Eats, Writes, and Leaves

Redding is one of those towns that people move to from places like the San Francisco Bay Area and the LA Basin. They think “this would be a better place to raise children than the Evil City(tm).” These people’s children start hatching escape plots from places like Redding at about the age of 6.

I don’t entirely blame those kids. Redding itself is a wasteland of strip malls and big-box stores. An endless cacophony of neon screams out at travelers passing by on the Interstate at night.

All that said, I’ve transformed into a believer that Redding makes a great “base camp” for visitors to Northeastern California. The possibilities for outdoorsy day-trips out of Redding are almost endless. A week was not enough for me to do half the things I wanted to do in the region. And every evening, I was able to come “home” to a hot shower and an indoor bed. (Calling the Motel 6 bed “comfortable” would be pushing it.)

I did my best to transform into an average American vacationer, but I don’t think it took. While I’d definitely stay at Motel 6 again, I did miss some of my plush amenities. Eating at The Lumberjack repeatedly (more on that in a separate post) was amusing and convenient. I spent a bunch more time out on dusty trails than lounging by the pool or watching TV or shopping.

Which brings me to the honest-to-goodness humble transformation of the trip:

Somewhere on the railroad tracks headed back to the truck from Mossbrae Falls, eyeballing my perfectly healthy but noticeably droopy boyfriend and thinking “dammit I wanted to hit another waterfall today and he’s going to keel over on me,” I realized I’d become…dare I say it, tranformed into, *her* again.

The Once and Future Liz, that is. One or two of my dedicated readers might remember the frizzy ball of energy who had to be drug out of the lake at dusk because she wanted to keep swimming. Or pulled off the trail because she wanted to keep hiking. The one who camped every SCA event she could get to. She who was rarely content to sit still for more than 15 minutes at a time without leaping up to Do Something. Oh how I’ve missed her.

I did not expect to find her on the river trails surrounding Redding. I suppose I did ask for something like this to happen on this trip, but this transformation still caught me off guard. It’s wonderful and scary and new and old and eventually I’ll figure out what to do with it, I’m sure.

Next destination–Seattle in November!