Day Eleven: North to Alaska Oregon

I was invited up to visit one of my son-in-law's parents. I don't really know if the invitation was extended with or without the children, but I was certainly more interested in visiting with our common interests, the children.

I drove to Davis to pick up my son-in-law and together we proceeded to Shasta to pick up my daughter. (She had taken a bus up earlier to visit with some college friends and be picked up on the way.) Anyway, we stopped in Redding for a late lunch. It had been a long time since I had been in Redding. I didn't recognize the place. Of course, it didn't help that I confused it with some other town, probably off of Highway 101 as I was looking for a specific Thai restaurant that didn't exist, in Redding.

Instead, we ate at Chu's, a Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese restaurant. It wasn't a fusion place either. (In fact, I think the name was a pun.) Each menu type was distinctly separate from the other. The waiter was, to say the least, enthusiastic. Every choice we made, Chinese for me and Sushi for my son-in-law, was declared to be the best choice. Mine was good, definitely not Hunan or Szechwan though. We got in just before they closed after lunch by just a minute or two.

California's Central valley is normally hazy, but had seemed extra so on this trip up it. In Redding, we got to see why. There were major smoke plumes in the hills to the west of town over quite a large area. In the restaurant one of the other diners commented on being evacuated and hoping that her house hadn't burned. We both wished that so. My house burned down when I was 14. The fire was so hot that I couldn't find any of my silver coins from my coin collection and the pennies I found were paper thin, the nickels found were misshaped and only by heft could be identified as nickels. Unlike the Oakland hills fire where I could see orange flames in concentration points that were obviously houses, all that was visible from across Redding was the smoke. The smoke persisted in cloud-like haze form until after Lake Shasta.

Son-in-law's parents' place is fantastic. (While not using names is awkward, I don't know any better way to avoid trampling on people's privacy, which I have not asked for permission to trample.) The place is full of great wood from floors and decks to furniture. Most of it was done by them. Even my daughter got to help in some small way toward the end. Then there is the layout. My son-in-law's mother is a design genius.

Great food! Great conversation! It lasted far later than all of our normal bed times. I am honored to have been invited to join them this weekend. Long weekends visiting is certainly the Life after Layoff for me.