We are off to San Diego. It is one of the most favorite cities for Sharmila. I think specifically, the La Jolla area.

There is a get together of some of my dorm mates from Engineering School in India that we are off to. I think Sharmila has met only about two or three of my friends from those days.

Should be a great meet. Plus we will get some time to check out some old spots from our trips there. I think the last one was in 2005)

Hit the beach once before we head out to meet the college dorm mates…

We have the IIT Madras Alakananda hostel (our year) get together going on in San Diego now. Some incredible arrangements made by our local hosts – Ranga (S. Rangarajan and his wife Maya), GB (G. Balakrishnan) and Mani (Mani Krishnan).

Ranga, Madhav and I were reminiscing their trip to Durgapur back in December 1986. Madhav and I were headed to IIT Kharagpur for the Inter-IIT meet. Ranga (from Kolkata then) and Madhav had come over to our house.

We gathered my Durgapur friends one fine morning – Mousumi, Debatosh, Avijit, Aditi and Baisakhi and all of us made a trip to Shantiniketan.

This is one of the few pics that I have from that trip.

On a relatively cold morning in San Diego (Coronado Island) with some gin and tonic.

I was peacefully tanning my head in Coronado Island beach when Sharmila took this picture and sent it to the girls. Nikita immediately responded “He’s giving Bella Hadid off duty”.

So, I have just one question – who is Bella Hadid? Another good looking guy prone to tanning his head against his wife’s better judgment, I suppose?

Sitting right next to us on the beach was this elderly couple. The gentleman was explaining the rules of corn hole to his wife as she watched her first game of corn hole. It was being played by their son and grandson about twenty yards away.

After some time, the gentleman got up and walked towards the corn hole boards to give it a try himself. He turned out to be pretty good.

Turning towards the elderly lady, I raised my voice and said “He is giving your grandson a run for his money”. She must be one of the most friendly persons I have ever come across. In response to my statement, she got up from her lounge chair, came over to our table and started talking.

Found out Sheila Kranz is from South Dakota. She invited us over anytime to spend time with them there. (I made a mental note mapping “anytime” to mean “summer” once she told me how cold it got around her in winter).

Asking her the root of her last name got us down the memory lane of her grandfather and his house in Germany. (She is part German and part Irish).

We must have chatted for about some thirty minutes when we realized that we needed to head back to our dorm reunion lunch!

Very colorful kayaks out there to get a close look at the sea lions basking in the sun. Can you see the sea lions?

Many years back – certainly more than 25 years, since Natasha was not with us, Sharmila and I were sitting in our hotel in San Diego and going thru the pamphlets from the concierge desk. We learnt about The Flower Fields about 30 minutes drive away. We drove up there and was stunned by the sight of bright flowers along one entire side of a hill.

This time, we were wondering if we might be able to see it. We remembered that the show started in April. As luck would have it, they opened it this year just a couple of days back.

After our dorm get together got over, we headed over there. It is as stunning as we remembered but now it has become a much larger show. There were at least ten times the number of people we had seen last time.

55 acres of ranunculus flowers. Of every bright hue and color you can think of! How I wish I had my drone with me to get a full aerial view…

My favorite picture from the dorm reunion

Sharmila and I decided to take a chance and see if the Dasguptas were home. We were in luck. They were! In fact, Monalisa had just returned from Austin. Sharmila and I headed from Carlsbad to Irvine. A fifty minute drive took us an hour and thirty minutes.

But finally we got to meet them. Tathagata and I went to school together for a few years and then lived in the same area in Texas much later and even worked in the same company for some time. His sister and Sharmila went to school together for quite a few years!

It was great catching up on old stuff and some new ones like ChatGPT !!!

Driving back from Irvine, CA, we stopped by another old friend of ours. About six years back when they were heading back from India via Atlanta, I had met up with Rajesh, Sumana and Trisha. You can read about that meeting here. Among other things, I was given a book Trisha had published.

Today we had a similar meeting with the whole family. Except now there is another member – Sunshine!! Also, this time, Sharmila got her own copy of the book. The author has grown up so much and has become very tall in these six years!!

Nice evening with one of the nicest families we know.

While flying from San Diego to Atlanta today, we flew over 5 large cities. Though there were cloud covers, I was able to take a shot of each of the cities. Together with their airports. Each of the cities have a river running thru them and I have captured the rivers in the pictures too.

Here are the river names. You have to guess the cities:

1. The Salt River
2. Rio Grande
3. North Canadian River
4. Mississippi River
5. Cahaba River

… I had nothing to be worried about. As I said, this was my first flight after stepping off from work. And I my first airport chance meeting too!! Sharmila and I managed to meet our old friend – Arundhuti – in Atlanta airport!! We were coming in from San Diego and she was heading back home to Dallas!! Her flight was delayed enough that we got to chat for half an hour!!