On the Road Again. (Going Places That We've Never Been.)

We decided that the road to Boise through Winnemucca was too flat and boring, so we would take a route we'd never taken before through Redding, then out 299 through northeastern California and southeastern Oregon. Also, we both wanted to gaze again on Mt. Shasta where we had done a vision fast several years before.

Miles before we reached Redding, we could see the snow-capped peak of Lassen off to our left and the volcanic mass of Shasta slowly rising above the ruck of foothills ahead of us. We stopped at Burney for the night where we were once again tricked into ordering incredibly bad pie, this time strawberry/rhubarb. When it was placed before us, neon-pink and quivering, we knew our pie karma had somehow been irreparably damaged. It tasted even worse than it looked.

The next day, we hit the road early for the long drive to Boise. The highway wound through viridescent pastures etched by the extravagant loops of slow, glittering streams, all dominated by the cloud-white cones of the two volcanoes. We were very glad that we had taken the road least traveled.

Shasta dwarfs the smaller foothills around it.

Lassen and Shasta, California's two majestic volcanoes.

We ate our salami and cheese at a park in Burns, Oregon with a crusty baguette of Acme sourdough, then continued on to Boise, pausing only for a frosty cone at the Dairy Queen in Vale. Is there anything more satisfying to the inner child than a frosty on a hot summer day?

We arrived at John and Emily's just after 5:00 local time. John made excellent margaritas and grilled chicken and flank steak. Emily and Michael made us happy with their presence. And our darling Luciya made us laugh with her constant "Hi, Gampa!""Hi, Gams!"