Vacation: We start in McCloud

On our first day of a short vacation to the north east part of California, we headed north on I5. A few miles south of Redding, Karen saw the sign for the historic Cottonwood district, and since it was a good time for a lunch break, we took the off-ramp. In the mid-1800’s Cottonwood was a stage stop. The historic area seems to be about 1 block long, and looks a bit dreary. We stopped in the shade at a small park across the street from the Post Office. While munching on my sandwich, I checked for a nearby geocache using my phone and saw there was one less than 100’ away.

A special GPS geocaching exhibit was at the Turtle Bay Park museum in Redding, so we stopped to go see that (GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit). When Karen saw the admission price to Turtle Bay Park she elected to stay outside and read her book (actually she stayed inside the visitor center because it was air conditioned, and it was a hot afternoon). I zipped through the maze without looking at all the details so she didn’t have to wait for me too long. After getting coffee nearby, we headed north again.

I stopped at Sims Road for a geocache at an old steel suspension bridge over the Sacramento River. I believe it was the first major project completed by the newly formed Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933. The parts for the bridge were delivered without any instructions on how to construct it, but the crews figured it out. The banks of the Sacramento frame Mt. Shasta here.

There is another nearby cache (Sims’ Big Brother) that I am interested in, but it would be a slow 4×4 drive and we didn’t have time.

Continuing north, we drove into the town of Mt. Shasta and found the headwaters of the Sacramento River. It’s a good size spring pouring out of the side of a mountain.

We stayed the night in McCloud at the McCloud River Mercantile. It’s a nice B&B with rooms upstairs and shops downstairs. All of it has been extensively refurbished.

Links
—McCloud Alturas photo gallery