Cave Of The Winds & Seven Falls

Rest of the month went by nicely. One of the weekends, Seb’s friends arrived from Aspen and we drove with them to their Friend’s son’s Birthday party. Here, we met a lot of other Indian friends of them.

A drive to Denver became one of our favourite pass time. We watched films in the mall and then drove to Woodlands to have a good Indian dinner. Even though the idlys and dosas could not match in taste with that of India, it was an oasis in desert for us.

While we did not drive, we watched films at home. I think we watched every Hindi movie that was getting released. We also got to know about this newly opened Indian store called Saimart on Vikers. Owned by a Telugu software Engineer called Nagendra, this place offered us something we did not find in other stores – DVD for $1 instead of $3 outside. We had two more Indian Stores in COS – Taste of India and India Bazaar. Later was a little far. 

A very jovial and social Nagendra immediately became my friend and I would always spend time talking to him during my visit. He always had interesting stories to tell.

I had now got to know the Indians in office little better. Prasad, would share his business venture with 2 or 3 Dollar shop that he owns. Priya would make fun of me putting on weight and warn me that if I continued so, it would be hard to find a girl for me. Shivanand would stop by my cubical for a chat. KC and Sajil would meet us for dinner now and then. All together it was a great time.

On 22^nd January, Seb, Jonah and I went did another road trip to nearby attractions – Cave of the winds and Seven Falls. It was my first trip to a cave and it was great.

Jonah and I found the guide very funny. She, in a single breath, was narrating the story of the explorer who discovered this cave. In between, she would take a deep breath. 

We also took a small hike downhill to enjoy the rocky canyons of Colorado.

Next, we visited the Seven Falls. We expected seven different waterfalls but what we saw was a single waterfall that reaches ground after falling our seven steps. But what was more interesting is that the entire waterfall was frozen and that was a first again. 

One afternoon, I was driving to our manufacturing plant for a meeting. Our Plant is in Security, Colorado, which is an easy 25 minutes’ drive. That day, I had chosen to drive the road Powers down to plant. After getting off powers (a road) I took a road that is not very often taken by vehicles. It’s a back route to avoid a signal. The road was covered thickly by snow. This road intersects with another main road where I was supposed to take a left. I think I was at a higher speed for a drive on snow. While I approached the intersection, I was unable to slow. I hit the break but the car began to skid. It went straight across the median and came to a screaming halt just before hitting the curb at the other end of the road, facing an oncoming traffic. Luckily nobody was on the road and thus I was saved from any further hassle. I was shocked for a while and the if’s began to haunt me. 

Whenever I passed by that road again, I recalled the incident. Thus after giving it a lot of thought I decided to capture the incident in form of a story. I wrote a story called “snow” based on this event and it happens to be my first thriller. And most importantly, this did help me to forget the incident.