Saving Summer

Ever since we got back from spring break, I had been dreading summer. Why? Because there was nothing to look forward to! No Saiki-delic adventure to plan, no place to go! We knew that nearly M's whole summer would be likely be taken up between freshman basketball and marching band. Since we didn't know whether or not he'd make the team and what the schedule would be if he did, we couldn't book anything in advance. A certain sibling wanted to go on vacation anyway, leaving him behind to fend for himself. Tempting as it was to consider, it was not an option. *sigh*

Once we knew that M had been selected for the summer team and got the schedule from the coaches, we saw that there was a small window of opportunity at the end of July. In spite of layoff rumors at my work, we decided to go ahead a take a quick trip. Because we've picked all of the low hanging fruit, we have to keep expanding our radius to get to national park units we haven't visited yet!

And so we hit the I-5 this morning and started driving north.  We made a brief stop in Sacramento to stretch our legs to check out the state capitol building and, uh, get a stamp.

Neither the assembly nor the senate were in session, so we just tried to imagine what our legislators might look like when they're at work (insert snarky comment here).

State Assembly

State Senate

Then we were back in the minivan for another 2.5 hours to make it to Redding for the night. We spent nearly 8 hours (540 miles) driving and were still 2 hours away from the Oregon border, if that gives you any idea of how big the state of California is!

After dinner we braved the heat and went to check out the Sundial Bridge, Redding's iconic landmark. The suspension pedestrian bridge over the Sacramento River was built 10 years ago. The support tower casts its shadow on the plaza on the north side to function as a sundial during the day. Pretty cool!

Tomorrow we kayak!