At least once a year, sometimes more, we drive up Interstate 5 from southern California to southern Oregon. It usually takes between 11-12 hours depending on traffic. My sister was going to get married the next day in Jacksonville, Oregon, so Neek and I, along with Neek’s sister, were determined to do the drive in one day. We got in the car close to 5:30am after having a small breakfast and hit the road.
It was a Friday morning, so we had to deal with traffic congestion in the Santa Clarita area. Neek drove through that fairly smoothly, then traversed the Grapevine and on into the San Joaquin Valley as the sun rose to warm us up. There was more traffic in Stockton and we stopped in Sacramento to enjoy a delicious lunch Neek prepared of chicken, rice balls and salad.
Then I drove from Sacramento on up. Traffic was pretty easy to maneuver through up through Redding. Once we passed Redding, we stopped to see the beautiful trees and Shasta Lake at a rest stop. Then we stopped again at a scenic stop for Mount Shasta, which had lots of great information just looking at the animated bear footprints on the sidewalk. There was really a spectacular view!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9r8UTgYvU
One more pause on the way up to Oregon. There was a curious sign near Yreka, California that read ‘State of Jefferson.’ Interesting piece of history, Jefferson was actually a proposed state in 1941. It was named after Thomas Jefferson, extended from northern California to southern Oregon and Yreka was named the provisional capital. The start of World War II diminished enthusiasm for that movement, but we documented evidence some still want it on the way up! There was a little congestion in Weed, but then we went on past the border into Oregon and didn’t stop until we reached Medford, Oregon.
We checked into the Ramada Inn where we had a nice downstairs room reserved for us. It was good to kick back and relax for a bit. We had a lot more events planned for that weekend to look forward to, but sometimes just the journey there (especially a 12 hour drive) is an adventure in itself!
