Gridley, Lassen and Jacksonville

On Monday morning we were up and in the car by 7:30. On the way out of town, we passed the Starbucks and a big arch that announced "Welcome to Historic Downtown Gridley." We couldn't believe that after driving around the town the night before, up one block and down the other, we had actually missed the downtown section. Unfortunately, the Museum was closed on Mondays. (We couldn't really wait around until opening time anyway.)

The big employer in Gridley, when my Grandmother lived there, was the Libby's cannery. The cannery is long gone, but the town of 7,000 is trying to revive their downtown. We spent a half hour or so, and walked around a few blocks. Kathy found a building housing senior apartments.

In the next block, we found this old building that someone had moved onto a lot. Kathy and I were trying to decide if it was a historical building, or if the lumber was worth enough to try and rehab it. It would be an awful lot of work.

Lassen Volcanoes National Park

By 8:30 we finished fueling up the car and got on the road for Jacksonville, Oregon, near Medford. We could have driven straight through on Interstate 5 in about five hours. Instead of doing that, though, we decided to take the scenic route, through the Lassen Volcanoes National Park. It was a beautiful day and beautiful drive. Once again, we gave thanks for the nice Park Ranger who talked us into buying a yearly National Park Senior pass.

From Gridley we drove to Red Bluff (about an hour), and from there we took Highway 36 to Mineral (about an other hour). There was a more direct route from Gridley, directly up Highway 32, but it was closed due to the Dixie Fire. The drive was nice, though, and there wasn't any traffic.

Unlike Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii, Lassen has no smoking caldera, with annual eruptions. According to the visitor's center, Lassen last erupted in 1914-1917. However it is still an active volcano, the southernmost in the Cascade range.

The most visible evidence of the volcano's activity are the geothermal features that can be seen throughout the park. Unlike Yellowstone, visiting most of the geothermal activity in Lassen requires a bit of a hike, something we didn't have time for. However, there is a boiling mud-pot right beside the road at Supan's Sulphur Works just inside the park. My picture is terrible, but the mud-pot itself is really impressive and a little frightening. I'm sure that after we get back from Yellowstone, it will seem like nothing, though.

The drive through the park is really beautiful. There are creeks, meadows, breath-taking vistas, lakes, and hiking trails. It's also pretty uncrowded. Even in the middle of summer there was little traffic and it looked to us like there were lots of camping places. Back-country camping is also popular, but prohibited right now because of the fire danger. 

By noon, we reached the north end of the park and had a picnic lunch on the shore of Lake Manzanita. Then, it was back to Redding and up to Jacksonville, right outside of Medford.

In Jacksonville, we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast named the Hummingbird Estates where we got a two room suite for just a little more than what we paid for our motel room in Gridley.

After we checked in, we headed ten miles down the road to Applegate Christian Fellowship and walked around, even though it was after hours.

On the top of hill, overlooking the church, the congregation has built a retreat center. The drive up to the top is a little terrifying; it's quite steep. But the grounds and the cabins are incredibly serene.