Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

I have to tell you about a little conversation that took place in the MoHo as we crossed the border into the great state of California. As we passed the sign welcoming us I told everyone, “We are now entering CAL-I-FORN-YA (said with my best official Arnold “Terminator” accent) where Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governer.” Morgan turned to me a said, “Is that true?” “Yes”, I said, to which Morgan quickly replied, “But he is just an actor.” Out of the mouths of babes, eh? Smart boy that Morgan … he’ll go far. And after that little exchange, I didn’t have the heart to tell him about Ronald Reagan.

Today we thought we would head to the Visitor Information center to get started. After getting briefed on our options we found that we had little time to spare if we wanted to make it to the next dam tour. That is the Shasta dam tour, just outside of Redding, CA. When we arrived at the facility we still had a couple of minutes to spare, or so we thought until we realized that we had to make it out onto the middle of the dam first in order to join the tour. It was about a mile away and we had maybe six minutes and we had to get there on foot! You do the math. So two kids and two tired, sweaty adults joined the tour just in time. This was our second dam tour (I’m starting to get the hang of this now I think!) so we were not sure if this was really best way to spend our time, especially considering that we have the Hoover Dam on our itinerary as well. As it turned out, we were very glad to have come. This tour was much better and more professional than the dam tour we took in Revelstoke, BC. (nicely done, no?) We found out all kinds of things including the fact that this dam was primarily built to control the use of water in central California, rather than to generate electricity. But they did throw in five generators while they were at it and it turns out that this dam can generate over three times the amount of electricity than that Revelstoke dam can provide. Interesting facts or arcane details … you be the judge. And the person who was in charge of building this dam just happened to be the same person who was in charge of building the Hoover dam, as well as many others. He must have been quite the dam designer! (not bad , eh?) As was the case at the Revelstoke dam, no cameras were allowed on the tour, however, they did not seem to mind me bringing my camera onto the dam itself as long as I was not going on a tour. So I returned to the car after the tour to get my camera and headed back out onto the structure itself for some dam photos. (you’re not even noticing anymore, are you?) And for those of you paying close attention at home, you will have realized that I must have ended up benefiting from a great deal more exercise on my visit to the Shasta dam than I normally get in a day. So we had a pretty good dam experience overall. (You must have been expecting that one)

Our next stop was a tour of the Shasta Caverns. It sounded like a nice little tour starting with a boat ride across the lake, a bus ride up the hills, and a walking tour of the caverns. The brochure said the last boat is at 3:00 but Chantal was told by the Visitor Center people that the last tour would be at 4:00, so off we went. We arrived at about 3:05 at which point we were assured that the brochure was, indeed, accurate. Doh! No big deal, we actually found some cool things in the gift shot and then we decided to head back to the campsite to take advantage of the pool there since it was, yes you guessed it, a beautiful, warm, sunny day. Actually, let me be more precise. It was a stinking hot sunny day reaching over 100 degrees (39C). Yes, you read it here first. A new record for the dashboard thermometer in the Matrix. The campground was not very busy so we had the pool to ourselves. They also had a ping pong table there and ping pong happens to be one of A-P’s favorite sports. At the end of the day he and I squared off and I managed to pull out a win by only one point. I blame it on being a little rusty. We decided to have a rematch and this time I found myself down by 4 points when A-P reaches game-point. A-P announces that he is glad that he managed to get his revenge in this rematch. I pointed out to him that the match was not yet over. Then I go on to win the next 5 points in a row and take the game. Talk about pulling victory out of the jaws of defeat. This gave me a good opportunity to talk to A-P about the old saying …never count your chickens. But I must say that he took the defeat incredibly well. He definitely takes after his mother on that account.

After that we decided to check out one of the tourist attractions that has put the town of Redding, CA on the map. It was actually the reason I first heard about this town. You see, they have a cool bridge here. It is just a bridge that allows people to walk or bike across the river but it is quite awesome. It was built with a single, huge tower at one end with multiple (14 to be precise, or so A-P tells me) cables descending down from the tower to hold up the span across the water. But that is not all, the entire floor of the bridge has been created out of a translucent material and is lit from the bottom at night … very cool effect. But no, that is not all! The tower itself was designed to be a huge sundial! Yes, you read that correctly, a sundial. It really has to be seen live to be appreciated. It turns out the town needed to build a bridge for pedestrian traffic but rather than opt for the least expensive solution they decided to hire a well known architect and build something that would actually put Redding on the map and generate some tourist traffic and income. I would have to say that they have succeeded. If you find yourself in northern California, do pop in to check out this coolest of bridges. Upon our return home that evening we found that our campsite happens to be an ideal spot for looking at stars. The sky is beautifully clear and there are no lights anywhere nearby. And we were able to find enough space without tree cover so it did not block our view of the sky. Sounds ideal, eh? But did I mention that there was an almost full moon!!! I could see my shadow on the ground, for crying out loud! So this freakin’ moon manages to add just enough light to the night sky to make it appear that there are about the same number of stars as I see at my house in the city. MAN, what a drag! And since we are only here for a couple of days, the moon is not going to be waning in time. But on the bright side (pun intended) the full moon was beautiful … and it looked pretty sweet coming up over the Sundial Bridge.

Today’s word:

arcane \ar-KAYN\, adjective:
Understood or known by only a few.