The year 2025 felt, in many ways, like another COVID-era year for our family. Travel plans were repeatedly interrupted due to Erica’s health struggles with dystonia. When she finally experienced a short but promising recovery window, we moved quickly squeezing in a long-desired-of family trip to Belize to visit the second-largest barrier reef in the world. Christmas break would be our best chance. Pori had time off from college, Kiran had a brief pause in graduate school, and Rajiv could manage an escape from work. With all five of us available, we decided to make it happen.
Continue reading “UnBelizeable Belize”Glacier National Park – America’s White-and-Blue Glory
Air travel for the Sarvepallis keeps getting more complicated. When we planned this trip, Kiran was in Minneapolis for a veterinary conference, Rajiv was in New York, and the rest of us were in Fairfax, Virginia. With some careful scheduling, and a generous use of Delta miles, I arranged for everyone to converge in Minneapolis, where we boarded our flight together to arrive at Kalispell, an hour from Glacier National Park’s west entrance.
Continue reading “Glacier National Park – America’s White-and-Blue Glory”Sleepless in Seattle to wide awake in the wilderness
The Sarvepalli family added another destination to our annual June travels in 2023—this time heading to the Seattle area to explore Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks while such pristine wilderness in the U.S. is still preserved. To make the most of these vast landscapes, we split our stay between two locations: Sequim, WA, for Olympic National Park, and Ashford, WA, just outside Mount Rainier National Park.
Continue reading “Sleepless in Seattle to wide awake in the wilderness”Yosemite – C’est pas vrai
Sarvepalli’s were no exception as we stood mesmerized with other local and global tourist at almost every turn of the road in this mythical national park – Yosemite. The Forest Fires of July 2022 added an extra layer of beauty to the already captivating scenery – the allure of the glowing red sun and the ethereal whispers from the misty waterfalls. But the trip did not exactly start that way, so let the tale begin.
Continue reading “Yosemite – C’est pas vrai”Ireland – Sunny with a chance of Rain
“Such a wild, iron-bound coast – with such an ocean-view as I had not yet seen – and such battling of waves with rocks as I had ever imagined” – Charlotte Bronte
This was my first trip to Ireland to attend the 34th FIRST Annual Conference at Dublin, Ireland. I assumed the Emerald Isle to be much like Scotland, I found it to be so only in some ways. This Island Country with its winsome narrow streets, cobblestone roads had so much to enjoy. You either saw a Church or a Castle on the streets separated by large grasslands enjoying the daily switch between sunlight and rain.
Continue reading “Ireland – Sunny with a chance of Rain”Return to the middle earth – Costa Rica
We made it again to Costa Rica again after 5 years, this time without my wife (Erica) and my daughter(Pori). Our last trip in April 2017 did not include a beach visit, as it was just a lot to squeeze in. This time I had the excuse of my son Kiran starting his internship at the Wild Sun Rescue as a pre-vet summer intern. The trip highlights have mostly to do with forest and less of the beach than I had thought, nevertheless Costa Rica continues to amaze me at its bio-diversity and beauty.
Continue reading “Return to the middle earth – Costa Rica”In castles, gorges and dungeons
Our whole family forged a trip this summer to Scotland. The summer trip would be one way to spend time as a family together before Kiran and Rajiv headed off to college. Like every other American tourist we planned our trip with a rental car and a great deal of ambitious plans of things to do when in Edinburgh (pronounced ed-in-bruh ) and nearby. Continue reading “In castles, gorges and dungeons”
Waking up to cuckoo’s song
I made a recent trip to Chennai India to visit my mom who has moved to a retirement facility in YWCA. I stayed at the YWCA international guest house in the heart of Chennai close to Central station. Surprisingly a small pond and a large collection of trees and vegetation was preserved in this part of town for a restful experience. It almost quieted down the noise of the motorcycles and trucks (lorries) on the Poonamallee high road.
Continue reading “Waking up to cuckoo’s song”All roads lead to Rome
In a rare event of presenting some of my research I ended up traveling to Rome, Italy for a conference. The topic I was working on was bio-inspired heuristics applications in cybersecurity, specifically collective behavior of botnets. The ANTS 2018 conference was the venue where I got to collaborate with researchers doing some advanced implementations of collective behavior both in nature and artificial systems.
One Morning in Maine
To end our 2018 summer with something adventurous, Erica asked to visit Maine before our first son Rajiv heads off to college. Little did we know we will be experiencing a slice of quaint everyday life in Maine portrayed in children’s picture books by Robert McCloskey. – both One Morning in Maine and Blueberries for Sal . Erica had read these books to our kids so many times, she picked them back up after we got home to review its picturesque beauty.