12 Apri 2018
What a special place Apples River House Bed & Breakfast is. Especially with Rich and Connie. They make you feel at home. Rich basically loaded the washer for me yesterday, and Connie dried my clothes and then folded them for me and put them on my bed.
I’m a lull in the guest house this week. They had a very busy week before I got here and they have another busy week ahead of them, so I’ve had their full attention. We have a lot in common and we’ve gotten to share stories and laughs.
Tonight they introduced me to a really great liqueur from Spain called “43”. It is citrus based and has hints of vanilla and butterscotch. I’ll definitely be looking for it when I get home.
The guest house and Connie and Rich are so nice, I don’t want to leave. If you are ever in the area, you must stop and stay here.
Today was a mixed bag as for as my trip is concerned. Connie provided an excellent breakfast and I headed out for the northern part of Lassen Volcanic National Park around 8:30 am. It takes about an hour to get there. There was snow all around and a few flurries on the way. The visitor center was closed and the park road was closed one mile into the park. About the only thing I saw was the closed visitor center and Manzanita Lake.

Tomorrow, I’ll try for the southern entrance and hope to progress deeper into the park and a chance for an open visitor center.
Rich suggested that I may have little to see at Lassen and said it would be a good trip to do a loop from Lassen to Burney Falls and then Mount Shasta. I decided to head to Burney Falls and I’m glad I did.

The falls are in a state park and and they are 129 feet high. You walk down a beautiful trail to the base of the falls and then you have the option of taking a loop trail of 1.3 miles around the top of the falls and back to the parking lot. It was a steep but easy trail, paved all the way, with great views of the falls all along the trail. This is a must stop if you are in the area.

By the time I left Burney Falls, it started snowing pretty good. Not only that but snow melting off the trees kept falling on the windshield of the jeep with pretty good clunks.

I drove into the town of Mount Shasta. Unfortunately, Mount Shasta itself was wreathed in clouds and you could not see the top of the peak. The town is very nice. I got out and walked around and found a bookstore and made a wildflower book purchase.
I then headed back to Redding and made a stop at a pressure car wash to get the dirt and grim and bugs off the jeep. The jeep has been too good to me to let it look so disrespectful and I wanted to get the bugs off before the paint started peeling.
I had left over pizza from Maxwell’s for dinner tonight. Rich and Connie make sure there is plenty of wine available. We had a great time talking over dinner and the “43”. What a great couple who really love what they do!
If I can get some hiking in at the south entrance to Lassen tomorrow, well and good, but if not, there is a river trail next to the guest house that I want to walk tomorrow. It’ll be a busy day.
So far, my left ankle is holding up but I need to invest in Advil stock since I take so much of it!