Category West

Lassen Volcanic National Park

November 14, 2016 Comments Off read California, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, West

At least, Lassen was the plan. We’d spent the night in Dunsmuir as it put us within easy morning striking distance of this national park–it would be a not insignificant detour on our day’s route, as that evening’s destination was Anaheim, which was a nine hour drive without a detour, but national parks are worth detouring for. We ended up sitting in construction traffic for a while, but the sun was shining, we had podcasts playing, and there was jerky to gnaw on (the breakfast of champions). Often as you approach a national park, the land around you will grow wilder, a hint of what is to come. I can’t say that was really the case here. It grew more rural, certainly, and our car got chased down the road by a pack of dogs which was pretty wild, but there were no glimpses of the park through the trees, no clues to what lay ahead.

What lay ahead was that the park was closed due to snowy/icy roads. Dang it! The visitor’s center and a short walking trail were still open, but the driving loop through the park was closed. I was disappointed but this area isn’t so terribly far away that I couldn’t make another attempt in the summer. If I’m honest, I’m already half planning my next trip to that area. And it wasn’t all bad–we got to take a bathroom break, stretch our legs in the crisp air, listen to bird chatter, and see a tiny part of a place neither one of us had been before.

The trees were coated with the most neon green moss I’ve ever seen. It flipped my cameras out, they utterly balked at its vibrancy.

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeen!

From the sort-of-fail at Lassen, we pushed hard toward Anaheim, making a stop for In N Out burgers (a given), taking a short detour for an address I’d plugged into RoadTrippers which turned out to be an empty orchard in the middle of nowhere (uhhhh, thanks, past me), and stopping for the occasional restroom break. Sometimes, adventure is seeing new sights and plunging off a rocky cliff with a parachute strapped to your back, and sometimes, it’s flossing a chunk of jerky the size of a toddler out from your teeth in a McDonald’s parking lot while being watched by something like twenty feral kittens, and this drive was definitely more the latter. Not just more the latter, exactly the latter, because that was precisely what happened. One moment, I felt I wanted to pull over and get out some dental floss, and the next, there were cats everywhere and my mouth was giving birth to something so large I should have probably given it a name. I suppose it’s not too late. Rest in peace, Jay Erke.

Even pushing, we arrived at our hotel late, with all of the usual complaints that come with a long day’s car travel, so I was thrilled to learn that the pool and hot tub were 24 hours. I wasted no time after check in to don my brand new suit decked out all over with sharks (only $10 on Amazon!) and head to the pool–it was late enough at night that Jason and I had the entire pool to ourselves, which was a blessing in more ways than one. Not just for the quiet and moving a body that had spent too many hours sitting and the warm water on aching muscles, but also because within a minute of hitting the pool, one of my boobs popped out, and also, the suit turned see through. Not “naked in the pool” sort of see through (minus, of course, the escapee situation which was corralled immediately), but definitely “it’s a good thing there isn’t a strong light source nearby” sort of see through. What I’m saying is, there’s a solid reason that swimsuit was only ten dollars and it wasn’t quite the bargain I thought it to be. So, you know, thanks again, cover of darkness and other hotel guests with reasonable bedtimes. You saved me a lot of embarrassment. At least until I splashed it out all over the internet.

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Mellzah’s stop is snoozy lane to rest her sweet caboose.

November 11, 2016 Comments Off read Attractions, California, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

We stopped for dinner in the town of Weed, California, because who would know food better than stoners, right? Right? Wrong. I hereby submit that the Pizza Factory slogan “We toss’em, they’re awesome!” henceforth be changed to “Technically food, but far from good!” or “We make the dough, you’ll find it so-so!” either of which would be more accurate. I’ve had better frozen pizza, and that’s just plain sad.

Across the street from Pizza Factory is a grocery store named “Ray’s Food Place” which is pretty much exactly what I would imagine a stoner naming a grocery store*. “Man, you know what sounds good? Like, we should get some pizza and then go to the, uh, food…place for some cheetos to put on the pizza. Make like a chee-cheese pizza. Heh. Chi-chis. Suddenly I could really go for Mexican food. What?”

I didn’t stop at The Weed Store, which is a store that sells pretty much everything you would expect a store named The Weed Store to sell, because as much as I like tourist traps and snickering at novelty t-shirts, I had other places to be: namely, my lodging for the night down the road in Dunsmuir. When planning this trip, I figured that since I knew I was going to be spending several nights in hotels, that I ought to try and find lodging that was a little more exciting than whatever motel happened to be available on the side of the road when I’m too exhausted to drive any more. It just so happened that one of my ideal stopping points coincided with the Dunsmuir Railroad Park, a combination campground and motel, where you can stay in a restored antique railroad car. It was an obvious yes for me. I mean, look at how flipping cute they are!

The interiors are…a little less cute, bordering on really dated**, but clean and comfortable, with a ceiling rail in case you wanted to do some pull ups or maybe hang your purse. We did both. Well, actually, each of us did one of those things, Jason with no purse to hang and me with no upper body strength. I did dangle ineffectually for funsies, though. What I loved about it, aside from the novelty, was that it was SO QUIET inside. One of the worst things about rooms on the road is the constant noise that makes it difficult to sleep–loud people going up and down the hallway, the ice machine, kid meltdowns, people stomping on the ceiling, the sound of people screwing on the other side of paper thin walls, which is incidentally also why I never want to live in an apartment again. While playing at being a Boxcar ~~Child~~Adult Baby, I had full quiet. I didn’t hear a single person who wasn’t Jason the whole time I was inside and the value of that cannot be overstated.

