Day #35—Mount Shasta KOA to Willits--Sunday, June 26th

As I said in the last post, we were up and at ‘em before 7 AM. Horse to barn at this point, but it was a beautiful, clear morning and ahead of us was again a gorgeous drive. 

We climbed up through the Trinity Mountains, and then drove into fertile valleys, repeatedly driving up to 3,000+ feet and then dropping to 1,000 feet or so. We passed vast Shasta Lake, which was nearly full. Sarah was glad to see this as the last time she’d passed the lake, the water level was severely low. We followed the Trinity River for quite a way while driving through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest with its very tall, symmetrical trees of both pine and fir. (Next 4 photos from the Internet.)

Just north of Redding we turned west on 299W to get to Hwy 101. (Another instance where we batted 100% as we got off on the wrong road for a bit and had to ask directions.) Taking 299 pleased me. It meant that I’d saved a trip on 20 around Clear Lake. I will have to take 20 again (for the 4th time) on my way back to OK. On 299W, we drove through the Whiskeytown Shasta-Trinity National Recreation area and across the Whiskeytown Dam.

In Weaverville we stopped for a photo with a carved wooden bear and then stopped at a small bikers café for lunch. Cannot now remember what we had, so I guess it did not impress me. The terrain was changing as were the roadside flowers to a drier, more desert-like roadside lined with small pink Hayden’s gilia, sweetpeas, chickory, and oleander rather than mountain rhododendron.

In Willow Creek, we stopped for a couple of photos with Bigfoot . . . two different Bigfoots. Sarah struck up a conversation with the Visitor’s Center lady and they discovered some mutual Yurok Indian friends because Sarah and her husband had lived up the river near this area for a time also.

We arrived in Willits in time to grab Sarah’s new Honda Fit and dash down to Ukiah to pick up Tiger. We had planned on eating at Oco Time again, but they were closed. Ended up eating at the Ukiah Brewing Co. It is the first organic brewery in the U.S. I had a couple of sample beers and then chose a pint of Big River ESB to go with my fish and chips. Sarah, driving, had only the fish and chips. Once again we ended our meal at the Cold Stone ice cream parlor. 

The Ukiah Brewing Company (I am creating this blog 13 years after the event. Ironically, the offices where Sarah now works is directly across the intersection on the opposite corner about where I am standing to take the photo..)

Left: tiger when he used to be an outdoor cat. Tiger lost his tail and the vision in one eye scrapping with other cats in the neighborhood, so now he is an indoor cat; right: one of the feral cats Sarah feeds near her Mariposa Market office building. It is beautifully marked I think and if I lived near i would think about giving this cat a home

Flowers seen along the coast drive: Blue cultivated flowers before the Umpqua Lighthouse Museum; foxglove in oregon; pink rhododendron on the cliff above the mouth of the Klamath River; roadside California poppies; lavender rhododendron before our South Beach cabin; Some form of lupine