We finally got to take a trip to see my dad and his new home in Burney, and it was wonderful. The trip itself took about five and a half hours, give or take a rest stop or two, taking the northern route (101 to Ukiah, then over to I-5 and up to Redding, then climbing up the mountains to Burney). The best part of the trip was getting to hug my dad, but there were a lot of other memorable moments, too.
Burney is in the midst of beautiful, green, tree-studded hills. A few miles out of town is the McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, so we were able to go see the world-renowned falls. They are breathtakingly beautiful, and impressively powerful. They crash down with a roar that you can hear from the parking lot and send up mists that create rainbows over the blue pond at their base. I could have stood there for hours, just soaking in the beauty. (Thomas was less impressed. We had seen the falls, and now we were done, right?)
We continued along the creek to cross a bridge and completed the loop, hiking up the other side and crossing another bridge that spanned the creek above the falls. The whole time I was relishing the experience and taking dozens of photos to capture the sparkling creek, sunlight, and lush greenery surrounding the dirt trail. Heaven!
A little later that day we went to a large fish hatchery that stocks trout for most of the counties in Northern California. There were several long concrete pools with hundreds of thousands of fish in various stages of growth, all set up under a canopy of long wires stretched across the area to prevent birds from dining on the growing fish. (Before the wires were put in place, the birds consumed close to 1,000 fish a day!)
When you toss little hatchery-supplied food in, there’s a hilarious and immediate frenzy of fish rushing and splashing to get it. Besides a toddler and his dad, we had the entire operation to ourselves.
When we returned to Poppy’s, Thomas went upstairs to his little retreat, and the three adults decided to take a little siesta. I had just drifted off when I heard what sounded like rushing, cascading water. It took us a moment to realize this was not a good sound, and then both Matt and I raced into action.
Matt took the stairs in double time to discover Thomas had tried to unclog the toilet upstairs but had inadvertently — and significantly — flooded the bathroom. As Matt discovered this, drips began to flow from the ceiling in the guest room. Matt was frantically trying to sop up the water upstairs, and I was frantically trying to throw towels down to sop up the drips downstairs when all of a sudden the drips increased and then really increased as the water began to pour from the light fixture. (The light fixture, by the way, has three lightbulbs, which horrifyingly directed the water in three different directions.)
By this time Poppy had sprung into action, and he supplied more towels and a dishpan. Our efforts were too puny to work, so he went out to the garage and brought in two large trashcans to set up under the deluge. A few (long) moments later the waterfall slowed, and then slowed some more, and finally reduced to occasional drips.
The house Poppy bought was built in 1946, and at some point, this exact scenario had already played out, as evidenced by the patched drywall on the ceiling. (The drips started along one of the seams of the patch, before discovering the light fixture.)
Poppy — ever philosophical — reassured us that he wasn’t upset, that this was part of learning about the house, but oh my gosh, we were horrified. My dad was excited to show us that his new washer had a “sanitize” cycle, and the next couple of hours were dedicated to laundering, cleaning, and helping the drying process. Yay!
Despite the flooding excitement, the trip was a success and I can’t wait to go back for more hugs and mountain beauty.
