Re-union 2008: PART-1

This is a story of the Re-union of 8 Mechanical Engineering graduate students who went to the college : KITS Warangal from 1999-2003.
Venue: The Great Smoky Mountain National Park, TN, USA.
Date: May 23-26
This is just my version of the story. I am sure each one of us has their own stuff to add to. But mostly this should cover everything to remain as a memoir.



*****Flashback****************

It was around January/February 2008 times, I believe, when we started talking to each other on having a get-together. Sandhya had organized the conference calls for our "telephonic get-togethers" several times.

In the initial calls we got GV, KP, Kiran, Sandhya, Prashanth K, Vinay, Shireesha, Divija, Deepthi joined and discussed of the re-union for May.
We had options like: 1) Washington DC 2) California and 3) Smoky Mountains, TN.
Finally after a couple of calls we decided to go to option # 3. The Smoky Mountains.

Later on we also called up Prashanth M and Harini K for the trip details.


The final list of people who confirmed their travel were: GV, KP, Kiran, Sandhya, Prashanth K, Vinay, Divija, Prashanth M and myself.



KP was chosen as our Primary Organizer and he took the initiative on booking the cabin called "The Great Escape" for us.
Sandhya, Divija and I booked our tickets for flying to Knoxville Airport. Rest of the folks were driving.
Vinay booked our tickets for White-Water Rafting.


On Friday, Divija called and told us that she cannot make it as she had a twisted ankle. We tried to ask convince her to come despite it, however, she was not in a position to travel, so she dropped, unfortunately.

*****Day 1..The Knoxville Airport Episode*******************************************

On Friday, May 23, I was calling everyone that was driving to make sure they started. Vinay was the first one to reach and he gave us the "land-line" of the cabin so that people from outside can call, because in those woods, there is no signal for any of the cell-phone service providers.

On Saturday, I started from my home at 04.00 AM towards the O'Hare Airport. My flight was at 06.16 AM and I was planning to reach the ORD earlier, as Sandhya, who was flying from LA, had a connecting flight here. We thought we will try to get on the same flight so that we could save some time in waiting at the Airport!! :-)
I reached the airport by 05.00 AM and waited for a few minutes and tried calling Sandhya, her flight was supposed to land at 05.05 AM. After it was sometime, I had to go through the security and so, I left a voice message for Sandhya and said we will meet directly in Knoxville.
When I reached the gate from where I had to fly, the time was around 06.00 AM and I called the Cabin in the Tennessee woods.
After some "period of time", I heard a familiar voice attending the call, it was Prashanth M. He told me that everybody reached last night between 02.00 AM - 04.00 AM. I informed him that my flight will be landing at 09.00 AM and Sandhya's at 09.30 AM and asked someone to start at 08.00 AM so that they can reach by the time we land there and hence save the time!!! :-) :-)

My flight started on time and arrived at the Airport slightly ahead of the schedule at 08.30 AM.
I had voice messages from Sandhya that her flight got delayed and she missed the connecting flight and the only next flight was at 11.30 AM Chicago time. That means, she would only land at Knoxville at 02.00 PM on the afternoon.
I called her and suggested to find any other options.

Meanwhile, I called the cabin again and to my surprise NO ONE had started yet towards the Airport. It seems they got the message that Sandhya's flight got delayed so they thought they will pick us up both at the same time.
I asked them to come to the airport as I would be bored to death waiting alone, from 09.00 AM to 02.00 PM (like 5 hours dude!!!).
So, KP and Prashh started for me and finally reached at 10.30 AM. During this time, I almost called the cabin every 15 mins as I was longing to meet everyone and could not withstand waiting any longer to see them.
I was very very happy to see them, old friends, after such a long gap and got into the car, as they kept poking and joking at my not so modest tummy!! :-)




We decided to wait for Sandhya as they said that the road was not very good to drive again and come back. So be it!! We went out to eat at the Sub-way as all three of us were feeling hungry.

Prank #1: I called up the cabin and spoke to GV and said that these guys have still not come to pick me up and that they have hit the car and the car broke-down on the high-way. GV said that the car was on Kiran's name and neither of these guys were legally supposed to drive the car and decided to start from the cabin to meet these guys half-way. I could hear Kiran in the background, he seemed to have guessed it was a prank and was very cool.
Finally I gave up and told him the status that we will have to wait till Sandhya comes.

As these guys did not really get any sleep, we parked the car in the shade of a tree and they slept for a while.



After a while, we called up the cabin and decided that we will directly go the Rafting event from airport as we did not have enough time to go to the cabin and come back.
At this time the we asked the folks in the cabin about the address and the conversation was hilarious.
KP was speaking to GV and GV was giving directions, here it goes:
KP: ఎక్కడికి రావాలి రా?
GV : అరేయ్ Exit 447 తీస్కొని వెళ్తే వస్తుంది రా
KP: Exit 447, ఎ Interstate మీద తీస్కోవాలి రా?
GV : మీ దగ్గర్లో ఉన్నా ఏదో ఒక Interstate తీస్కొని రండి రా.



So that was hilarious!!

Finally we went to the airport by around 01.50 PM and waited in the "Phone and Wait" parking section. We found a camera in the car and took some pictures while we were waiting.


We picked up Sandhya at around 02.10-02.15 PM and then started directly to the "Exit 447".
After a few moments of suspence and mystery we were on the correct Interstate and in fact we were the first to reach the place. We had some coffee at a gas station and then left towards the river.

This was where we actually met all others and the real "re-union" started.
Now, Rafting is a different story in itself and cannot be covered in this part. Perhaps someone else can write about it!!