Just a Little 200 Mile Scenic Loop

Day 30 - Mount Shasta California Day Trip

Sunday May 4

Beautiful morning here at the lake, chilly, but sunny. We decided to take a 200 mile scenic loop ride. We took US 89 heading east then south. We'd been told to make sure we visited MacArthur Burney Falls State Park. Glad we did, one of the prettiest waterfalls we've ever seen. There was a 'falls loop' walk that we decided to take...heck, it was 'only 1.2 miles. You think we would have been smart enough to figure out if we walked down to the bottom of the falls, that the way back out would be all uphill. It was a beautiful walk, however, and we took the steep parts slow (for me) and , when are we ever going to be in such a beautiful place again? I spotted some unique moss covered volcanic rocks at the bottom of the falls and took a photo of it. Later we drove through the park and down to the lake. Lovely place, but off the beaten path for sure.

We continued on toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. In retrospect, we probably should have just turned back after the falls, but thought the park would be nice and we were half way there. We did see a lot of pretty country, though. Problem was that instead of the 48 mile ride through it, we could only go in to the 12 mile point. After that, the roads were closed. By this time we were past the point of no return, so we continued on to Redding.

Now we were quite hungry so we visited a Red Robin. Had burgers, looked it up on line today and was quite horrified to see how many calories my guacamole burger had! Yikes, something like 12oo or so, it was good, but NOT THAT GOOD! Grabbed some groceries at Win Co...oooooh, I like that store! Prices were great and the produce....well, it's obvious we're in California, things are fresher.

By the time we got back to the RV we were really tired of traveling. At one point Jim said that we should have taken the dogs 'for a ride'. I reminded him that we've taken the dogs for over a 4,000 mile ride so far!

Jim built a campfire and we threw a couple of baking potatoes in the coals...we didn't have foil and they got really well done, like incinerated. That was dinner. I was still full from that burger from diet Hell...should be with all those calories.

Tomorrow we leave for the Crater Lake area.