September 5, 2018
I forgot to mention… yesterday 340 miles total.
DW asked his friend for a breakfast recommendation for Medford. Friend said “Morning Glory Café” in Ashland. It was either 20 minutes or 20 miles, I really don’t remember which. It has been many moons sine I had been in this part of the state and it has all grown up so much! The café reminded me of “Word of Mouth” in Salem. At both places parking was very limited, it is a smallish building and there was a waiting list right off. After missing the turn in the first pass and circling the block once we got into the parking lot only to find there wasn’t really any spaces, but we did manage to find a place to park behind a truck that hadn’t moved in a very long time.
In spite of an elderly lady walking right out in front of my bike while I was moving slowly, nearly causing me to drop it. I really don’t need any help in that arena.
We must have arrived at a good time because our wait wasn’t very long and the wait list grew substantially longer after us. Some things on the menu that sounded interesting to me were:
Lemon Ricotta stuffed French toast with raspberry syrup
sourdough blueberry pancakes with lemon butter
house made banana bread French toast with walnut butter, salted caramel syrup and toasted walnuts.
What I had was:
Moroccan oatmeal with dates, nuts, apricots and spices
and it was delicious! We didn’t like the coffee so much. Not a fan of super dark roast coffee. I like the lighter roasts because the caffeine content is much higher, especially first cup of the day. The waitress very graciously took the coffee off of our bill. My only complaint is that my stomach wasn’t big enough to eat all of my oatmeal!
(I guess we were hungry, because I didn’t get any pictures of our breakfast)
As I was eating my wonderful oatmeal, I kept hearing my boss’s voice behind me. He is a guy that travels quite a bit and I am the type of person that runs into people when I travel, I thought “what are the odds…”? I took a deep breath and turned around, meeting the eyes of someone unknown to me. I smiled really big and told him that he had my boss’s voice. He apologized and I assured him that my boss is a pretty nice guy. His wife had the Lemon Ricotta stuffed French toast with raspberry syrup and it looked scrumptious.
With our bodies and bikes fueled up, our riding day began. Next stop Shasta Damn. It was super cool. Not the weather, it was pretty warm. We managed to find a weelittlebit of shade to park the bikes in. We headed in to use the bathrooms and maybe purchase postcards. That is when we discovered how neat a place it was.
At the front desk there was an interesting looking taxidermy animal called a “ring tailed cat”
It isn’t really a cat. It is part of the raccoon family.
All along the walls were pictures of the people that built the dam and the man who designed it and his family.
It was easy to imagine Mrs. Fitzgerald insisting that the ladies be appointed with the sofa and makeup table.
We stepped inside the theater and watched part of the film about the making of the dam. It is really interesting and amazing. We will have to stop here again when we have several hours to devote to the whole experience. We did stop in the gift shop and they did have postcards. I have been making it a point to purchase postcards, write on them and get them into the mail each day. We will probably get home before the postcards reach their destinations , but that is what it is.
As cool as Shasta Dam is, it wasn’t where we were supposed to be. We were supposed to be an hour North. DW asked me what I thought we should do and I said we should go an hour North. It wasn’t as if we had some sort of tight schedule that we needed to meet. So, hopping back on the bikes we headed back North… only to be stopped and re-routed back South.
In, just about, an hours time this wild fire had started and gotten out of control to the point that CHP closed I-5 in both directions. We would not make it back to the other point during this trip. We did, however, get to go to Redding twice! 😀 The second time we stopped for ice cream, yum!
There was no walking the Bumpass trail because it was closed. But, I HAVE to point out that the chemical toilets were the most pleasant smelling ones that I have EVER been in. The toilet donuts (or urinal cakes, if you prefer) were pina colada scented. Yum! (To my nose, I did not lick them. I promise and cross my heart). When DW said we were headed here, I kept wondering if it was pronounced “Bum Pass” or “Bump Ass”. Being that is all run together, this is a question that I will never have answered.
At the end of our day we stayed in a Comfort Inn and they had GREAT carpet!
We also had a porch off of our room. Upon which we sat in the evening after we walked back from dinner.
Today’s miles = 331
sounds like a very memorable trip!