I'm Late, I'm Late, For A Very Important Date

This past weekend, I enjoyed two Official Visits, in Los Molinos and in Yreka.

I started out flying from San Jose to Redding and parking my airplane there.  It is as north as you can reasonably go and stay in the valley.  After Redding, you  have to start climbing over the Shasta Cascades and the weather can get annoying.  So we parked the plane in Redding and then drove down to Los Molinos for the OV.  Driving along, I never knew how much stuff there was to do and to see in the Redding area.  After all, I've only gone up there to go to a meeting or event, or as I was passing through on my way to farther north.  So I definitely have to put on my list of "things I am going to do when I have time again" (which is maybe only three years from now :-) to go to that area when I have free time and go see all the bridges and caves and recreational activities.  Alas, that time is not now, so we drove to Los Molinos, had dinner and went to the Masonic Hall.  The Chapters there did a lovely job and I had the opportunity to visit with quite a few of my Dragon Riders, which was great!

After spending the night in Red Bluff, we drove a couple of hours up to Yreka for their Social OV.  Their theme was Mad Hatter's Tea Party and they had done an absolutely amazing job on costumes, decorations, the whole nine yards!  The Worthy Matrons and Patrons were dressed like the characters and there was even an Alice and a couple of Alice "clones" from the local youth group.  They even had a table that was set up crooked.  They did a great little skit bit building on the theme too.  I cannot imagine how much time those wonderful costumes must have taken though.  There was a White Queen and a Red Queen and a White Rabbit and a Caterpillar and a Mad Hatter and more!  It must have taken them weeks of preparation.  They put on a great party and everyone had a lot of fun.

To add to the excitement, it turns out that this past weekend was some sort of pioneer days celebration in the town.  The street alongside the Masonic Hall was closed for booths and I think that they were re-enacting black powder gun fights as part of the entertainment because every now and then we heard stuff being shot off.  I told my girls that I had never realized there was so much gang violence in a little town like Yreka. :-)  They assured me that it was limited to one weekend a year, but that it happend to be this particular weekend. :-)  That is one of the tough scheduling problems that we all face - when we set up a calendar a year or more ahead of time, we never know if it is going to be the weekend that there is some big local event and there is nothing we can realistically do to change the weekend if we find out afterwards.  A Grand Chapter calendar is like a Jenga game which is right near the end.  Everything is precariously balanced and you can't change one thing without throwing tons of other stuff completely out of whack.

Today, I am hoping that the overcast clears in Fortuna so that I can fly myself up for the OV this evening.  I wanted to make all the OVs this year and I have so far, but Mother Nature may prevent me from this one because I can't fly up safely if the overcast doesn't burn off.  So I will know in about three hours if I will make it.  I will be going to Bakersfield, Palmdale and San Luis Obispo this weekend.