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A View from Anderson, California
Rain clouds forming over the mountain range near Anderson, California
The woman who owns the house where I am staying for a few days in Anderson, California, in an area she calls the Sacramento River Valley, is planning to install a 75-gallon aquarium in her living room. Because she doesn’t have a TV. Fish are interesting to watch, she says, and she’s right about that. It’s so quiet at this house at 1,000 feet elevation that after her husband died 5 years ago, she had a few nights when she left his oxygen tank running until morning to enjoy a comfort noise.
Staying here in Anderson, California, gives one a different perspective than living in Land Park, an urban area of Sacramento close to downtown. Just the view itself is incredible. The house is located on a raised flat table; my friend calls this a hogback. Mostly weed-whacked brown straw scraps trampled flat surround the house. The view is panoramic peaks, with a bit of smoky haze, from Mt. Shasta to Mt. Lassen. Areas of this place in Happy Valley go back to the mid 1800s, and some residents are still attached to 17th Century.
I was joking last night about her lawn art — old rusted objects that have died and remain in place — suggesting she shoot photos and put the items for sale on eBay. There are people who will pay thousands to secure those types of treasures. On her counter sits a tin pan filled with scattered bullets, old shell casings, an odd metal lid slightly curved on its edges almost like a bowl, a tiny plumbing pipe erected like a skyscraper; it’s the sort of thing she accumulated for a reason and left in place.
This speaks of male aggression, soothed by a feminine hand and seasoned with common sense, I said, explaining her art installation, soothing to the soul in a world passed by, a place that time forgot. Yes, a fine example of her metal meets paper movement. My eyes fell on the plate of discarded vegetables, which had not yet met fate. There are many seeds attached to the inside bottom of a green pepper, an onion with the dice marks intact on top, sporting a tail of splayed roots, all resting on a bed of discarded garlic skins . . .
The sun is coming up, and yet not one person has called to ask about that house. What house would that be? It’s white, on a street with a lot of other houses, and it has a white picket fence. Do you know the name of that street? Well, it could start with a K. Do you know the name of the city? I would much rather ask if the caller knows who is the president. That’s the sort of thing they ask when you wake up from a coma, right? But that kind of comment would simply insult their intelligence.
Why Mt. Shasta is a Great Sacramento Getaway
If you’ve never been to Mt. Shasta, you are missing a million delightful sights: Dreaded dude playing a recorder and following friends meandering down the middle of the street, characters stuck in a time-warp from 1969 all over the place, woo-woo shops filled with spiritual statues representing many gods and goddesses of Hinduism, an Eileen Fisher outlet, guys carrying their dogs because the sidewalk is too hot, and let’s not forget the guy who undoubtedly had to head back home to change because he forgot to attach deer antlers to his head before going out, but none of those eye-candies detract from the giant mountain ranges all around.
You’ve got your Mt. Shasta, of course, at 14,179 feet, while the town of Mt. Shasta is around 3,600 feet in elevation, if that gives you some idea of the scope. There is also Black Butte, the Crags and the Eddys — which I’ve also seen spelled by real estate agents as The Eddies, which seems kinda Beaverish to me.
This is Siskiyou County, which makes me want to repeat the word over and over out loud, maybe sing a song about it. The county seat is not Mt. Shasta, it is Yreka, not to be confused with Eureka, which is up on the coast and pronounced with a U and not a WHY like Yreka. There is also a huge lake called Siskiyou Lake. You’d think Siskiyou was an Indian name but it could also be from French origins, I suppose.
It’s absolutely beautiful here. I like everything about this place so far, and the couples massage at the spa yesterday was ultra relaxing. We didn’t get as much hiking in as we initially had planned but we’ll do that today. That’s the nice about being on a vacation from Labor and selling real estate in Sacramento, you can do whatever you want to do even if it involves changing your mind. I’d think about a second home here, real estate is incredibly affordable in Mt. Shasta, but it’s also a four-hour drive from Sacramento.
We came here simply because we’ve never been here. I have a client who moved to Mt. Shasta after I sold her home in Folsom a few years ago. That and the illustration of Mt. Shasta on the Shasta pop cans was the extent of my knowledge about the area. Of course, now that we’ve spent a few days here, I can’t imagine why everybody in Sacramento doesn’t visit Mt. Shasta and why I haven’t heard much about it, but maybe I don’t run in the right circles of people. I sell real estate in Sacramento and the only people I know are my clients and other real estate agents.
Our trio of cats are taken care of by our pet sitters staying at our home who send us text messages every now and then, just in case you’re wondering. We didn’t leave them alone to fend for themselves.
