What else did we do in Lake Tahoe? On the Saturday we tried to get an early start to head out to Emerald Bay in the RV. It was a good thing we did as the parking spots were already filling up by 9:30am. We were lucky and got a prime one near the Eagle Falls trail.
We hiked up to Eagle Falls and continued from there to Eagle Lake which was simply beautiful. Misty really seemed to enjoy the hike as well.
After we finished the hike we had some lunch while enjoying the view of Emerald Bay. We joked about being able to sell our prime parking spot to the highest bidder. As we were leaving we saw dozens of cars illegally parked all being issued tickets by the local sherrif’s office. Unreal how busy that place gets.
We went from there to a smaller lake on the way back to our campground. We had been told to try and park at the day use parking at the campground but it was already full. We ended up going a couple miles up a bumpy road to a small side road closed to cars. We walked from there to the lake and enjoyed a couple minutes sitting by the water. When we were done there we headed back to the campsite.
The following morning it was time to pack up and leave Lake Tahoe and continue further North. We went up the West side of the lake, and turned off when we got to Tahoe City onto the road to Truckee. Truckee is famous for being the site of the first trans-continental railroad being completed, as well as proximity to the Donner Pass, named after the ill-fated Donner Party.
We stopped briefly in Truckee for some lunch and a quick walk around, and to make some phone calls to home to catch up on family. From there we continued across the landscape, passing the beautiful Lake Almanor en route to Lassen Volcanic Park.
We had booked two nights in the Mazanita Lake Campground. We arrived just before dark. The next morning we headed out on the motorcycle to explore Lassen Peak. Little did we know at the time that the road through the park had been closed up until the previous week due to snow pack. Some parts of the road up to Lassen Peak had 20ft snow banks along the side, which was pretty cool to see as we rode past on the bike.
After spending some time using the WiFi at the visitor’s center and grabbing some lunch we headed back to our campground. We finished the day with a walk around the lake trail.
When we woke up we packed up our stuff and relocated to the day use area which was conveniently next to the boat dock. We took the inflatable kayak out on the lake which was really quite amazing, with a spectacular view of Lassen Peak. Afterwards we had lunch before loading everything into place for our drive to the next stop.
We didn’t have too far to go, only just over an hour to Red Bluff. We had booked a National Forest Campground on the outskirts of the City. Little did we know that it was more of a city park and was attractive for hard up locals as a place to live. It reminded us a bit of the park in Monterey which we hadn’t enjoyed. Anyway we had booked three nights here one of which we would not actual be sleeping there.
We packed up the bike the next morning, but with a new addition for the first time, a pet carrier for Misty. We had tried it once or twice before and she had generally barked her head off. This time we were determined to make the journey work and sure enough she settled down eventually. So much so that we got worried that she was OK and pulled over a couple times on our ride to the first stop, a local kennel which we had booked her at for the night.
After we dropped Misty off at the Kennel we headed Northwest towards Redding and beyond on the 299 out to the coast. We took our time getting there, taking lots of breaks. The road itself while nice and twisty was pretty busy with fast moving traffic including lots of trucks, so we can’t say we enjoyed the ride all that much. The town of Eureka which had booked a room in for the night was intersting but nothing special. Lots of overpriced restaurants, we finally settled on the local brew pub which had decently priced but not overly tasty food.
The next morning we headed south for the alternate route back to Red Bluff, which we had learned the previous night was closed for 8 hours a day through the week, with only a one hour opening between 12-1pm. We got a fairly early start so we detoured out of our way to check out the magificent redwoods at the ??? State Park’s Avenue of Giants. It was well worth the side trip but we couldn’t linger as we were pressed for time to make the return journey during the window.
We got to the road closure point about 20 minutes before 1pm and had to wait almost the entire 20 minutes to be the first vehicle in the last group to head through Eastbound before the road closed again. The road was dug up pretty bad in spots but was manageable. We stopped for lunch at a local burger stand just after the construction before continuing on our way. The road was enjoyable enough but not as great as we expected in terms of scenery. We returned to Red Bluff and our RV where we’d spend one final evening.
Leaving Red Bluff the following morning we stopped briefly at the Shasta Lake dam, where we had a picnic lunch while overlooking the lake and impressive dam. We didn’t make any additional stops until we got to the town of Mt Shasta in the shadow of its 14,000ft giant namesake. We checked into the KOA there and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, and after dinner rode our bikes into the town which was pretty much dead but found a place to enjoy a pint on the patio before returning and heading to bed.
