The Lost Weekend Part II

"This road must go somewhere... it has a line down the middle of it." Dad has some famous shortcuts... but Petty John Road turned out to be a doozy. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

When my dad announced that we were going to church with my grandmother on Sunday, I wasn't the only one that gave him a strange look. You see, my dad hasn't been to church for... well... maybe since Oklahoma was the answer. He thought he'd give my grandma a Christmas gift by going with her to the church that he helped build when he was about 14. His name was in the concrete somewhere.

The service included a Christmas pagaent that included two women reading a script of the Christmas story while about five people donned different costumes and pantomimed the script. They asked us to sing from the hymnal in order to facilitate costume changes.

After church Dad suggested we take a Sunday drive and Grandma wanted to see the new mansions that were going up outside of Red Bluff. We drove up to Adobe and stared at the houses that rivaled any of the mansions in Beverly Hills. We drove out past the new Home Depot about to open and Grandma mentioned that Red Bluff was about to get an In N Out Burgers. Yum...

Dad took us out past Red Bank Road and we wound our way through the countryside. It's quite breathtaking, actually, how empty and vast that part of the country is. Once we'd driven for about an hour, Dad thought we should try a road that he knew to cut across to Reed Creek Road. Petty John wasn't paved. It wound through a hunting reserve and we drove for about 45 minutes and saw only two houses. At the first house, there was a man outside, but typically of Dad, he didn't want to bother him so we kept on the road and it began to wind upwards in the wrong direction.

The second house we passed, I truly wished I'd had a camera. Blazened across the side were letters that proclaimed it "Da Ranch." On a structure that perhaps was once a mining cabin, but now was nearly a bunch of boards propped up against each other, was mounted a satellite dish. We continued past Da Ranch for another 15 minutes before Dad realized we were now in the pines. If we drove much further we'd head into the mountains that separated us from the coast.

Finally we turned around and headed back, giving up hope that we'd reach the road that we planned on. Back at Grandma's we looked at a map which showed that turning around was a good idea. There weren't any other crossroads until we reached the top of the mountain.

On our nice little Sunday drive we saw the following wildlife: one gray squirrel, doves, quail, a hawk, a huge flock of turkeys, goats, sheep, wild pigs, horses, mules, alpacas, and large group of surly cows who seemed annoyed as we drove up to them and wanted to use the road they were standing on.

We arrived back at Grandmas long enough to sit down for an hour before heading to Redding for dinner at the Hatchcover on the Sacramento River. When we arrived, Uncle Gary was already there, and as we debated about waiting for Aunt Dawn, the hostess announced haughtily, "We don't seat partial parties." Dad leaned over her little podium and said, "You might want to say that a bit nicer." Aunt Dawn walked through the front door a few moments later and the Haughty Hostess seated us. The waiter was entertaining and friendly. Dad managed to spill his wine onto the table and me. He blamed it on the wine menu falling over, but I didn't buy it.

Conversation at dinner.

Uncle Gary: So Janyce, did your brother ever find out who stole the helicopter?
Mom: Someone stole Chris's helicopter?
Me: Uncle Chris has a helicopter?
Dad: It was probably that known felon he was renting to.
Me: Since when has he had a helicopter?
Gary: I read it in the paper. It was on all the news stations.
Me: So how does someone steal a helicopter?
Mom: Oh, he's never actually flown it. It's an experimental craft. It was cheap, so he bought it.

Yeah. So Uncle Chris became a minor celeb when someone stole his helicopter. Later we found out that the news media hounded my grandma for more details and she ended up "the grumpy old lady who answered phones at Dittner Melons" in some news article. Guess they didn't know that was Chris's mom.



Overall, it was an entertaining day.