The vacation abroad
Young speak
By Angad Singh

IT all began one hot day in July, when out of the blue, dad decided that we needed to take a vacation. I agreed happily. Now where should we take the vacation? We finally decided to spend it in California. Dad got some maps and guides and we chalked out the route. We surfed the Internet for the least expensive airfare. We found out that Newark to LA was the best deal. So, we left out car at Anubhav’s house and Shoba Aunty dropped us at Newark airport.

We arrived at LAX airport in Los Angeles after a very boring flight. We had to change planes in Chicago. We hopped on a shuttle to Hertz rental cars where we rented a jeep.

We were supposed to meet Bethany that day, but one of her babies was sick, so she told us to visit Santa Monica. It was a nice place, with palm trees and the ocean nearby. We roamed around and had dinner there. We went back to our jeep and saw that the driver had received a parking ticket (a nice way to start our vacation). We went to our hotel to rest for the long drive to Las Vegas the next day. Mom and Dad let me sleep late the next morning while they bought food items for our drive around California. They bought coke, frappaccino and other junk food. They also bought an ice box for three bucks (which started leaking) to keep the beverages cold. Soon we embarked on our long journey.

We drove through this so-called "desert" for seven hours. Although the temperature reached 110°F once, the only real desert I saw was at the end of the trip. It was a small, little strip of sand with no vegetation. I expected to see something huge, dry, hot and all covered with sand. Some desert that turned out to be! Las Vegas is so crazy! Just as you enter the city, you see hotels and casinos! We made reservations to stay at the Luxor hotel which is shaped as a pyramid. It had huge sculptures of Egyptian people! After standing in a queue for a long time for the registration, we were told that there were no standard rooms available but we would be upgraded into a jacuzzi suite for the same amount of money! It was a very large room with two televisions, a tub with hot water supply, and extra furniture.

In the evening we went to see MGM Grand. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was only an enormous hotel. We then went to Mirage and saw volcones erupting every 15 minutes. The scene looked very realistic. The lava was merely coloured water but there was fire everywhere.

The next day we went to a hotel called Circus Circus which was basically an arcade for holding carnivals. We didn’t win anything except a water bottle that we gave away. We then went to Caesar’s Palace hotel which had a shopping mall. Its ceiling was painted as a sky which changes from dawn to dusk. We went for movie, Everest, which was interesting. It was about climbers who struggled to reach the top of the Mount Everest. Later I spotted a black Lamborghini Diablo VT in one of the stores and I spent the rest of the time in the mall looking at it. That night we stayed at a regular hotel and, the next day, headed for Three Rivers (a small town which has a river running through it) which is just 20 minutes away from the Sequoia National Park.When we reached the park we first went to the crystal caves, which had small streams, stalagmites, stalagtites, and little chambers everywhere. Then we drove to a huge sequoia tree that had fallen to the ground. You could see its roots. It was so wide that we parked our car on it! After that, we went to a huge rock called Moro Rock which you could climb because there were stairs cut into the rock. The view was great from the top. It was a quarter of a mile high in the sky! We then went on a long journey to the Yosemite National Park. We reached there at night. We went to our camp which had one big canvas ceiling. The next day we went to the many waterfalls that they have in Yosemite. They were not a great sight because they were drying up.

A few hours later, we went on a three-mile hike uphill. The way went up to the top of one of the falls which was about the only one that had a lot of water. It was really misty and slippery up there. We didn’t go to the top, but close to it. There were squirrels everywhere along the trail. They weren’t scared of people since they were used to them. That night we went to a nearby hotel Ahwanee, for dinner. The next day, we went up to Glacier Point which is a high cliff that overlooks a park. It was a good sight, but was nothing compared to Moro Rock.