Summer of 2019...

The summer seems to have whizzed past, this time particularly fast! Just like that...before we even realized it, Raya is in third grade...Rayan is a big boy...finally potty trained😆and making us roll in laughter with his words of wisdom. Though he is not as much of a chatterbox as Raya, he does have an absolutely quirky sense of humor !

This summer was all about spending quality time with family and friends. Kids got to spend a lovely summer,bonding with the grandparents. Raya did her share of camps and socializing...and amidst of all of that, in case you were wondering, yes we did manage to appease the wanderlust in us along the way. No summer is complete without taming the travel bug in us, is it !?🙂

This summer wanderlust took us on a roadtrip along the Pacific NW of the United States. The beauty of the Pacific Coast of the United States along Route 1, south of San Francisco is much talked about, written about, photographed and visited.... Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Saint Lui Obispo...et.al...What often gets overlooked is the beauty of the coast, the mountains and valleys north of San Francisco along Route 1, and beyond...Other than being captured by Hollywood and the likes of Anthony Bourdain, a major part of the pristine beauty of the Pacific NW is vastly unexplored by the larger masses(which may be a good thing or bad, based on how you look at it!🙂). The Pacific NW of the United States was indeed the destination of our journey this summer (yeah yeah it is meant to be paradoxical! 🙂 ). We had already done a road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco  along the coast a few years back.... this time it was about continuing to drive north of San Francisco....

Two weeks...more than 2100 non interstate  miles...coasts...cliffs...vineyards...mountains...valleys...beaches...lakes...hikes....trails...breweries...great weather...good food...great company (caught up with quite a few old buds along the way!). First leg...San Franscisco, Carmel, Sausalito, Napa, Sonoma, Bodega Bay, Mendocino...we were back in this area for the third time and it hasn't lost it's charm, for sure! "The Girl and the Fig" in Sonoma is not to be missed, if you are looking for a good meal. Mendocino and the drive to it was dreamy, misty, beautiful. That was followed by a tryst with the natural wonders of the Pacific NW...the surreal Redwoods...the beautiful Southern Oregon Coast ...Crater Lake....Mount Hood...Smith Rock...the quaint towns of Brookings and Bend in Oregon ! The "Riverhouse on the Deschutes" is highly recommended for a stay in Bend...so is this eclectic eatery in Bend called "Spork"....I could go back to Bend just for the pepper infused voda + basil based cocktail they served(was it called Maui Z!?)...ooooh! One of the hidden gems of the Southern Oregon Coast is the area included in the Samuel H. Boardman State park....pristine beaches and landscape...dramatic cliffs...gorgeous sunsets....Whaleshead beach and Harris beach are absolute must dos....Also don't skip the Redwood State Parks. While the national park trails are beautiful, groomed and well maintained, some of the Redwood Trees within the State parks had an element of surreality, unexperienced so far....invariably gave me goose bumps!

The last leg of the trip...Portland, Northern Oregon Coast , Mount Rainier and an absolutely wonderful , relaxing end to the vacation in Seattle with lovely family friends of decades !!!

DD and I have done quite a few road trips, specifically coastal drives in different parts of the world, over the years...each coast and drive is of course unique...but the one along Route 1 this summer in the Pacific NW ranks somewhere up there in the top of the list....

We often get asked how we end up doing such long roadtrips with kids. First of all it helps, that both 'DD' and I enjoy driving. So the driving aspect of it is really not stressful at all. We also love doing off the beaten path things, when on trips. Roadtrips enable that, to say the least. While a major part of our trips is planned, we leave quite a few things unplanned and a roadtrip provides the perfect avenue to explore unplanned paths. We wouldn't have discovered some of the beautiful pristine locales of the Southern Oregon coast  had we not just been aimlessly driving around🙂 This trip, we also discovered that our kids really enjoy hiking and nature trails, provided they are not too long. We also give kids their time to adapt and adjust. Roadtrips always invariably start with kids poking us every half  hour...."Mamma/Baba...when are we reaching our destination?" However, by the time we are into our third day of driving, the kids get pretty used to 3 - 4 hour drive times...all that they need is good music, some sugary treats and the bait of some promised time in the pool/beach at the end of the day!🙂....(Anytime there's news on the radio in the car instead of music, Raya invariably has a headache and Rayan a tummy ache...Oh well!!...Of course all aches go away as soon as the news channel transitions to music....LOL )....So yes, for now we do make sure every lodging we book has a pool to give the kids some water time....Also on any one day, we make sure driving time is restricted to 4 hours, to the extend possible...and of course, then we plan for enough days in between where there's no driving at all or minimal driving....this seems to have worked pretty well in all our summer road trips the past few years! So fingers crossed for future trips!

