Memorial Day 2007 Vacation

We're back from our family reunion/vacation. Only four people were missing. A son-in-law who was staying home with their very old, sick, dog; a son-in-law who stayed home with his wife, the daughter, who is "pregnant out to here" with twins; and the son who is a brand new police officer who just finished the academy and is starting his new career.

We had three nights and two full days of laughter, family, fun, fishing, drinking, you name it. The place we stayed at was a former fishing lodge. It was on the Sacramento River about 20 minutes north of Redding, CA. It was the perfect place to relax and do nothing, or go exploring, or whatever you wanted to do.

A few of the guys went fishing and caught lots of fish. Most of them were a pretty good size, about 20 inches. A few were smaller, about eight inches.

In spite of some early problems, like my husband failed to pack most of my cold food items, there was plenty of food. He left my home made bread in the freezer, so instead of french toast one morning we made scrambled eggs. I had planned on having a few lemon drop martinis but the frozen lemon juice from my tree was also left in the freezer at home. I did manage to have a couple when someone went to the store and I ordered some lemons. It wasn't as good as my meyer lemon juice, but it's probably just as well. I really didn't need all that sugar anyway.

We actually started the vacation a day early. Thursday, May 24th, was my husband's 51st birthday. We left Bakersfield around 4:30 pm and arrived in Sacramento about four hours later. Once we got settled in the hotel room the kids and I gave him his gifts. He got one Fox and one O'Neill t-shirt, and four nice Hawaiian style shirts.

The next day we went the rest of the way up to Redding. It was nice to break the trip up a little. Outside of Sacramento we drove past rice fields.


After Redding was Lake Shasta.
Then we got to the house. We played pool...

cooked...ate...
and conversed.

There were wild Bing cherry trees (a neighbor picked some for us--they were good!),

wild grapes,

and of course berries everywhere.

There was a train track between the house and the river so there were lots of trains.

There was a giant nut tree,

wild sweet peas

and other flowers.

We visited the Castle Crag State Park and got a good shot of the Crags

and Mt. Shasta.

We also visited the Sundial Pedestrian Bridge in Redding.

There was wild life...

and more trains.

Good food, good drinks, good company, good times. I think I would rate this the best vacation I've had all year!