Redding, California

Good morning, friends! We had a long day of driving yesterday...370 miles to reach Redding, California. We're staying at a park we've stayed in before when heading south. It's pretty nice...right off the freeway, and so a little bit noisy, but not enough to keep us awake. We were pooped pups when we arrived, having spent the last couple of days making lots of trips in and out packing food and personal belongings. But all that is pretty well forgotten when we awaken on the first day of a trip.

So let's just see what happened yesterday, shall we? Just before pulling out of the driveway yesterday, I took this last picture of one of the last remaining patches of snow. There was more in the field. I hope to find this completely gone when we get home.

But I know you're chomping at the bit to see all the barns, so here we go. It seems as if it was the day of a-barn-and-its-friend yesterday. Almost all the pictures I took have two barns for the price of one.

I like this next one with the John Deere tractor beside it.

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When we reached southern Oregon, the temperature was in the 70's! Holy moly! It's been a long time since we've seen warm temperatures.

Around that time, Mt. McLoughlin came into view. This is the only place on the interstate where you can see Mt. McLoughlin. Once it's gone, it doesn't reappear.

Kind of surprising when you consider its height.

Wikipedia describes Mt. McLoughlin thus:

Mount McLoughlin is a steep-sided stratovolcano, or composite volcano, in the Cascade Range of southern Oregon and within the Sky Lakes Wilderness. It is one of the volcanic peaks in the Cascade Volcanic Arc, within the High Cascades sector. 

If you want to know more about it, you can read its Wikipedia entry right here.

A little further on, we passed over the Siskiyou Summit. This is always the scariest part of any trip south since this is where we could run into snow and ice. With such warm temperatures, there was little chance of that, but there was still plenty of snow. Elevation here is 4,350 feet.

Rounding a bend, Mt. Shasta came into view for the first time.

And then...bye-bye Oregon! And you can bet we'll be coming back soon. Just try to stop us!

And there we are...California, here we come! And hey, How are ya, my California friends?

Although I reminded myself not to bring any fresh produce, I totally forgot and brought it anyway. Here, they confiscated all of our limes and one of our three avocados. I was just glad they didn't take all the avocados. It was a featured part of last night's salad.

And then for many miles, Mt. Shasta dominated the skyline. We were fortunately unfortunate on a train trip from Portland to San Diego when the kids were young. We were many hours late on the return trip. Ordinarily the train would have passed through here around midnight, but we passed right around the base of Mt. Shasta as the sun was rising. It was some of the more spectacular scenery in memory.

In the many times I've seen Mt. Shasta, I've been curious about the two conical shapes, and so I consulted my friend The Google again. In fact, Mt. Shasta is made up of two cones with the smaller of the two called "Shastina." It's kind of an interesting Wikipedia entry about Mt. Shasta right here.

Just a little southwest, you can see another cinder cone known as Black Butte. When it isn't covered in snow, it's completely black and perfectly shaped.

Smitty was itching to get out on the catio when we finally arrived at the RV park. Sadie always hides in the closet for the first hour, but it wasn't long before she was out and playing mouse hockey with a toy mouse she pulled from their toy box. They're pretty seasoned travelers. They travel unwillingly, but it doesn't take them long to get their adventure paws on. We've left in place the "wind screen" on the catio window. Eventually Mike will build something a little less tacky for this window.

Catching up on the last things I did before leaving home...I stitched in the full hoop of the little redwork piece. This is waiting at home for me.

Also, I baked a pecan pie for two for Pi day. Gotta do it, right? This is the recipe I used, but I just used a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust.

So, okay...onward! We have another day of driving today. We haven't studied the map yet, and so I don't know where we'll end up yet. We'll reach our first "destination stop" at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve by tomorrow afternoon. We'll see the poppies on Monday, and then figure out where to go next. We love this carefree traveling when there's no itinerary beyond our next stop.