The following quote from Anthony Bourdain pretty much sums up how I feel each time we come back from one of these trips,"

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go." 

Leaving you with some snapshots of the beauty of the Pacific NW....and with dreams of the next stop and destination....whenever, wherever that might be...Happy Friday!

Memories and Inspiration - Sister Victoria Nunes

Have any of you been super inspired by a teacher/educator, always being conscious of the enormous impact the person has had in shaping your life....Nevertheless being bogged down by worldly pursuits over the years, and hence losing touch...only to regret not having kept connected, till it was too late...far too late. I, for one, have been guilty of this. This specific teacher/educator(call her what you may), was Sister Victoria Nunes. She was the principal/headmistress of my high school in Guwahati and passed away last week.

I don’t believe it would be an exaggeration to say that Sister Victoria took the school by storm, when she took over as the principal/headmistress,  albeit a very good kind of storm ....a storm that causes the elimination of weeds, brings with it hope of a harvest and leaves behind only lushness and the opportunity for growth. She was ahead of her times...progressive...exuded positivity and had the uncanny ability to provide a sense of calm, even in the midst of turmoil. Most importantly she was a visionary leader. 

Just yesterday, I was having a conversation with my team about leadership skills and was emphasizing a key difference between a good ‘manager’ and a good ‘leader’. I was telling them how a ‘good manager’ sets good rules for a team, creates a framework to execute them and more often than not has his/her team’s back in terms of the execution path, but the focus is always on ‘execution’.....A ‘good leader’, on the other hand, is able to do all that a good manager does, while additionally being able to nudge a team forward towards a vision...is empathetic...is a good listener...accepts failures...is willing to inspect and adapt a vision, as essential...is fearless in having to change rules or the vision, all the while never letting go of the focus on his/her team and it’s needs. As I got out of this meeting/conversation with my team, I sat back for a moment, introspecting on what I had just spoken to my team about ‘managers’ and ‘leaders ‘....It was uncanny how my thoughts went back  all the way to my days in high school, when Sister Victoria brought about so many positive , progressive changes in school....to all the times when she listened with empathy to all students and not just listened, but figured out a way to do something about their concerns.  It was a revelation given it was for the first time that I realized my first lessons in leadership were not from a course I took in grad school or a book I read or a TED talk/Podcast I heard(believe me I have done all of these in abundance ). My first lessons in leadership, the importance of ‘emotional quotient’( much before it became a buzz phrase)  was from Sister Victoria Nunes... this serene, beautiful , progressive lady who I had the fortune of having as a teacher and who brought about some many much needed changes in school ...who led with so much empathy, positivity and vision. The nerdy nerd that I was in high school, she was one of the few who seemed to see something in me other than my academic merit. On multiple occasions, she nudged me to come out of my shell and do things outside my comfort zone. She encouraged/guided me and always had my back, as I took over as the head girl in high school. I believe she saw a spark in me that no one else did.  Above all, she nudged and encouraged me to write, and I will forever be grateful to her for enabling me to develop this therapeutic habit.

The kind of effect Sister Victoria had, particularly in my class of girls, was like the effect of a stone thrown into a lake. The stone disrupts the still waters of a lake and the effect is not only visible, but lasting. Ripples formed by the first plop of a stone in a lake expands until they can be felt all along the surface, and these ripples stop and die out only when they reach the shore. In Sister Victoria’s case, all the ripples created and propagated made all of us better in some way, I choose to believe.

Everyone , who’s known me since childhood, would attest to how I have evolved over the years ....In all of this, I am forever grateful for the lessons different people have taught me at different phases of life. I am often guilty of not expressing gratefulness, while there is still time ...and specifically Sister Victoria’s passing away drives home the point again about how unpredictable life can be, given I was planning to go see her in my next visit to India. But why do I have this feeling that had she heard me express this in person to her , she would just have had something witty to say, with that ever so serene smile, that would make all the regret and guilt go away in a jiffy. Perhaps it is because it was just the way she was....affectionate , beautiful, full of empathy and just happy about being able to contribute to the growth and progress of the youth, whose life she touched.

Rest In Peace dear Sister Victoria...and thank you...Thank You! I do hope my kids are fortunate enough to have at least one teacher, like you, in their lifetime.