Away We Go

We covered a lot of territory today. We packed the car last night, and we pulled out of the house at about 6:30. Traffic was not bad in the direction that we were going, but we did pass a bad accident on the other side of the highway in the Newhall Pass where to big rigs had collided into each other. They were still spraying foam on the fire as we passed.

Shortly after this, we stopped at Fort Tejon State Historic Park. This was the place where the U. S. Cavalry Dragoons were stationed from 1854 to 1864 to protect white settlers from attacks from the Paiute and the Mojaves. Most famously, the army experimented with the use of camels at this and nearby forts during that period.

We saw no camels there or even a ranger. It was still early enough in the morning that we wandered around freely and let the dogs do the same. The buildings here are reconstructions.

We went back in the car and headed towards Sacramento. In Dear Mr. Henshaw, Lee Botts, the narrator, described highway 5 as a stretch of road so boring that the cows forget to moo. It certainly is not an interesting or attractive route, but it is relatively quick. We made good time and arrived in Sacramento a little after noon.

We had lunch with our friend Dan Story at a charming outdoor cafe a few blocks from the state capitol.

Dan is in the middle of renovating his downtown townhouse/loft, and he is doing really great things with it. So of course we spent a lot of time talking about renovations and real estate. Dan is a bartender at one of the restaurants most frequented by assemblymen and lobbyists, and he always has some great off-the-record stuff about what is happening in state government, too.

After Sacramento, we continued on towards the northern part of the state. We had already decided that Mt. Shasta was about as far as we wanted to go this first day and I had made reservations at a dog-friendly motel some days ago. So, instead of rushing directly to our room, we explored some of the parks near Mt. Shasta.

The first was Lake Siskiyou. It was awfully pretty, but there really was not much for the dogs to do there.

So we continued on to Mt. Shasta city park. This is famous as the headwaters of the Sacramento River. The people in the picture below are getting the water as it comes rushing out of the spring which feeds the river. This is snow melt straight off the mountain. The water is pure, sweet, and extremely cold.

Here there were lots more places for the dogs to play around. They went in and out of the water and frolicked through the fields.

I was wearing tennis shoes instead of sandals, so I let John get wet this the pups.

We were also impressed with some of the native flora that we saw growing along the banks of the river.

Tomorrow, on to Portland.