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In August 2013, we visited Iowa while coming back from a conference in Chicago. We mainly drove along scenic byways in Iowa.

Iowa byways map was really helpful for us to get the information and plan the trip. We planned our drive covering Great river road, Grant wood and Lincoln highway. Most of the time there were huge corn fields besides roads.

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Mount Rainier which is an active volcano is situated in Washington state. The upper part of the volcano is covered with snow. Also, there are beautiful waterfalls in the park.

We took the drive up to the visitor's center and climbed to a small peak there. This is the view from the peak.

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Lake Chelan is a really nice lake to visit because of it's blue clear water and Chelan's sunny weather.

It's a clean and nice place to swim and enjoy.

We spent several hours enjoying the blue waters and the fresh breeze. 
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We took a cruise tour in Lake Washington the next day of visiting Snoqualmie Falls.

The tour takes about 1 1/2 hours and the ticket costs around $30. Fortunately it was a sunny day so that we could see the nice surrounding. The mansions along the shore were really beautiful. One of them was famous Bill Gates' house. 

Another interesting fact that you can see during the tour is the floating bridge. They made it "floating" because the lake is very deep and it would cost much more for concrete beams otherwise. 

The tour is narrated and therefore you get to know all these details. 
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We visited Seattle again in June, 2013 (first time visit was in 2011).

This time we planned to visit few different places.

Snoqualmie Falls is located in Snoqualmie, WA. It is easily accessible and the entrance is free. The fall is really attractive too. However the trail to the bottom of the fall was closed at the time when we visited. It would have been more attractive if we could watch from there.

Anyway, the look from the top was not bad at all.
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Colorado National Monument is located near Utah border in Colorado. It took around 4 hours to drive there from the hotel we stayed in.

The environmental change we observed, is amazing while we were approaching Utah border. It was so cool and greenish around Denver and it became really dry and reddish as we proceed. We passed red colored hills made by only rocks and sands. The sights were really beautiful and interesting.

Finally we entered the park and took Rim Rock drive which is a scenic drive in Colorado national monument. It is easy to post some pictures than describing the beauty of the scenery.

Then we drove back to Denver and spent the night there hoping to fly back home next day.
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Seven Falls is located in Colorado Springs, CO. It is kind of a tall waterfall formed by seven other small falls.

This is beautiful at night because they have flash lights in different colors for seven water falls. We went there in the evening but left before it gets much dark. So we couldn't see the real beauty of it.

We had plans to stay the night in Colorado Springs but changed the plan as we wanted to visit Colorado National Monument next day. So we booked a hotel (Quality inn) in Silverthorne and drove there.

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It was around 8.30 am when we leave Estes park. First we visited a friend of ours in Colorado State University. We had lunch there and then drove to Colorado Springs to visit Garden of the Gods. It is a park full of unusually formed red colored stones.

The scenery was beautiful under the reddish rays of sinking sun.

 

There were hiking trails too. However we just drove around the park and left it soon as we were planning to see Seven Falls in Colorado Springs too.
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Bear lake is a best destination in Rocky mountains. It is a small lake surrounded by woods and beautiful mountains.

Unfortunately the lake was covered with snow that day. It was still early may so that was expected. It is good to go there in late may or later if you are planning a trip.

Since the bear lake was frozen, we visited a nearby lake named Sprague lake. It was full with water and really beautiful. We took the foot trail which runs around the lake and collected many nice photographs.

 

We still had few hours left. so we drove on the open parts of the trail ridge road and visited sheep lakes but they lacked water. However we were able to see some mountain elks there.

We spent the night in Four seasons Inn, Estes park. The hotel had only few rooms but the room was clean and comfy.

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Our main target of Colorado trip was Rocky mountains national park. We searched the park's web site and decided to drive on some scenic byways like Trailridge road and Old fall river road in the park.

While driving from Denver to Rockies, we chose a scenic byway named peak to peak byway.  It was really a nice byway and we could experience lots of scenery  of snow covered blue mountains on the way.

 This is the map of our route from Denver to Rockies.



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We arrived in Estes park around noon and got to know that both Trailridge and Oldfall river byways are closed until Memorial day (27th May). This is a fact to remember if you are visiting Rockies before memorial day.

So we had lunch from Estes park and then visited Bear lake, which is another beautiful location in Rocky mountains park.
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In mid of May 2013, we visited Colorado, mainly Rocky mountains. We had to fly from Indianapolis to Denver as the trip takes like two days to drive. 

We flew with Frontier Airlines and it should get a credit for their on time departures. I have really bad experiences with American Airlines on this subject before. So we arrived in Denver International airport 9 pm and took the shuttle to Hertz rental to get the car we had reserved. It was around 11 pm when we get to the hotel (Hawthorn Suites) we had reserved for the night.

To mention a word about the hotel, the suit was clean and nice, worth for the price. It provides breakfast but only grab and go kinda thing.

So we got a good sleep and headed Rocky mountains next day. 
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We went white water rafting in Menominee river, Wisconsin. The company is called "Wildman adventure resort".  We went there for the 9.30 ride and realized that we had booked the wrong day. However they asked us to wait and see if another group doesn't show up so that we can take their place. Fortunately, the group who had booked the wild ride didn't show up so we could take their place.

Wild ride is special because the raft is small and it can hold only 4 people. That group gets to ride the rank 4 ranch thrice while others do it twice. There, we have go over the ranch 3 times and come back by foot  2 times.

We got a female guide and she was really nice and active. I guess it would be more fun if the water level was bit higher that day but it was great for a first time rafting experience.
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Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is an amazing place for nature lovers. It is situated in lake Superior's southern shore in Michigan.

The main attraction in the area is the mineral rock formations. You can read more here. The cliff walls look like human painted pictures.

The provide  guided cruise rides to show these rock formations. Rides are available several times a day but the most exiting ride is "Sunset cruise" which departs at 7 pm. If you are going from Wisconsin, remember that pictured rocks is in eastern time zone. We couldn't catch sunset cruise that day because we were not aware of time zone change. So we had to adjust our plans and come back next day after white water rafting in Wisconsin.

So we were able to catch the cruise next day and experience really beautiful sceneries in reddish sun rays.

After the cruise ride we headed back home (to Bloomington, In). We started the 10 hr drive around 10 pm.



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We drove overnight and it was really exhausting after an eventful day. It was around 11 am when we arrive home. We were awake for almost 30 hours. All these happened because we had to adjust our plans because of the time zone issue. I think it something you should do once (only once) in your life :)
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We visited Six Flags, Chicago in Summer 2012. It was not as big as Cedar point but it had some different rides, specially the Superman Ultimate Flight. There we ride in a flying position and it was a really thrilling and different experience.

Other rides we loved are, Batman, X Flight and American eagle.

After spending a fun full of day in Six Flags, we spent the night in a hotel and left heading Pictured Rocks next morning.
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Cedar Point is considered to be a best amusement park in USA. We visited there in Summer 2012. Honestly a full day was not enough to cover all thrilling rides it had.

We liked the rides Raptor, Millennium force, Power tower and Wind seeker the most. We enjoyed Gemini and Magnum too but they were too bumpy and rough.

One thing we shouldn't have done is visiting the water park. It was not that much fun compared to the roller coasters. Water rides were good but coasters are much fun. So if your time is limited then it is not a good idea to waste time in water world.

We spent the night in a nearby hotel (it was a good idea because we were exhausted by the EOD). Next day we visited Detroit, Michigan but it looked like a dead city. So didn't spend much time there.
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