Baba's Niagara Falls TRip details

May 24, 2002

sankaram siva sankaram

my dear samratchanites,

hi all, hope that everyone are doing fine. well, pardon me for the delay in writing about baba's usa trip. baba arrived to buffalo city, ny on 16'th may last thursday at around 9-30 pm, some devotees(srinivasan/ his m-i-L, monica, karthik, sunil, arun kumar, praveen'a s parents, aruna, raji etc) who had arrived a bit earlier were there to receive him at the airport, mr venkatesan (australia) and myself arrived at the hotel room earlier and were waiting at the hotel to receive him, he reached the room by 10-40pm and he was tired from the long flight from boston along with usha and jayanthi. as baba had already had a light dinner during a transit break, he wanted to relax and sleep early. later that night kalyan, vidya and her parents deepa aunty and rajkumar uncle, who drove to niagara reached very late in the night.we had booked initially 4 rooms and each room had 4/ room

friday 17'th

baba woke up early as usual and all of them were just talking with him and enjoying his jokes. later he got ready to perform the homam in the hotel room itself. around 9-30 am we performed a mini homam and praveena's parents brought the necessary items. it was really a boon for us all to get a achance to be a part of the homam after such a v v long time. jayanthi had some nice songs written by herself along with lalitha sahasranamam strothrams and baba enjoyed them. later the tour organizers monica and vidya had planned for us a couple of exciting stuff. fortunately the hotel room was cleverly booked as it was v close to the falls and all the attractions and just walking distance itself and so no time wasted in driving and finding parking space and paying for it too. also the hotel provied us free complimentary breakfast too duriong our stay

first we went on a hot air baloon ride. the huge balloon was big enough to accomodate all of us and it went upto 400 Feet high and the view from the top was amazing and we weere able to see even Toronto city which was 90 Km's away and also a free view of the Canadian side of niagara . but the wind and cold weather was really chilly. the whole things was about 15 minutes long. later we went to the aquariam. as baba had seen the aqariam's earlier at5 singapore and australia which are amongst the world's v best. only those who had not seen brfore went to see it. later we went down to take a stroll and baba was really enjoying the beauty and scenary. as usual he was keeping us occupied with his jokes and incidents from his recent trip to europe especially switzerland (alps) we took lots of pictures all around and later nature overtook us and hunger struck upon us. baba went back to his rooma dn ate some items whhich deepa aunty had prepared. we al went to a restaurant- taj mahal which servesnorth indian menu. after that we all took a anap and in the evening went to the niagara falls. usually at the niagara, on fridays after 9-00pm there is fireworks show and lighting display. it just adds more beauty to splendour of the falls. baba was really impressed and so were all of us. here we caem across sujatha and her husband who were also visiting niagara after the fireworks display it was really pretty sight.we all went to sleep. later that night bharadwaj, divya chapan, narayanan, raghav murali, ganesh swaminathan amd his parents joined us very late in the night

saturday 18;th

for the homam, ganesh pattabhi, and revathi/ surya and their 3 kids and krishnaswami uncle and his his wife , sujatha and her husband were also there for the homam, sujatha sang sweetly and raghav murali and ganesh pattabhi chanted the mantras .later we had lunch buffet and went for the jet boat ride. it was pretty far away and about 25mts away. we were totally 28 guys. the jet boat ride turned out to be very exciting and thrilling. initially we had planned for a wet boat ride, but as the weather was cold and near freezing, we decided for the dry boat ride. we had to wear life jackets and baba looked like a astronaut from mars. the boat ride was about 35-40 mts long. was all sat inside a fully waterproof seats and the captain expertly guided the falt bottomed jet boat over the rapids which were amongst the dangerous and treacherous ones in world. when we reached the spot where the rapids were fast , the captian took the boat head on on it and the whole boat was tossed up and riding those monsterous waves. it was really thrillinga dn baba enjoyed the whole ride. later we stopped briefly to see a arial veiw of those monster rapids up above.

later we all went to the falls to the " cave of winds" actually this takes you all the way to the bed of the river and we can walk right underr the nose of might niagara falls. it was splendid and the water falls seemed enormous and looked like drowning us away. we had to wear special shoesand rain coats to stay dry from the wet spray. this gave us awesome view of the majestic falls and it was thrilling. we thne took a small train which took us over a complete tour of the niagara falls. thne we reached our room and everyone waere exhausted and took a nap. in the eveining after chatting with baba. those who couldnt make it earlier the previous day went again to the water falls and had a repeat view.venkatesan uncle had to leave us and was leaving to seattle

actually we were expecting even cold weather and rains , but by the grace of baba were were shielded from it and he even defied nature and by giving better weather. even though it was cold, it wasnt cloudy a s predicted but sunny and bright. see what baba could do.

sunday 19th,

we started the homam early . the homam was great and baba's borther son- manikandan and his wife had joined us(actually saturday itself) and after the homam we had to check out of th e hotel . so we were busy packing. so it was time to say goodbye and part ways with fond memories. we all were ready to leave by 1-00 pm we planned to have lunch ata restaurant at bufallo which was famous for its dosa's unfortutalely we did not have proper directions , and we ended up driving one hour in worng direction missing the turn early on itself. later baab was tired and told us to forget about the farewell lunch and go your own ways.

so thats about it . the whole trip was full of fun and everyone had a whale of time. baba went on his way to orlando enroute to pittsburgh where they will rent RV (recreation vehicle )which is a mobile house full with all the amneties.he will drive thru washington, virginia and they will be camping and will take 4 days to reach orlando. on friday. he is accompanied by monica,ganesgh pattabi and aruna, praveena's parents, ganesh swaminthan and his parents, raghav murali, raji.

also special thanks again to the organizers vidya and monica without whose effort this trip wouldnt have been such a memorable one. also special thanks to srinivassan who really went out of his way to tirelessly shuttle us betyween the airport and hotel. he must have done atleast 10- 15 trip each 1 hour long.to make sure no one had problems reaching the hotel. it was really nice of him to have volunteered to help. hats of to all the 3 and all others for coming and making the trip exciting

ok folks hope this gives you all a glimpse of what happned duirng his visit to niagara. i will upload the fotos asap probably 1 more week.

love -

madhu reddy

____________________________SANKARAM SIVA SANKARAM

Madhusudhan Devareddy,

630, Merrick St, Apt # 307,

Detroit, Michigan, USA-48202-3950,

Phone: 313 - 832- 9418 (Home)

313 - 673 - 4248 (Cell)

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