Redding, CA

April 31, 2015

Up early and heading into Redding which is only about 10 miles away.

We headed for an RV park we’d stayed at before, the Marina RV Park, right on the river and handy to all things in town, but we discovered it was full! Weird as it’s off-season and the middle of the week, but apparently there’s an archery convention in town.

So we tracked down another park, the Redding RV Park, which is nice but unfortunately RIGHT off the I-5 so is very VERY noisy. But we’ll have to put up with it to re-provision for the next phase of ‘wilderness’ camping.

We went for a bike ride starting at the Sundial Bridge and running along the river. Redding has some great bike trails, all paved and running up both sides of the river with a bridge to cross at the far end. There’s lots of dirt biking as well, but as we know, not my thing. As it was … I almost didn’t make it … not because it was too difficult, but because of the heat! Again, it’s unseasonably hot and already reaching temps of 34C/93F which just makes me wilt! I guess it’s a ‘redhead’ thing. Tomorrow is forecast to be closer to 35C/95F which I’m NOT looking forward to. At least this park has a pool!

The Sundial Bridge across the Sacramento River

Biking on the river paths in Redding

Bike Path along the Sacramento River, Redding, CA

Bruce decided to take his sea kayak and actually paddle up the Sacramento River starting above a weir beyond the Sundial Bridge. Apparently between fairly mild currents and hopping eddies, the paddle up there was fairly easy. There were some fairly strong currents below the damn which required some more effort including some wave surfing (see the video below), but it turned out to all be manageable.