Day 6? almost a week.

Hello, Day 6, Redding California.

Today we got up bright and early.  Well, bright anyway.  Nice to know we didn't have to rush anywhere.  After walking the dogs and having breakfast we went to the  RV Park office to reserve the RV site until Wednesday.  This will hopefully be the longest we spend in any park.

Why do they always have pretty flowers in the dog walk area?  Bushes of these in pinks, reds, and in between.

Did a little geo-caching.  Doesn't this look like it is the geo-cache?  piles of rocks deliberately put in a cool pile.  Nope, but it was close by under a brick.

We didn't find one before this.  It was off a bike path and didn't have much of an explanation.  Said it was very easy.  We looked and looked, especially under rocks.  Richard didn't want to encounter ticks and snakes so he wan't much help.  

The view from the top of the path.  We were hiking down to the river.

I always like little flowers along the way.  They came in white, too.

I realize now I didn't take very good pictures of the sun dial bridge.  Richard did, you'll have to check out his blog.

There was a little amphitheater underneath were there was a singer, drummer, and guitar player.  The acoustics were incredible.  I asked Richard what he thought of the steel drum band playing under there.  He said it would be loud.

Lots of geese families

So after you go over the bridge there is a museum.  This is all a part of Turtle Bay Exploration Park.  I was a little disappointed.  The museum is nice, but quite small.  They had 2 water tanks with local fish.  They had small aquariums with this turtle, and usual stuff you find like snakes, salamanders, turtles, tarantulas......

Here you go!  I was freaked out by the blue scorpion.  I didn't even get close enough for a picture.  I never saw a blue one.  I've also never seen one in the wild.  I think I am more nervous of them than snakes.

They had a small display of mythical creatures with all the folklore that goes along.  There is also supposed to be a bigfoot living nearby.  This dragon was pretty cool looking.

Gargoyle

Asian creature people wear and dance in for parades.

I thought this huge bird was pretty cool

This is just a beautiful piece of art.  He is made of wood.

The best part of the Turtle Bay Park was the animal show.  Richard got the better pictures.  This lady has a Raven.  As you can see, it is trained to put the rings on the child's toy.  It was pretty comical because it kept missing the top one, I think on purpose to keep it funny.  

There was a raccoon whose tail was missing, that's why it is in captivity.  It didn't want to go out in the sun to take the lid off the jar.  

This is a bob cat.  Beautiful creature.  There was also a porcupine that climbed very slowly down a tree trunk that is even with the lady in this picture.  There was a beautiful badger.  I don't think I've seen one before.  He did a great digging demonstration, and waved to the audience.  

Yes, they had birds flying over the crowds.  I'm rather proud of this picture.  A barn owl.  They had a vulture.  They had a very cute owl that runs along the forest floor, I don't remember the name.  Very Very cute, but I was too far away to get a good picture.

There was a butterfly exhibit, but I think this is a moth!

Gorgeous.  

The nursery.

This little boy was sitting so still for the longest time.  What a well behaved kid.

This place seemed to be a mixture of Pioneer Park and Creamer's Field.  The old junk left behind was from when they built the Shasta Dam.  They were all covered in cobwebs, which made them even uglier.

There were a few critters in cages.  I was thrilled to see a kookaburra.

A library for donating books

This was the other part of the park, an arboretum.  Total disappointment.  What you see here is basically what the whole arboretum was with a few sculptures.  It was also deserted.  It reminded me of the Route 66 video we watched last night where a guy was going through abandoned buildings.  Was there a drop in funding?  A drop in personnel? 

We were at the end of the park away from the bridge and museum here.  There were some sculptures made of mosaics.  If you look close at this "animal" it has a kissy face-lips are puckered.

This was a beautiful mosaic bench.  The water fountains for drinking and gazing were not working.

This is a field that had some pretty local wildflowers, but doesn't look like anyone was paying attention to it.  There was a nursery there that showed signs of people working.  In all-a very curious place.  The museum, bridge, and animal park were busy, but not full.  Today was the first day of the season.

There was a part blocked off where a Sheraton was being built, and pictures of an awesome playground in the plans.  The playground even has some adult sized equipment coming like a sit down zip-line and climbing wall.  

We decided to Uber back.  Only about $5.00.  Richard was quite pleased with that.  Doggies were fine staying in the trailer for the 5 hours we were gone.  Glad to have air conditioning.

The picture below isn't Mt. Shasta, but it is a mountain and it is a pretty view.  The little car in the bottom shows how close we are to the highway.  

Thanks for reading.