Nice pics and explanation. I did the same on 22/03. Yes, the roads were very bad in the route you have taken. I did take same route while visiting the temple. But while coming back, I took Sarjapur Road, this road is better than the Channasandra route. On the way back, stopped in a farm and took the lunch. It was just like weekend picnic with the family. The kids and the family enjoyed this though.
For route, you could have gone thorugh the thread I had raised in route/travel query and people here have given the 3 options to reach chikka thirupathy. You could have taken either one of them. Here is the link for this:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...tirupathi.html (Route query - Bangalore to Chikka Tirupathi).
Anyways, hope the family enjoyed this picnic. :-)