SF to Klamath Falls

I'm on a short road trip to visit my mother in Portland. Ordinarily the drive from SF to Portland is a long 10 or 12 hour day but since I had a couple comp days at work I decided to split it up and go the long way, via Klamath Falls, Oregon. I was interested in this back way since taking the train up to Seattle in 2003; this is essentially the route the train takes, parallel to US 97 from Redding to Klamath Falls and around the back side of Crater Lake.

On the way up here I stopped at Redding so I could see their sole tourist attraction, the Sundial Bridge, an attractive bike and pedestrian bridge across the Sacramento River. At the foot of the bridge the town has built a museum and restaurant where I ate lunch. The food is indifferent but I'm sure it's a very nice place to sit on a summer evening and have a beer, since there's a large patio. Today it was a little cool, but it was all right if you sat in the sun. This being spring the river was high and rushing along pleasantly.

After I left Interstate 5 at the town of Weed -- already 200 miles north of SF -- I climbed into a range of mountains and it immediately started snowing lightly. For the rest of the drive, about 70 miles, it snowed. There wasn't enough to pile up on the road or worry about much, though the gunk on the road -- dirt and salt -- really messed up my windshield. The road leads through forest at first, and then an eerie flat grassland that's really beautiful.

Now I'm at a Holiday Inn Express in Klamath Falls, and I have to say this is the best hotel for the money I have ever stayed in. Everything is new, the room is filled with features (iron, hair drier, microwave oven, fridge, jacuzzi). There's free wireless internet all the way down here at the end of the hotel and not just in the lobby. And it's really quiet. All this for $52. That's what you get if you go to the middle of nowhere and the town is just large enough to have some chain motels.