Also: SO FLIPPING CUTE.

The dining car is also a restaurant! I wasn’t there for dining hours, so I didn’t go. Also I remember the last time I ate out of a train.

Way better than that Motel 6 I stayed at in Redding the last time I rolled through. And the time before that. Man, you’d think I really had something for that particular Motel 6. No more! Now you can call me Boxcar Mellzah.

*I know it’s a chain, let me have this.

**Ok, it doesn’t so much border really dated as it is living smack dab in the middle of dated, but wood paneling for a railroad car in a campground works in a way it wouldn’t in, say, my home.

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Jesus Christ, it’s a lion, stay in the car!

November 9, 2016 Comments Off read Attractions, Oregon, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

I’d first seen a billboard for Oregon’s Wildlife Safari way back in 2011 on my way home from my trip to Halloween Horror Nights. That trip was a hard push both ways and we passed by it in the dead of night in both directions. Every once in a while since then, Jason and I would talk about going to make a visit, but it was one of those destinations that was always just a little too far to make it a day trip, and a longer weekend trip to that area just hadn’t been a priority. Some friends visited Wildlife Safari this summer, and that reminded me to try and get down there–so when I was planning this road trip to L.A. and back, I decided to incorporate it on the way down. This, incidentally, meant I had to be ready to leave the house at 4am so that I wouldn’t hit morning commute traffic in any of the three major metro areas I’d be driving through, get to Wildlife Safari well before they closed for the day, and hopefully make it to that evening’s stopping point before dark (because, as you’ll see, it was a bit special and something to be appreciated in the light).

They really try to create an atmosphere at Wildlife Safari. A giant arched sign looms over the road, reminiscent of Jurassic Park. Other signs dot the winding roadway leading to the park, letting you know the animals are watching, that you’re in danger, and they know what you did last summer. I’m only exaggerating slightly. Cognizant of the fact we were being watched, when we arrived we pulled into the parking lot to step out of the car for a hot minute, stretch our legs, grab a snack from the trunk, and take a gander at the animal exhibits they have for people on foot. After pressing a penny (PRIORITIES), I spent some time looking at the adorable marmosets while they lounged and snacked. Those little tufts of fur they have on the sides of their heads are just too cute!

I wasn’t here for this on foot business, however. My friend had fed emus while driving through the park, and that was exactly what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, at some point during the three month span between her visit and mine, they stopped doing car feedings because some of the animals were getting too aggressive. And I suppose I should be grateful for the fact that they stopped said feedings, knowing a thing or two about aggressive animals eating from one’s car. Aside from the no feeding thing, the rules were fairly similar to that of the Olympic Game Farm: you can roll down your windows, take as many photos as you like, but stay in the damn car–for your sake, for the animals’ sakes, for the sake of their insurance premiums.

Unicorns are real!

…They just look a little different than five year old me pictured them.

You know, it’s probably for the best that something with horns this size didn’t approach the car, because it would gall me a ~~little~~lot to have a horn hole in a car I’m still making payments on.

What all those signs at the entrance of the park didn’t tell us, however, was that the animals had moved from observing their human visitors to laying a series of traps for them–note the pallets scattered across the road, designed to either damage the tires and undercarriage of a vehicle or lure a Pinterest user out of the vehicle to claim them for their rustic reclaimed pallet wood farm table. Monsters.

Just look at those smug bastards, carefully doing that thing where you are interested in something but make a show of looking away, feigning innocence. I see you, elk. I’ve done that look before. I know what you’re up to.

Now, I’d like to talk about another important issue: the fact that I have been so indoctrinated into this pro-bear stuffed animal agenda that I don’t even see danger when I see a bear anymore. I look at those fluffy motherfuckers and think that they would probably give the best hugs in the universe, that we could sink into some fuzzy cuddle puddle and be bear and non-bear bestfriends and they’d even let me flip their ears around a little because they look extra soft and adorable. They even call big hugs bear hugs for chrissakes. What I am saying is, if I get torn apart by some steely bear jaws and claws, dig up Teddy Roosevelt’s corpse and sue him, because it is definitely his fault. His and the bear’s.

LOOK AT THOSE EARS. Fuzzy and flippable. Huggable, snuggable bears.

And then this emu caught me with my window rolled down and tried to cram his head inside and I was never more thankful for automatic windows, because they are actually kind of terrifying up close. That’s right, I’m not afraid of bears but I wouldn’t want to tangle with an emu, so you can see my priorities are a little out of whack.

With our admission, I could have driven around the entire park twice if we wished, but I was satisfied with one loop. There were only a couple of cars there (I saw a number of employee vehicles driving around, but they aren’t gawking at the animals and waiting impatiently behind me to move already so they don’t count), so I got to spend as much time around each animal group as I wanted, which was completely different from my bumper to bumper Olympic Game Farm experience. Plus, by the time I finished one loop, the rain was really starting to come down which isn’t conducive to wanting to spend a bunch of time idling with one’s windows down.

Directly across from the road that leads to Wildlife Safari is a Noah’s Ark themed restaurant, with signs reading: NEW OWNER MUMMY OUT OF EGYPT! DINO SKULL! JURASSIC ARK! ESPRESSO! HALIBUT! PEPPERCORN STEAK! and I can only assume that the new owner is in fact a mummy who serves up animals who have set their last trap at the wildlife safari and has brought in some dinosaur stuff and peppered his steaks to jazz up the joint. I mean, that’s the only obvious conclusion, right?

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