Since my stay here in the US I was able to visit many small and big places including numero uno item on my list - Niagara Falls. As the USA is a huge country my travels have been restricted by available holidays. This Christmas and New Years I had four consecutive holidays which gave me a chance to visit places that are long for a weekend trip.
During Christmas, I took my old Honda Civic for a ride to the beautiful Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and magnificent Mammoth Caves. It was a 2100 kilometers drive completed in three days. Thanks to the excellent network of roads in the US - it was very easy to maintain an average speed of little over 90 km/hr with breaks.
There are 100s of wind turbines near Indianapolis on the way to Chicago. At night one can only see a red beacon on top of each one of them blinking. Which is a very spooky sight at first, also very Sci-fi, like space ship landing!
This construction passage is not narrow, at the end of it where I had to select right "exit" between two roads next to each other and it was really nerve breaking
- and huge fast moving traffic on the interstate, while returning back on Sunday after a holiday. I did the trip as a typical tourist, planning and booking hotels in advance. Weather in the Smoky Mountains and Mammoth Caves was nice and warm - 21 deg C. Winding roads through huge dense forests were amazing and treat to eyes. One of such drives through Gatlinburg bypass is below -
Gatlinburg city amid the Smoky Mountains
The drive between Gatlinburg and Mammoth Cave was over a section of state highways and internal roads that passed through small towns in a beautiful mountain range. I could see small repair shops and workshops, bakeries, farmlands, cattle grounds, abandoned petrol pumps along the way. For a long period in my journey, while many cars passed me on opposite direction, I was the only person going towards Mammoth Caves.
This petrol pump probably died due to lack of traffic as majority is diverted on the high speed interstates
Mammoth caves were one of the items on my bucket list. It's world's largest network of natural caves. There are over 400 miles of caves discovered, while new discoveries are made every day. At the time of my visit, there was a lot of restoration work going on and only access to caves was in one of the guided tours. While I was happy I could see it, I'm definitely going back there to take one of the difficult tours through narrow caves and to see underground river and falls
A text book example of elliptical cave
One thing sad about the US, is they do not have a long history like Indian, European, Chinese or Japanese cultures. These caves have gypsum crystals formed over period of tens of thousands of years, but the earliest historical story told about these caves - for which archaeologists at the Mammoth Cave parks were excited is eaten chicken bones, used lamps, and names scribbled by early explorers and visitors to the caves in late 1850 to early 1900.
During New Years holidays I finished 1800 miles / 2900 kilometers round trip to Badlands National Park in South Dakota. This trip was again completed in three days. I took a rental 2015 Chevy Cruze for the ride. Due to recent snow, one lane on the interstate for a majority of the road passing through Minnesota and South Dakota was covered in snow. While driving through Minnesota I noticed snow moving with the winds on the road and forming a very thin layer of fog on the road which was new for me and very nice to see. As I reached South Dakota, the winds really picked up speed - and the thin layer of fog became dangerous blizzard without any new snow from clouds. I had to limit my speeds 20 miles below posted limits and had to spend a night in nearby cities instead of going all the way to Badlands. It was so scary, as it was also at night, that I could not even dare move my eyes from the road even for a second to take a photo. I tell this with pride, I'm from Chicago (though it had been only a few months) and I'm getting used to the cold and windy city, but the whole state of South Dakota is windy!
Although the next day weather was good. Snow was removed from the roads and sky was clear blue without even a single cloud!
Although it was a long drive, longest ever I had done, when I reached Badlands, I was glad I made it.
Driving over this gravel road, I went to my camp site in a remote location of the forest.
I saw many bisons. Some of them were real close to the road, I didn't think it was wise to stop a bright red car near them to take photos.
While I was prepared to camp away from the parking lot, I decided to stay closer to the car instead, as it was nearing sunset by the time I got to the camp location, driving through snow and mud. It was also 30 deg F at the time (- 2 deg C) and as expected it dropped to 8 deg F (-13.3 deg C) during the night. I had to start the car engine and turn the heater on three or four times in the night.
As daring as I sound, I was very scared while I was there - first I was the only one camping in the forest that night. Obviously, there was no network - in fact, my phone didn't work in entire South Dakota. Which was also a reason I could not reply to new years wishes or send new years greeting to anyone. BTW, it was one of my last year's, resolution list to spend a day in a place without phone coverage, which came true without me wanting it to happen at that moment! I was scared of two things - whether a bison will attack me in the middle of the night? What if someone comes with a gun to hijack or steal the car? Among other dangerous wildlife, there are rattlesnakes in the Badlands, but that wasn't any concern in cold weather. So at night, I thought - bisons eat grass, so they absolutely do not have any need to move at night. So most likely they are not nocturnal animals, and that reduced my worries a bit. Also, looting someone in the middle of a national forest - seemed like a lot of work for someone to do. So I was convinced to spend rest of the night there. Not to mention, going back would mean coming across many bisons that I saw along the way in different spots.
None the less, it was very peaceful night. Only sound apart from coyotes howling for a brief period at night was created by me, or my movements. The clear night sky was lit with million stars and partial moon.
A wish that already came true
Next morning a beautiful sunrise and more of amazing landscapes and some wild animals - deer, mountain goat, ram, before I headed long way drive back to my current home.
Above is a map showing locations I visited during two 3 day trips this holiday. I really liked both the drives and visiting those places. With these trips, I could check off some of the items on my bucket list. I like to travel, and there are a lot many places I wish to go. Hopefully, I'll have as great as a year I had in 2015. Happy new years!
