Can you imagine.....

Imagine steep mountains, a dark brown in color ....(a brown not like the one you get in camel water colors, a shade darker and a bit redder......) imagine green interspersed cactii or saguaro (pronounced "suaro") dotting the mountains, each saguaro a tall green post with an arm or two jutting out . From a distance they look like sentinels standing at guard .... Imagine two mountains racing each other down to a valley and then try and see the green plan land stretching out to the distant horizon where they are encircled by a range of blue mountains. A blue sky covering the scene and some white and grey clouds ...a briliiantly yellow sun rapidly disappeariing behind the clouds and then emerging again from below only to quickly drop behind the next layer of clouds in a magnificient display of orange, red and mauve.
Well , I didn't have to imagine all that bcoz I saw the sunset at a place called Gates Pass and I have tried to recollect it exactly as it happened. We were sitting on the mountain sides, perched on some white rocks and commanding a view over the valley. The best thing was just sitting with your face cupped in your hands and pondering in silence about nothing and everything ....as for just those moments you felt alone and not quite alone but part of a bigger universe. I know what I was wishing for ...to have all of you reading this sharing it there with me. But if wishes were reality then pigs would definitely fly .......:)
Now imagine a road which curves back from some height , and you have parked your car at the heighest place as far as you could have driven (beyond is a private house and you would feel jealous of the view they command but nevertheless.....). You stand there, your arms folded and look back over the road you came on ..... the road winds away into the darkness of the night but there at the place the road disappears lies the entire city of Tucson...(pronounced "two-saan" probably bcoz its too sunny :) ) .....glittering and shimmering in golden city lights. It forms an auditorium ...one of those roman colloseums, surrounding you and drawing you into it.
That was Campbell point.....
We also spent the weekend with LuAnn, in the botanical gardens ...feasting on a picnic of chicken salad and chips in a creamy cheese sauce, and home-made cakes. The botanical gardens had all variety of cactii also called "aguvae" I think. And the butterflies had just started flying in .... the pictures they formed seemed to be right out of an Enid Blyton story book.

Did I tell you about the story of my name ... well the story starts in Trichy when I put my entire name as my first name in the passport ...so it read Firstname Surname (obscured since people scared me about privacy) in the first name with no last name. I followed the same thing for applying for i20 , visa etc. When I landed here , it seemed my name had been entered into the system as FirstName surname NoLastName. Well they corrected that but they needed to have a last name and so put my entire name in the last name......which means my name is essentially now Blank FirstName Surname...that is no first name. I cannot think of any other permutation combinations that they could do with my name now ...and I am practically ok with anything as long as they have my firstname and my lastname in it somewhere. So there goes...is an identity crisis valid for me or what !!! :)