Moving North

Last Friday, we had to have the windscreen replaced on our truck as it had a huge crack across it which started out as a chip. We got the truck back the same day but when we drove out on Sunday afternoon to go to see a nearby volcanic mountain (which we couldn't get near to as it was all private land round it) we could still hear air whooshing in down the right hand side. This meant that we had to take it back to the garage on Monday morning to get it fixed so we didn't leave Colusa till after noon.
As we had to drive through Williams and it was lunch time we stopped for a steak meal at Granzellas which everyone has been raving about all week. It was a nice meal but the deli attached to it was fascinating. Olives of every size and colour, imports from Italy all over, Proscutio ham and cooked meats of every descripton, pasta and Italian ice cream. Shame it was very expensive. There was also a gift shop and a motel nearby all belonging to Granzellas. I think they had cornered the market in Williams.
We went north and suddenly saw a huge snow capped mountain in the distance - our first view of Mount Shasta which is a huge 14,000 + feet volcano which just rises out of the valley. It was snow covered and looked huge even though we were about 100 miles away from it.
We arrived at a Forestry Campground at Red Bluff. It's a very nice, pretty place with nature trails and paved walks all over. We went round the trail marked Mount Shasta View, but were disappointed that the view was very limited- probably because trees and bushes had grown since the path was laid. We are having a couple of days rest here and Terry is using his new camera to take shots of the wild life. Shame we didn't see the cayotes that are supposed to be around the trail we went on last night.

Driving up the Californian Central Valley has been very interesting as we have never seen agriculture on this scale before. The valley is 430 miles long and up to 200 miles wide and nearly every bit is used to cultivate crops, using irrigation from the rivers that run through it. We have seen pistachios, almonds, olives, walnuts, rice, vines, alfalfa, sweetcorn, peaches, figs, oranges, satsumas, limes, grapefruits, canteloupes melons, watermelons, strawberries and other crops we couldn't identify. They were harvesting rice as we drove up yesterday. Amazing. It all depends on the water so no wonder there have been on going battles about access rights to take water out of the rivers.