canyon was an enchanting experience and I was awestruck by the beauty of this spectacular landscape. I was content to sit there and drink in the views, feeling utterly at peace.
At Yellowstone, we watched the geysers (pronounced as gaisers there) as we walked through snow, an unexpected bonus for those of us who had seen very little snow in our lifetime. We caught frequent glimpses of wild buffalo, bison and elk, with coaches halting to allow passengers to see this rare sight.
We travelled through the Badlands, Black Hills and stopped at Mount Rushmore to see those epic carvings. But what I found even more unique was another carving not far from here. It was a work in progress and paid tribute to a Red Indian chief called Crazy Horse. It was started by Korczak Ziolkowski, who also worked on Mount Rushmore. Sadly, he is no more, but his family is carrying on the work on this massive sculpture, which makes the figures on Mount Rushmore seem tiny in comparison. It is a labour of love and recognition of a brave people who were the first inhabitants of America.
The memorial is a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills in South Dakota.
My journey of discovery has given me priceless memories of a land that is indeed blessed with an abundance of natural beauty and riches.
Vanaja Rao is a freelance writer based in Hyderabad, India.
