Visit to the Temple

Today we decided to visit the Livermore temple about an hour drive from where we stay.
Today is a Saturday and woke up at 9:30 and at 10:00 had a good breakfast of Poha and started for the temple.
The other guys had to entice me with the lure of an excellent canteen at the temple to get me to there.
I had been earlier to the temples in NJ, Connecticut and St. Louis and always found it crowded during the weekend (especially the canteens) so was surprised when the temple was not as crowded as I expected.

interesting incidents,

• An a timer (with a remote) mentioning when the next archana is
• 3 Different pujas happening at different parts of the temple each in a different language
• Different to hear one of the puja happening in English - the lady of the family conducting the puja was reading some passages from the scriptures in English
• Another corner another puja with the son and his wife conducting the puja (with the kid next to him so I presume the first birthday of the kid) and the grandmother capturing the whole ceremony using a camcorder
• Another corner of the temple a group of kids help close some plastic bottles (I don't know for what) but the funny part was the carton containing the plastic containers said 1800 vials with child proof covers (Closed by kids)
• The priest asking people to form a queue to one side to see the god in the Sanctum
• ironing boards with silk do this in a corner behind the praharam...True Indian style addition to the brick and marble beauty
• People congregating into small groups and you listen to different languages and dialects
• Water running - as usual someone forgot to close the tap after washing their legs (I did close it)
• To top it all - there was no canteen ........But there was a special prasadam counter and all the crowd was there (half an hr wait so we skipped it)

On the way back from the temple (after a quick pit stop at the udipi restaurant for tea and bajjis to go - to make up for the lack of food at the temple) we set out on a drive towards some windmills near the temple and it was a very scenic drive.

It reminded me of the trip I made to Kanyakumari last year for my Cousins marriage and on the way back was playing with my Digital camera and got some excellent photographs of the Windmill farms at Muppandal. The photographs have to wait till I get back to India in a couple of months.

Coming back to CA, the weather was excellent, bright and the mountains were beautiful with the Windmills running and cows grazing around it. It was an excellent 15 mile drive with green mountains on either side dotted with windmills and farms of cows and goats which looked like brown rocks and they dint even move.

We were then discussion, how true that the places you see in paintings really exist and you can see them even today. (Thumbs up to US for maintaining their Natural Reserves)

On the way back we saw a signboard for a reservoir & fishing, Expecting a good spot to soak in the beauty of the Day and the sights we just turned into the place and drove in.

The place is called Los Vaqueros , its an man made reservoir for holding low salinity water for use at a later date for drinking. When we went there were not many people around. Actually during the few hours we spent there we saw only three groups of people, this meant a peaceful palace to enjoy the nature.

There is an trail to go from the Interpretive Center (Not information center and they don't know why its called Interpretive) which takes you to the view of the Dam and the water body.

We went along the trail and the view was amazing a lake surrounded on all sides by green mountains with a few occasional windmills. No people around once you get into the trail or on the shoreline. Saw a father and Son fishing from one of the docks (There you can see the bonding happenings).

We went to the wrong side of the reservoir so we couldn't do the boating, was talking to the Lady working there, she said during summer people come down there for having a picnic especially in the evening and then return. She also mentioned that the place is not much publicized and that it does not attract big crowds there are few occasional visitors (Like us ) who miss a turn and end up in this beautiful place.

To make the eventful place even more interesting, we were checking out some localities for my friend to buy a house so we went in this street which had this interesting board

Pregnant ?

Need Help ?

Call XXX XXX XXXX

we couldn't help but smiling at the board (especially that it was next to the church?)

I was wondering how do you interpret such a sign?

Pregnant? - No

Need Help ? - Yes

Call - XXX XXX XXXX

Any way we went to a community and go down to check the locality and enquire about the house prices, schooling district etc. When we saw this amazing Aeronautic Display with free falls, 360 turns, loops few times I even thought pretty soon I am going to see the flames looking at the speed at which the aircraft was doing a free fall, luckily nothing happened.

Then it was time to get back to home, which by the way is not bad because of the view of the mountains (A separate log on that later)

Finally I mange to write another large blog...Hope it is interesting.