Rickets Glen national Park

The destination, Rickets Glen National park, was 200 miles from our place. When it dawned on Garima and me that labor day weekend is here, it was already Friday before weekend! So we called Amrisha and Monica and then the conference call began. Within few minutes the ladies finalized the plan to go out in wild. Swapnil, Abhishek and I were simply informed that next day we have to start by 9am and have to do shopping in evening.

We reached Adams fall and saw national park sign board. We assumed that we reached the right spot and waited for Abhishek and family to reach the spot. Monica called Amrisha's cell. No response. She left a voice message and meanwhile we chatted, roamed to see the surroundings while waiting for the return call. Time check. 30 minutes since we last called and yet no response from the party in other car. Both Swapnil and Monica made calls to Amrisha and Abhishek's cell and both were able to reach there voice system alone. We were wondering what route they took? Why they are taking so long. After 1 hr we decided to see Adams fall. Swapnil and I took our swimming costume and towels and headed towards the fall. Its neither magnificent fall nor very scenic. But the fall ends in a gourge which is around 12-15 ft deep and so is a place to jump and swim. Garima, Monica and Litle Ridit also walked down with us. Swapnil and I changed into swimming costume and went down to feel the water. Water was slightly cold but refreshing. After few minutes wait, we took a plunge and were swimming in water. Meanwhile we saw few courageous people jumping from the cliff down into water. This is what we wanted to do. Swapnil went up first while I waited down with Garima and Monica cheering him. He would have stood on top for 2 minutes plus gathering energy to jump. A stranger friend who had done multiple jumps till now impressing his girlfriend, showed the water spot to jump to Swapnil. We cheered from below and would have counted 1...2...3 atleast 10 times :). Stranger friend jumped to give demo to Swapnil. Finally Swapnil took the leap of faith and chapaak....was in water. Hurraaay...he was shouting aloud on the brave thing he just did :). Now it was my turn. Sitting down, I felt I will do it soon. But when I went up and saw below, it was high. I spoke to the stranger friend and tried to gather courage. Both the stranger and his girlfriend said, go ahead you can do it. Garima was cheering first from below.
After about a minute or so she changed tone and starting shouting to jump fast. At one moment I thought to walk down. But then I said...lets jump. And there I took jump off the cliff. I don't know when I closed my nose to save myself. Splash. I touched water and went slightly inside. Even inside water I felt like...woww I did it. I swam up and hurray I was sitting next to Garima and Monica watching my own video.

Now that the tough jump was over we swam a bit. Both Swapnil and I tried to reach the bottom of the fall by swimming against the water current. Funny thing was that when we reached close to the place where water fall was creating surf, we were swimming at the same spot. We tried hard to swim against the force but didn't succeed. The second we stopped trying, water pushed us down the flow and we were back in somewhat silent water. At this moment we didn't realize that this effort will pain the next day. But in hindsight I know today that my arms are paining because of the heavy swimming we tried in cold water.

We came out of water, dried ourselves and changed the clothes. We were still not able to get connected with Abhishek. There was no reply to the emails we sent earlier hoping they will reply to email when they come in coverage. Both Garima and Monica starting fearing about bad things and became anxious. Swapnil made 911 call and tried to get some information from them. But 911 group was clear that they are not going to look into where the car could be or where the cellphone could be. They cited privacy rule and said that 2 hrs is very less time to do anything. Hoping for all good, we headed towards the lake which Garima had read about online. There in parking lot 2 when we were entering we saw Abhishek and Amrisha heading out. Ufffff. What a relief. We saw our lost friends (lost for 2 hrs :)) and then saw beautiful lake in front of us. We all decided to grill near this lake, eat well and then do anything else. Barbeque, swimming in placid lake, playing with kids and the day went by. All's well that ends well.

Long version of the video showing my 2.30 minutes of wait on top
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UuZcZHiOBk