Hat Creek, California

We moved from Weed, California this morning to this small little resort area called Hat Creek.  Known for it's fishing, hunting, horseback riding, and 10 miles from Lassen Volcanic National Park.  And guess what?  If we look out to the front of the RV where we are set up in the Lassen National Forest, we could pick up the Pacific Crest Trail and hike to Mexico or Canada in the same amount of time - 1300 miles in either direction.  Let's go!  But glad we left Weed - the campground is one we will not go back to in our lifetime.  Very noisy, lit up like daytime with security lights, the host was a nasty man, people weird stopping for the night.  But it served our purpose and that's get groceries and restocked before heading back into the wilderness.  We helped out a lady who pulled into the place yesterday with handicap plates - she could not get her vehicle unhooked from the motorhome.  Helped her for about an hour getting that done and then getting the wheelchair off the back end of the her truck.  We wonder how does she do it? Her husband was inside very invalid and she does it all herself.

The drive was not fun, we came down south on Interstate 5 about 60 miles to Redding and then turned off east bound towards Nevada.  Traveled over a couple of bridges of Shasta Lake which has the largest concrete dam in the US.  We remarked that - wow, was the lake down! - and after doing some info searching when we got here, it is the lowest since January 17, 2010.  Typically is loosing 1/2 inch of water level a day.  That's a lot.  We saw that houseboats and pleasure boats were way down on ramps and to launch your boat you literally were at a 45 degree angle dropping it in the water or pulling it out.

How low Lake Shasta is

High and dry marinas

We don't like driving in the mountains and had to drive through the Cascade Range to get to Redding.  A number of times we saw a huge sign that said to slow down to 60 because the sharp turn would cause you to tip over.  Well, Dave was only going 52 at the most and then slowed down because that was still way too fast.  Not a fun drive today.  But we are here, set up, secure,  no cell service again, but do have internet access through the park.  Will visit Lassen Volcano National Park while here and not sure about anything else.  As I sit here and type this I have seen horseback riders going by on the Trail. How cool.

And the not so good news is that we have to drive 30 miles to Burney to get diesel gas and to make a call if need to - the local gas station just closed up yesterday.  Will have to really plan our time here.