Mt Shasta and “One of THOSE Days”

This was a crappy day. I know some segment of “them” say you should only write about the positive (or a least the neutral), but this blog is really my diary. It’s for me to reread and remember my experiences sometime in the future. And those experiences include my emotional temperature at the time. So…

This was a crappy day. It really started last night when, after spending some time on the computer, Ken announced he thought we should skip the two-lanes and head straight down I-5 after Mt. Shasta and spend the night in Modesto. That would position us to see Yosemite on a Friday instead of on a Saturday. Friday night would be around Bakersfield and Saturday we would be home. A day earlier than planned. That rather floored me and I weakly demurred but that was about it.

Around 3:30 I woke up to go to the bathroom. I usually manage these trips in a semi-awake mode and fall back to sleep immediately. On rare occasions, however, I hit the pillow and my brain immediately starts to spin with all sorts of useless conjectures and plans and all the emotional baggage to go along with them. This was one of those times. I kept whirling between indignation, fear, and shame.

Indignation. This was my half of the trip. We visited your friends and whirled around SF at your pace. You told me to figure out what I wanted to see so I did. With no input from you. National Parks were closed when we set out so I planned things that didn’t involve them. Just because they opened up again doesn’t mean we have to change the plan. The leisurely plan. They’ll still be there for a later visit. And more of the same.

Fear. Have I made a mistake moving in with Ken? I still respect him highly, enjoy his company, and have come to love him. I also thought he would be a good travel companion. We enjoy sufficiently similar interests and types of sightseeing. But our travel styles are turning out to be drastically different. As a couple we’re supposed to adapt to each other. But I seem to be doing the adapting in spite of him declaring he needs to learn to slow down. I spent 25 years in a marriage I should have walked out of 20 years earlier. Am I making the same mistake here? Remembering the happy times and ignoring the bad? Maybe if I change this way, it will all work out?

Shame. Why didn’t I just tell him I wanted to continue with the original plan? And that I really didn’t like this motel and wanted to move to a better one. Why do I look to running away as a solution to my problem? When I was solo RVing I said I was tired of doing things by myself. Now I’m thinking I never had it so good. Is the grass always greener over there?

And so on. And being in a hotel I had no way to turn it off. When I’ve had these brain tornados in the past, I usually get up, move to the sofa, and either read or work crosswords. Sometimes I can relax enough to go back to bed; other times I’m up for the day. In either case, the spinning negativity is broken.

Not today. When we got up and dressed, I was in full martyr mode. I even had to put my wine stained socks back on because I had forgotten to transfer clean ones to the overnight bag last night.

We had breakfast then drove around the waterfront area while Ken tried to find this mansion he had remembered seeing. I found it nearby via my phone and we drove over. It was impressive, but neither of us even took pictures. Probably because it was all cloudy, but I really don’t remember. Then up the 101 to the 299 and east to I-5. That should have been a lovely twisty-turny drive with great views but the clouds hung on a while. And there was a lot of construction of the type where you wait for pilot cars. I was still pretty tired and grumpy so didn’t even enjoy the good parts. But I gradually started feeling better – probably as the sun started burning through. Or maybe it was a cup of good strong coffee we got somewhere along the way. When we hit I-5, we turned north and went up to view Mt. Shasta.

When I was researching this trip, I saw that we would be relatively close to Mt Shasta after heading east from the redwoods. I figured that, if it was a nice day, it would make a good photograph. Didn’t see much else in the area that didn’t require a large amount of physical exercise, so it was just a photo op. I had suggested to Ken that, given the number of miles he wanted to cover today, that we just skip it. But he had never photographed it before, even though he had been on that section of I-5 before, and he wanted to do it. So off we went.

My reading had suggested that the rest area north of Weed gave a good view, so that’s what we aimed for. On our way there, we found a vista point near Castella. So we pulled over there and took some pictures. Then drove on to the rest area by Weed Airport and took some pictures there. Finally, we headed north to the next exit so we could turn around and took some more pictures there. So we got nice views of the south and west faces of Mt. Shasta.

South face of Mt. Shasta from the vista point

Northwest face from the Airport rest area

NNW view from I-5 exit 759

Then it was back on I-5 and just put the miles behind. It had been 226 miles and 6.5 hrs so far. And per the GPS track we put in another 312 miles and 5 hrs before we got the the hotel in Manteca. A much nicer one. I was a zombie. I had tried to doze in the car, but wasn’t really able.

[written 11/11/13. I waited several days after writing this to review it and decide what to leave in. Everything is there with just a few grammatical corrections.]