Redding California: It’s close to a lot of other, better places to visit.

A famous architect designed a bridge in Reading and that was enough reason to go there.
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Having read that a famous architect had designed an interesting bridge in , I suggested to my wife that we drive there for our anniversary. Now, my wife generally loves to , but the thought of spending five hours traversing the “picturesque” scenery along California's I-505 to visit a bridge struck her as the romantic equivalent of getting a vacuum cleaner as a gift. Luckily, her expectations of me were even more modest, so she took what she could get.

Our road trip to Redding California.

We loaded up our car with podcasts and hit the road. Our first stop was the small town of Winters, California (population 7,000). Winters is one of those quintessential California towns that makes you think, “Why the are there good in a podunk, one-horse town like this?” The reason is that there can be.

Did you mean to read about Reading, England?

About an hour North East of and comprised of only a few streets in total, Winters' has a downtown (aka “an intersection”) that is chock-a-block with good places to eat. None of your road-side fast foodstuff here. Not only do they have the original sit-down version of the Buckhorn Grill, the Buckhorn Steak & Roadhouse, they have a couple of really nice gourmet cafés and pizza places, too. Definitely worth a stop if you're in the area.

Redding is an exit off California's I-505.

A guy fly-fishing in the Sacramento River.

Having never driven the 505, I was pleased to learn that it was straight, flat, and practically car-free by California standards, and in no time, we were pulling into the Greater Redding area. After settling into our hotel room and getting some much-needed juice (wine), we passed-out, hoping to get an early start the next day.

Morning brought with it the realization that we were now what is considered “inland.” Unlike the coasts of California which get cooling breezes and, in San Francisco, freezing fog, the center of California just gets sunshine. Hot, angry, painful, squinty sunshine. Much like you find in Palm Springs and the Sahara.

Not surprisingly, it was over 100-degrees Fahrenheit as we drove the ten minutes to downtown Redding California where the famous Sundial foot-bridge arched across the Sacramento River.

The famous “Sundial Bridge” of Santiago.

Redding California
The Sundial Bridge in question.
Redding California bridge
The Sundial Bridge, but from another angle.

Designed by the now-famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the Sundial Bridge in Redding California is the first steel, inclined pylon, cable-stayed bridge in the States. At 720-feet long and 23-feet high with 2,245 glass panels, the bridge took eleven years to complete and cost $24 million dollars.

We spent 15 minutes marveling at its impressive construction and innovative design. Then we became bored, and I wondered how we would be able to kill the next 72 hours without my getting killed by my wife.

Indeed, Redding California lacked the kind of intrinsic charm and stuff-to-do we had hoped it would have. But we were missing the entire point of Redding.

The nearby Lake Shasta Dam

Instead of being a place where interesting things ever happened, Redding was a staging area for excitement. Fun doesn't happen in Redding California any more than eating happens in the kitchen.

No, Redding is where you can find a hotel and a meal before you go off to Whiskeytown Lake or Lake Shasta, drink too much on a party boat and fall overboard to your death. Or you drink too much on a party boat, get on a jet-ski and drown yourself. Its location is its appeal. And that's where Redding really shines.

Lake Shasta is something to see in Redding California.

Whiskeytown Waterfall

Ten miles north of Redding, Lake Shasta was formed when they built the Shasta Dam across the Sacramento River in 1945, backing up 30,000 acres of water into the country's third-largest body of water. It has a maximum depth over 500-feet.

Eight miles west of Redding, Whiskeytown Lake was formed when they dammed up Clear Creek in 1963 (finally completing their master plan to choke off all free-flowing water in the region). Prior to being a lake, Whiskeytown was an actual town populated until 1963, when a lake moved in and settled in the area.

One of the few buildings that made it out before the “flood.”

Redding is a party-town, so bring your jet ski.

Now, as much as I detest messing with Mother Nature, the resulting lakes are indisputably beautiful. For swimmers, boaters, water-skiers and fishermen, this part of California is as close to Nirvana as they're likely to get considering how close they are to constant, drunken death. Not that we saw many of them.

Visiting in September, we got to see the lakes nearly devoid of the shirtless frat-boys who no doubt populate Redding California during the high season (pun intended). Without them doing keg-dives off the back of a houseboat, the area had a placid yet eerie calm about it.

A tentative and quiet ‘calm before the storm' sort of vibe. As if waiting for the silence to be utterly shattered by the shrill mating call of a far-off Sorority girl announcing, “I am sooooo druuunk, y'all!”

Redding California
One seriously still lake.

Check out Redding's Gold Rush past.

Over the next two days, we drove around Redding California and explored the old Gold Rush areas, panned for gold, hiked its treacherous waterfalls, and just took in all its natural beauty. We've talked about coming back and probably should. But next time, we're doing it right:

We're renting a house-boat, a jet-ski and bringing a keg.

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