My husband and I took a brief, last-minute, trip to see his folks up in Cottonwood last week. We looked at the calendar and saw that Wednesday and Thursday were open so we headed up. The last time we visited was in the early fall last year and our visits were indoors but fully masked - the fires were in full force and my mother in law has breathing issues, so being outside wasn’t possible. This visit we were all fully vaccinated and the air was clear.

We arrived at midday; it was a bit surreal after the last year to be able to simply walk into their home, give them a hug and sit down and visit. My father in law ran out to a local deli and brought us back some lunch so we didn’t have to get back in the car so soon. After a bit, I took off for a bike ride around Cottonwood; I’d brought my new-to-me road bike, nicknamed Blackbird (the bike is black and it flies, like a bird). I road around a neighborhood near the river and down a short bike path before turning around and heading back. I saw the time and mileage and decided to do the loop one more time, this time not stopping to take photos. After that I headed back to my in-laws.

I arrived in time to have a small glass of wine on the patio before heading to our hotel and getting cleaned up for dinner. Dinner was at Peter Chu’s - a Chinese restaurant inside the Redding Airport. They were doing a brisk business - not at full capacity, but plenty of folks were there. Most people did not wear masks when entering or exiting the restaurant - I felt a bit odd doing so, but also felt like setting a good example. When we visited last fall we noticed hardly anyone wearing masks - and in the time since, they have suffered three times the deaths that we have in our County.

Thursday morning I headed out for another bike ride - a loop from our hotel out towards the river, through some farms and ranches and then back towards town. It was chilly at first but quickly warmed up and it was beautiful. I crossed several rivers and creeks - Ash, Anderson and Sacramento - and took pictures of them as well as of horses in their fields and other pretty sites. The ride was 21 miles and mostly flat - quite a change from over here.

We all had breakfast at a cute place called Vittles - I ate two eggs, two slices of bacon, two sausage links and one and a half giant pancakes! We spent the afternoon visiting my in-laws, mostly outside due to the gorgeous weather. When we got ready to leave we all drove down to Red Bluff and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant there. In both restaurants, the only ones wearing masks were the servers. People were spaced apart but not as much as one would experience here, even outdoors.

Overall, it was a nice visit and definitely a bit of “normal” in that we didn’t don masks more than we did. Most of the family there is fully vaccinated or at least has one shot. I never dreamed we would be this close to normalcy after such a short time.

A little bit of "normal"