Cottonwood visits

In February and now in March my husband and I have made it a point to visit his parents in Cottonwood for a few days. We went up the first full week of February to celebrate both his and his mother’s birthdays and we went back up last week to spend a few more days with them.

We decided to try to get up there a bit more this year. Losing my mom has brought to a point that we don’t know how much longer we will have his parents around to visit. Both of them are in their 80’s and neither one has the health they had even a few years ago. The slow down in the real estate market has been tough economically, but the blessing has been the time available to make these visits a reality.

We went up last Tuesday, on what turned out to be the wettest day of the week. The drive wasn’t too bad, I just took my time. We saw one wreck, on the far side of Lake County, where a hillside slid into the road, leaving several large boulders in the lane; an empty semi with a flat bed apparently hit one of these and ended up across the lane into the hillside. The front end was gone, but it appeared that the passenger(s) were OKand were in fact directing traffic. We were lucky that we were there soon after it happened, before emergency vehicles arrived and closed the road, so that we were able to get past this and continue on our way. The rest of the ride was uneventful, including the dangerous winds on I-5 we had been warned about - these turned out to be coming from the south and actually just pushed us along to our destination.

The central valley was relatively dry while we drove north - however, in calls to the family, we learned that was not the case in Cottonwood. The storm must have sat on top of the town; we heard they got 4” that day. When we pulled into town we came across a flooded intersection - which unfortunately, also flooded several homes nearby. The in-laws were OK, though the fields around them were very wet.

We spent the next few days visiting, eating and enjoying what turned out to be a few gorgeous, sunny days. We brought the bikes along and had two great rides. The first was along the Upper Sacramento River Trail; we started at Turtle Bay and rode up to the Keswick Dam and then back. The second was in the Swasey Recreational Area, in the hills west of Redding. There’s a lot of great trails there for hiking and biking and we enjoyed a nice climb up a trail called Escalator and a fun, flow-y downhill called Snail Trail. The only downside was that all the seasonal streams were in full force and we had four or five crossings, so we were wet by the time we got back to the car.

We hope to get at least one more trip up there before the heat makes it uncomfortable. The bike trails in the area are really wonderful. It’s always fun to end the day sharing meals with the family, followed by either a Warriors game or a televised rodeo to watch. We have enjoyed these getaways and the time spent with family.