Surprise!  My best laid plans to stop for a couple of nights in Red Bluff were blown straight out of the water.  Yes, I did stay for one night. It blew, it poured and it blew a whole bunch more… slept in, enjoying my boys. Ate breakfast, as I was sipping a cup of tea, I once again studied the maps and the weather forecasts.  Interesting!  But put it aside for the moment, went onto address emails, Facebook, even played one silly game.  Got another cup of tea and went back to the weather.  Sure enough, the high wind warning north of me, that had been in place all night and was expected to be all day today – was canceled.  Canceled?  The wheels started churning in my head.  Studied the weather further up I-5… it seems that there is a little window of opportunity presenting itself on Friday morning – between storms, could I do it?  If I would venture up to Weed or even to Yreka, I would be in grand shape to target that opportunity.

So I scrambled, put everything away, closed up and was out the door and on the road in 5 minutes and that was 11:38 in the morning. It was raining buckets in Red Bluff and I thought to myself – are you getting another case of insanity here?  But I kept going. Redding was blowing and heavy rains as well.  I was so looking to stop in Weed, wipers constantly moving back and forth exhausts the hell out of me. But lo and behold…came out of the mountains to sunshine.  SUNSHINE!!!!  Weed was so green (no pun intended), puffy white clouds moving across the mountains, I could not see Mt. Shasta, but there was sunshine and even better, the pavement was dry. They hadn’t had the rains that we experienced south of them. Ha-ha!   Yes, you guessed it, I kept going.

For those not familiar with this territory, its all mountainous.  With an approaching storm,  this area would support you while you wait it out, but I have SUNSHINE.  And up ahead is the Siskiyou Pass… miles of 6% grade, which I much prefer to drive in sunshine and dry pavement. So I said to myself – “Let’s do it” and that’s what I did.  I am now parked for the night, just south of Grants Pass, Oregon.  Gotta love spontaneous decisions… and what’s with these leaving at mid-day?  Routinely, I leave at first light.  But it is working for me, so be it. Cats weren’t too happy with me tho.