Trip to US - Hitting the Road...

My first destination was Indianapolis. And here was the first time when I hit the roads of US. Nicely marked lanes with well qualified entry and exist points to freeway. This was indeed a good experience. Though the excitement would have been double had the pune-mumbai expressway not been built.

The interstate highway system in US is quite impressive. The highway (or also termed as freeway) are generally either east-west or north-south. The numbering of these freeways also has a convention that the east-west highways generally have even number and north south one will have odd numbers. So generally there is a mesh of these freeways across US. And where two freeways intersect there are eight ramps connecting the possible combination of path across these interconnections. This is to get rid of signals at the crossing. As by definition freeways generally don’t have any signals in between.

Across the freeways were the fast food restaurants chains like danneys, windy’s mcdonalds, bob evans and so on…

On the freeways there are also rest places where one can take a nature break. Vending machines are also there to take a bite to the ready to eat packets. There are also another types of rest areas called picnic areas (I found them mostly in the texas). The difference with the picnic area was that they only have some tree shades with benchs to sit on. Nothing else is available including loo’s.

A good thing about the highway system is that everything is logical that you see on the highway. Like near the sign for rest area you also have a board telling you the distance for the next rest area. This is to help you to decide whether you wanna pull over at this exit or wanna wait till the next one.

If the freeway is closed at any place, then there are temporary displays that will take you through the diversions. If the road turns into a single lane then there are temporary traffic signals to control the two way flow of vehicles through the single lane.

Trip to US - Journey Begins...

“I am going to US”, this statement excites many young Indians even today, however for me it was a casual affair. May be I have crossed the age of getting excited to go abroad. For me it was just another trip out of the ones I make to different place (either for business or pleasure).

I thought that I will put this post once I have written about every aspect of the country. However the hard reality of time available only in bits and pieces has forced me to put my experience in installments. I still hope to keep the continuity of the same.

So the day arrived when I had to leave for the night flight. Generally till now I had boarded only daytime flights. It was the first time when I was on an airport past midnight waiting for the boarding announcement. Along with me were the people that were Indian in some or the other sense like Indian nationals, NRI’s or Indian visitors (that was a bad one :) ).

Anyways, my journey began with a direct flight to New York. A fifteen hours flight looked to be only 5 hours flight. The time different between the countries led to this reduction.

And in the same day morning eight o clock I was at New York, a dream destination for many young individuals back here in India. Well it was only the airport of this city that I could admire as I had to rush for another flight to Atlanta.