Travelogue

I know its late:) but what the heck... I am a lazy blogger and an even lazier photo uploader!. We went to Yosemite during this thanksgiving weekend and I must say it was an interesting weekend.

We left for yosemite around friday afternoon after standing 9 hrs in the cold for the black friday sale and came home empty handed as the thing we wanted got over before we could get it:(. We reached yosemite around 6 in the evening and checked into our tented non heated cabins. It was pretty cold and we were hungry thankfully we had packed food from Madras cafe and all of us literally jumped on the food. After that we headed into the main dining area where there was a grand fireplace and comfortable couches around it and we proceeded to laze around a bit and warm our cold bodies.

After some time we decided to hit the bed and thats when the fun started. None of realized how cold one can feel in a non heated cabin till we started tucking ourselves in and realized the blankets were damp and the cold was literally seeping in and despite wearing jackets etc we were freezing. Fast forward 30 minutes and we decided we need dry blankets and a trip to the reception was needed. Me/Raghav/Sudhir headed to the reception and got a bunch of dry blankets. Well as it happens even dry blankets didnt help as the night proceeded the dew settled onto the blankets inside the tented cabins and we suffered a cold damp night despite wearing multiple layers of clothing.

By morning all of us had hardly slept and we decided unless we could get an upgrade to a heated cabin we would head back home rather than sleep another day like this. Luckily we got heated cabins later in the morning and we decided to head out to toulumne meadows and tioga pass and time permitting further into the sierra nevada.

I must say it was one heck of a beautiful drive. We started with heading out towards toulumne meadows and saw some very very beautiful sights along the way.

We hit toulumne meadows by noon or so. The meadows look pretty though I hear during spring it looks amazing when the plants here flower for a short time.

We spent some time hiking around and climbing up the small hilltop in the meadows. Its a beautiful place and the views from there are just amazing.

After Toulumne meadows we decided to drive upto to tioga pass and beyond into the Sierra Nevada. I am so happy we decided to do that ... As we drove past tioga we came across a frozen lake and much fun was had at the banks of the lake playing on the ice.

After the lake we drove up a little more into the sierra nevada and saw some sights like the following before we decided to turn back and head to the valley. Someday we hope to do a drive down the Sierra nevada. It has some of the most amazing sights.

The next day was a drive upto glacier point for breathtaking views of the valley and Half dome. We spent a good amount of time there taking snaps from various angles before heading out.

A couple of snaps of the famous Ahawanee hotel one from right next to the hotel and the other as seen from glacier point.

Next stop was Mariposa grove near wawona. The grove has about 500 Giant Sequoias these are the largest living things on the planet and can live for about 3200 years. The trees just look fantastic and are about as huge as a small trailer at the base. A few snaps of the sequoias to give a perspective :)

This last snap was Aruna's idea and it cleary gives one an idea of the size of these trees. Spot us if you can:).

Overall a really wonderful and amazing trip. We got to see more of the beautiful Yosemite National park but a lot more remains to be seen. Next trip shall be in early spring/summer to see the falls in full flow and the tuolumne meadows.

As I had mentioned earlier after I quit WOW I was trying to find a game that would hold my interest beyond a few days. About 2 months back I bought Supreme Commander and though it was nice too look at and had good gameplay it was not much fun. It seemed like a souped up TA with pretty graphics. The sides were not distinctive enough the economic model was still the same etc and somehow I didnt like the fact that your units had no character. It felt like playing a board game and as a result I soon got bored of it and didnt play it much.

Enter Universe at War: Earth Assault
This has got be the most fun RTS I have seen since WC3. Warcraft 3 set the level for the RTS genre and I think UAW has borrowed the best from WC3 and Starcraft and then enhanced it more. The heroes concept from WC3 and the distinctive units from Starcraft. There are 3 sides namely Novus,Masari and the Hierarchy. The hierarchy are the evil race that invade earth to harvest it for resources and the Novus are a race of sentient machines who oppose hierarchy and come to earth to stop hierarchy. Masari are a race that at one time saved hierarchy but later were betrayed and the remanants of Masari were slumbering in earth and the coming of hierarchy has awakened them.

Humanity sadly has little to no role in the game!. Each side has a unique economic model and resource costs. Where hierarchy sports Giant walkers which serve as garangutan war machines as well as production centers, the novus build flow networks and their units can flow along these networks to redeploy rapidly across the maps. Masari are the slow bloomers in the game and are like the protoss in Starcraft. They have incredibly hard to kill units but are expensive. Each side sports different super weapons and different heroes. Where novus relies on viral attacks to shut down enemy machines/take control etc the masari hero can teleport units around the map.

The campaign is average in quality but the mulitplayer gameplay is just superb. I have been playing online on live though the population at this time is minimal the games are a lot of fun. 5 minute rushes that made warcraft/starcraft fun can happen as well as superb end game if you do survive the rushes. Overall a must play for any RTS fan!.

http://petroglyphgames.com for more information