continued from
Denver DejaVu and
reLAX....
Rathish and I landed at Denver airport and rushed to the exit to find Chinmaya waiting with a smiling face and a dusty Pathfinder ;-) We heard something which over the years has become a quite common phenomenon, Ramku's flight got "cancelled" and he was set to arrive a few hours later, instead of already being there!
So, we decided to get to Chinmaya's new home and check it out! Some mutterings, some sharp lane changes, some twists and turns before we got to his place in less than 20 minutes! It was a lovely home, albeit bachelor messy. It was a two storey loft, which was ample for a single guy. The place was really well lit, in the absence of curtains, due to its large and numerous windows. Lots of the non-critical designer furniture were still in their boxes and stuff was not yet organized. You could smell the fresh paint and the polish from the new furniture. What attracted me at that time was the bed of course, given that
the night cap at LAX was not exactly the best. I crashed to a sound sleep and when I woke up, I was all alone in the house.
No, I did not do what you might have expected me to, but instead, decided to take a nice shower and get ready before these guys showed up. I did not realize that this was a new community and that realtors were still showing people to prospective buyers. More than that, I failed to realize that there were no CURTAINS!!! So the moment I stepped out of the bathroom, I had to duck quickly, like Sachin does when sees a short rising ball! Phew, the (eye)ball flew over my head!
Ramku arrived as his usual enthusiastic self. We set off to eat since everyone was hungry. We ate at "Saffron" Indian restaurant at Boulder. It was a pretty good buffet, considering that it was one of these contemporary Indian restaurants. Soon we decided to go to a "scenic" spot atop the rockies. But the snow-gods would not want that and we had to take a U-turn since the weather got dicey and we continually saw the temperature on the PathFinder panel drop.
We stopped at the Westminster mall to do a bit of shopping and then had coffee at Starbucks before heading back home to crash once again. We were woken up by Chinmaya, who was very eager to set up a conference call. We could not quite fathom what the intent was. Possible reasons I began thinking about were to inform those who could not make it to the trip, on what a good time we were having or just for senti purposes, etc.
It took him some time to get everyone on the line and within seconds of everyone being on the line, we came to know that it was not just our phone lines that were engaged, but Chinmaya was getting ENGAGED to Vijeta, a final year BE student in Chennai!!! We were all expecting the news sometime or the other in the past, but certainly not at this time and in this fashion! There was more in store.. Vijeta was actually on the line! She was a sweet young girl and mingled quite well with all of us, considering that we are not necessarily the best when it comes to speaking over the wire. It was a pleasant surprise and really stole the thunder from his home! ;-)
We decided to party on the occassion and went out to dinner. I can't remember which Italian restaurant it was.. it surely was a chain and not P.F.Chang's as the tradition would have it. Was it Cheesecake factory? Oh what the hell, it was a great occassion anyways! After filling our stomachs as much as our hearts, we got out of there. After thinking a little bit about going into a disco, we decided against it and headed back home via a grocery store. I could not help but remember our visit to a grocery store in Denver, back in 2001, which was intended at gathering ingredients for a "home cooked" meal!
When we woke up the next day, there was a great surprise awaiting us, yes, another one! The whole place had grown older by 100 years! I mean it had whitened, not by age, but by snow! There was a blizzard which paralyzed the entire city. A goods train was seen slowly trying to chug along, but was not very successful. Winds exceeding 70 miles an hour were blowing the snow furiously. It was the most snow, I've seen in my life, which kept blowing throughout the day, making it impossible for us to step out! But this time, we got to taste the "home cooked" meal and it was worth the wait! The rasam, sabji and oorgai were nectar to some hungry bellies under the conditions!
Pretty much the whole day was whited out and we kept seeing one movie after another to close out the day. All flights out of Denver were cancelled and this got us nervous since the tons of passengers who were stranded would now try to run helter-skelter to get a seat on the next day. We were very anxious that our flights should be able to take off the next morning. We slept a little and then drove to the airport early in the morning. The good news was that the flight was not cancelled and they were checking in passengers. We got into the plane, but were seated there for more than 4 hours as one technical problem after another, kept delaying the flight. Finally, we got to see the de-icing process after which the flight took off and landed at LA. It was wonderful to see "Sunny" California! We got to SFO without much hassle. It was a frustrating half of the trip, but the good news that came during the other half, more than made up for the storm!
