Walkway of Redding


Walkway of Redding
Originally uploaded by danamight
My impromptu holiday road trip to NorCal was wet, very wet, to say the least. A full solid week of rain & wind, totally drenched. Camping in the mud, not so fun. Meeting locals in Redding & Willow Creek were the highlights.

Pinnacles National Monument off of Hwy 101 & King City - was my first stop, where I paid a whopping $27 to camp. The most expensive overnight in a park I can ever recall. Motel 6 might have been a better choice, since the temps dipped to 26 degrees that night.

Up in Redding I opted for a cheap hotel, downtown. Walked in the drizzle to find an open restaurant & Sunday night is not a big out-to-dinner night up here, so I had trouble locating a meal. Johnnie's Bar was lit up with neon, looked new & had a Santa ping pong tournament going on. I stopped in for a bite & met Larry, a local who introduced me to his whole crew. A blues/jazz band set up around 7pm & they were pretty decent!

The next day I grabbed Huevos Rancheros at the only Mexican place in town, took care of business at the post office & headed over to meet Layne (AppleCrisp thru Flickr). We were amazed that the sun actually broke out for a few hours & decide to take a walk around the Sundial Bridge park. Hubby James & dog tagged along. A very nice visit that ended short, as I wanted to head westbound & find a camp spot, before the next storm moved in.

I ended up IN the storm at 3000' elevation with snow & no chains. Even with AWD I was having problems staying on the highway, so I opted to call it a night at 6pm in Willow Creek. I ended up staying days enjoying this town over the holiday, meeting some cool locals and exploring Hwy 96, up to Happy Camp.

Sundial Bridge is quite the impressive sight and totally worth a visit.