Back in October 2023 I made a trip to California to meet some good friends of mine. First stop was Aptos, a beach town in Santa Cruz county to visit my lovely friend K whom I’d met in an online Reiki class in 2021. She and I had wanted to visit Mount Shasta together. So the moment I told her I was coming to California, she started planning our trip to Shasta.
We left on a Friday afternoon, hit traffic on Interstate 680 and ended up reaching Shasta after 10 p.m. When we were approaching Mt. Shasta, I had this feeling of bliss and peace wash over me. For some strange reason, it felt like I was home. That’s a feeling I haven’t had in decades!
It was too dark to take in the beauty of our surroundings. So we heated up some dinner, ate it hurriedly and called it a night. But the next morning, we were in for a treat. We walked to get breakfast in a place recommended by the lady at the hotel’s front desk. The trees and the hills were dressed in peak fall colors as far as the eyes could see. I took in the crisp, fresh, mountain air and the vibrant hues around me and I felt my heart flutter with joy. Fall, as my regular readers may know, is my favorite season. We weren’t expecting to see fall colors so this was a bonus!
Mt. Shasta is known as the city of pure water. The water is gravity-fed spring water. Our hotel boasted that we could safely drink water from the tap because it’s untreated.
After a hearty breakfast we drove to Crystal Lake and from there we hiked up to Heart Lake. I had worn some not-so-comfortable boots that K warned were not a good choice for the hike. The 1.5 hour hike up to Heart Lake with glorious vistas of the Crystal Lake below was well worth it. Heart Lake was tiny and kind of sunken-in which meant that the winds couldn’t stir up its still waters. I sat on a rock and meditated for a bit, one with the lake. So much peace, love, and bliss washed over me. The lake felt familiar, although it was my first time there.
Then we went around in circles, trying to find the Faery Falls. We finally found it on an unmarked dirt road with no signs. The trek to the falls was treacherous and with my ill-advised boots I was literally on a slippery slope. If you lost your footing, you’d end up splattered on the sharp rocks below. And that’s exactly what happened to me but I held on to an exposed tree root for dear life. K was behind me and held my bag as I crawled back on my bottom to a wider part of the trail. My heart was beating so hard and I was sweaty under my thick coat. I sat on a rock and collected myself while K made her way to the bottom of falls.
The trek downhill from Heart Lake was brutal on my legs and by the time we made it to town for dinner at Sparky’s, I was limping. K and I were famished, so we ordered enough food to feed 3 people. After sipping on some hot chocolate, we started off with artichoke pizza, followed by fettuccine Alfredo for me and a prosciutto and caramelized onion pizza for K. I was too stuffed for dessert but K insisted. So we had a giant cookie with three scoops of ice cream. And when I say the portion sizes were large, I mean grizzly bear large!
The next morning it was raining as we left Mount Shasta and we had to drop our plans to go to Ascension Rock. It was a short and sweet trip but I enjoyed every bit of it. Part of me wanted to move to California and I actually started looking for jobs there the very next day!
To some extent, fate also colluded with me and I got an interview call from a Big Tech company based out of SFO. The job initially required relocation but they switched it to remote. I cleared two rounds of interviews but didn’t make it to the final round.
Although I haven’t moved yet, Mt Shasta keeps finding its way into my life and I have a feeling I’ll end up there someday in some way.
Punctuate Life 