Worse smoke in Redding!

Last Tuesday my husband and I drove up to Cottonwood, CA, just south of Redding, to visit his parents. The smoke was terrible - the worse spot was Red Bluff - and the air quality numbers were in the upper 300’s. My mother-in-law has lung issues, so sitting outside was not a possibility. We spent our visiting time inside while all of us wore our masks.

On our way up we stopped and bought an air purifier for the in-laws. We set it up first thing when we arrived and that evening they said they slept better than they had recently. Even though the house was closed, that smoke creeps in. We bought a second one for ourselves and set it up in our hotel room while we went out to pick up dinner.

We discovered right away and saw through the whole visit how careless everyone in Shasta County is being in regard to the Coronavirus. Rarely did we encounter anyone with masks, inside or out. We often were the only ones in masks; the hotel’s restaurant staff wore masks, but not the breakfast place we stopped at on the way home (we ate in the car). For whatever reason, our in-laws are under the impression that there have been fewer than 100 cases in Shasta County; we learned differently - they are currently having 50+ per day testing positive.

The visit with the family was good; we either stayed indoors with masks due to the smoke or sat outside to eat. We got to see my sister-in-law and two of her kids (one an adult and one a teenager). It was good to see them after such a long time. We also did a little shopping in old town Cottonwood. We found a couple of cute antiques and stopped for a beer at the old saloon (no, no one masked but us but some folks were sitting outside).

The experience of actual travel was fun and we hope to do a road trip again at some point. We’ll drag the air purifier along with our wipes and masks and the other stuff. The change of scenery, even with the smoke, was nice.