After leaving Arcata, we decided to go no further north because the only way over to Interstate 5 if we went any further was to go through Hwy 199, which would bring us over into Oregon and then possibly snow. So, we weren't really comfortable with the idea of being in the snow. We decided to take Hwy 299 over to I-5. The reason we needed to get over to I-5 was because we are planning on spending Thanksgiving with family in Sacramento. Both Alex and I had never driven on Hwy 299, and boy did we put a strain on Maander(our van). We were climbing up the mountains through Trinity National Forest at about 35-40mph. We were constantly having to pull over for traffic to pass us. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to Weaverville, CA, which is only about 90mi form Arcata. I'm so thankful that we didn't have any car problems. Thank you to everyone who is praying for us and Maander. We stayed in Weaverville for the night and that was pretty uneventful. Nice town though.
We drove to Redding on Wednesday afternoon and were hoping to spend some time with some friends of mine, the Marinello's, that I met about 10 years ago at a camp called CFO (camps farthest out), but I kind of gave them a short notice; so, we planned on going to dinner with them the next day. Redding isn't a small town, but it's not a very big town either. Alex and I had to find something to do. We hung out at the Mall for a bit and people watched. That was fun for about the first hour, then we were bored.
We looked online and tried to find a cool bar to go to or maybe a place that had live music, but no luck there. Alex and I were convinced that we are never moving to Redding because there is nothing to do there. I'm sure if we knew the town better then we could have found something to do. We meandered with Maander for a bit and stopped at the Sundial Bridge for a little while at night. That was actually a little romantic. Then we decided to park our van in the Walmart parking lot for the night, and since Walmart is open 24hrs we walked and browsed around Walmart for about an hour before going to bed. So yeah, pretty boring.
Our plan for the next day was to visit some waterfalls, but the weather forecast said it was going to rain and we didn't feel like hiking if it was going to rain. Instead we took a absolutely beautiful bike ride along the Sacramento River. The fall colors along the bike trail were amazing and it never did rain. Alex and I got a pretty good work out.
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| The Look Out Tree |
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| Human Sundial |
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| Claude Caldwell |
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| View from our bike ride |
After our bike ride we met up with the Marinello's at their work, N Computing, in Redding and chatted with them for a bit; then made plans to go to dinner and a live music venue later in the evening. We ate at a pretty well reviewed sushi bar. It had decent sushi, but not as good as Kamon Japanese or Sushi Cafe in Sacramento. They did have a pretty cool blow-up Hello Kitty doll in front of their restaurant.
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| Us with Dennis and Angela Marinello |
Once we were done with dinner we headed over to The Love Lounge for live music. I was actually pretty impressed. There were a ton of different musicians and the majority of the people were Christian. The place was packed. Everyone was pretty talented. There was a girl about ten years old who sang one song and she had some pretty amazing vocals. I thought, "This girl is the next Cristina Aguilera." Another girl, about my age, maybe a little younger, sang a remix of the Disney song in the movie The Little Mermaid called, "Part of this World", and that was really amazing and unique. She had a beautiful voice, sounded a little like Alicia Keys. I loved it. So, our second day in Redding was a little more enjoyable, thanks to the Marinello's and a beautiful day by the River.
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| Live music at The Love Lounge |
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| A lot of people there! |
We are now in Chico, CA. So, close to home. One of the Marinello's recommended us going to The Naked Lounge for coffee in Chico. We have a Naked Lounge coffee house in Sacramento that Alex and I absolutely love. We are here now and it's not the same coffee place, but still pretty good. Alex and I are in a little section of the coffee shop right now that is kind of closed off to the rest of the place and there is a couple also in the same area totally making-out right now as I'm typing this. Kinda awkward.
When Alex and I get back to Sacramento, we plan on doing some touristy things and we are totally going to blog about it.
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