Labor Day in Mt Shasta, CA

Wow, I'm learning that keeping up a blog is a lot more work than I thought it would be. I've read that on others blogs but until you actually start doing it yourself I guess it doesn't sink in. So with that, here's my late update on our Labor Day weekend stay. After leaving Eureka, we had a slow drive over highway 299. I actually thought the road would be a lot like the drive on highway 199 from Crescent City, CA to Grants Pass, OR but turns out that 299 has lots more curves and hills to it, so the drive was much longer and slower then we anticipated. Thank goodness we didn't have timeframe to meet. We also certainly noticed quite a change in the weather as we drove over the coastal mountain range into Redding CA. We went from nice 60's degree weather to high 90's 😓. Definitely glad we weren't staying in Redding, so we headed up I5 for the city of Mt Shasta. By mid-afternoon we pulled into the KOA. As is typical for a KOA, the staff was friendly as we checked in and our space was ready for us. While KOAs are kids friendly and often a little noisy over weekends and holidays, we have found all of them to be dog friendly and never have had an issue when we had our 5 furry kids and no issues with our current 3.

This KOA was no exception, we also chose this campground as we wanted to stay somewhere that wouldn't be too hot but also on our route. As we are getting use to this full-time gig, we were also concerned over being sure we found a decent place to stay over a holiday weekend. When booking I saw that the KOA sits just on the outskirts of downtown Mt Shasta and we found it easy to head downtown to explore and walked there several times. We always enjoy being able to walk and explore areas we stay at so this made for a nice weekend.

The space we stayed in was on the end of a row so we had no-one on our right side and like
all KOAs we have stayed at so far, this one had no issues with us setting up the dog fences so the babies could play outside while we sat out with them. All we had to worry about were people walking by on the loop road but this wasn't an issue for us. We found that almost everyone here was respectful and kept their four-legged babies on leashes when walking.

The campground had a nice view of Mt Shasta as well

The babies enjoyed the area and we found a city park near the campground that had some nice trails to take them on and we also drove up by the Mt Shasta ski area and did a little hiking in that area. One day we decided to drive down to Redding thinking it would be a nice change and we would surely find some places to take the babies. What we found is that Redding doesn't allow dogs at any of their nice parks. The only one we found that allowed the babies was inhabited by homeless and was not cared for with garbage lying about the park. We would not recommend Redding as a place to take your 4-legged babies. While in Redding we were able to find a nice hamburger joint, Damburger, and found the burgers great and when I asked for a few patties for the babies they melted cheesed on them and boxed them up separately for us. The babies gave the burgers a paws up rating.

Over the weekend the town of Mt Shasta had several activities going on. On Saturday we went to the car show on Main Street. There was a nice collection of classic cars and several vendors. On Sunday the Rotary sponsored a concert in one of the parks. So we enjoyed Mt Shasta and would easily spend more time there in the future. On Labor Day we left for Nevada City, CA and a stay at Harmony Ridge but more on that in the next post which I will get done much quicker than it took to get this one out.

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Cooling off in Eureka, CA

After spending a few days on the east side of the Pacific Coast Range outside of Medford, OR it was time to head back to the cooler weather on the coast. While we were in Medford for Alan to attend to some medical appointments, they were experiencing a heat wave and it was close to 100 degrees each day. Not Kim's favorite weather! The drive back to coast was slow as is usual for hwy 199 but no other issues. We spent the first night outside of Klamath, CA at Kamp Klamath RV Park. Alan booked this one based on looking at a map of the area and some limited reviews and honestly it wasn't one of his best choices. The park is in need of work and has a mix of full-time residents and us travelers. Alan also thought it was right on the river looking at the pictures but alas it wasn't and the space was tight. Luckily it was only for one night so the four legged babies didn't complain too much and the park had no concerns with the several dogs. There was a very unique chicken coop on the property.  Rate was $34 for the night.

We left Klamath for Arcata, CA and a stay at the Mad River Rapids RV Park which is just on the outskirts of Arcata and a not very far from Eureka. We actually picked this as our second choice after the one we thought we wanted to stay at wasn't available for the stay we were planning. Sometimes fate is a good thing and we ended up enjoying our stay here. The park does have a mix of long-time residents and travelers but the park is so well kept up and everyone keeps there sites nice that we didn't mind and everyone was so friendly. The lady in the office, wish we remembered her name, was quite the sweetie and helped us get settled in and helped us throughout our 12 day stay. The park is very pet-friendly and it seemed like at least 3/4 of the campers had a dog(s) or cat. Almost everyone was respectful with cleaning up after them (our biggest pet peeve about other pet owners!) and there was no issue with dogs not being on leash. While there isn't a designated dog run area, there is lots of room to walk around. The space was plenty big enough for us and while we like room between our neighbors, this one was quite adequate. They offer cable TV but we used our Dish satellite and were able to receive a full signal. Verizon service was okay with 2-3 bars, however their wifi is very slow and we used our phones as hotspots most of the time.

The Eureka area has lots of exploring that we found to do. The babies especially love the beach, of course living by it for a year before we started full-timing probably has something to do with it. We found a beach just a couple miles from the RV park that the babies played on several times, never many people on it so they got lots of running room!

Some of our other favorite things we found were some of the breweries in the area. The most unique one was Humboldt Regeneration, it sits in a self storage place and is easy to miss but so worth finding. They offer a unique variety of brews, friendly staff and are dog-friendly. When driving up it doesn't look like much but you have to give it a shot.

There are also many places to hike in the Redwoods, way too many to list but all worthwhile hikes. Vinnie especially loved the fallen, hallowed out trees and the girls had fun running through the woods and all the new smells.

Next we are off for some place to stay over Labor Day weekend that isn't too hot or too noisy.

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