Life and all in Redding California
If you are looking for a taste of funky, old time Redding, yeah… they serve that here at Old Millhouse Deli.
It’s been around a long time, and managed to evade much change. We are reminded of the relaxed and unpretentious restaurants and delicatessens that sprinkled Shasta County from the late ’70s. Places like Le Chamois on Market Street, or at least a half dozen other pecky cedar palaces whose names have faded over time. The vibe has not faded, however.Above, the fresh potato salad side. Below, the chicken sandwich is a standout, moist and satisfying. The lovely Karry had a BLT. We’ve eaten here countless times over the years. It’s one of the few restaurants near Whiskeytown Lake.
Looking for nouvelle cuisine coupled with contemporary atmospherics and free wi-fi? Old Millhouse has none of that. But if you want a course of authentic Old Shasta with a side of ’70s funk, well you just hit the jackpot.
The Old Millhouse Deli has a Facebook Page, but I’m not finding a website. It’s not that kind of place, really. They are semi-famous for epic pizza and music on the outdoor patio, but this drought year, you may not get that full experience. Also, the last time we were there, the sign out front was shattered into pieces, so you might need your GPS to even find the place.
Worth it.
4478 Eureka Way (Hwy 299W) Redding Ca 96001. Phone 241 9011.
Really, really Redding.
Another great Dunsmuir dining experience awaits you at the Dogwood Diner.
Here are some lunch dishes we’ve sampled. Often the “Panini of the Moment” is well worth trying, as is the Macro Bowl. Augmented by homemade ketchup and garlic aoli.
It’s within/adjacent to the Brown Trout Gallery Vintage Emporium, so you can shop for gifts and other necessities. 
The emporium side has a creek flowing beneath it. You can see and hear it under the floor. Also they have a koi pond in the window. I mean, who doesn’t?
And this being Dunsmuir, you can watch the trains go by. They also offer outdoor seating.
Wednesday through Sunday – 8 am to 9 pm (Closed Monday and Tuesday)
Breakfast: 8 am – 11 am Lunch: 11 am – 5 pm Dinner: 5 pm – close
5841 Sacramento Avenue Dunsmuir, CA 96025 (530) 678-3502
Menus and more at the Dogwood Diner website.
Well worth the beautiful drive from Really Redding.
Capture a couple images of the new Antlers bridge decor while zooming by on Interstate 5. You can see the workers painting scales, for scale.
Not workers, then. Artists. Anyway I posted about the Antlers Bridge artwork here before. I didn’t know it would be painted. It seems like the end product will only be visible from the lake, and only when the lake is near full at that. For now, you can catch a glimpse from I-5.
Bridge. Art. It’s Really Redding.
Saturday we attended the service for fellow Realtor and friend Larry Mays, along with a few hundred others in Redding. He’d suffered a terminal illness for quite some time and dealt with it all amazingly. He really was an idol. A lot of people suffer from severe end-of-life anxiety and yet this didn’t seem to affect Larry. He stayed the same happy person he always was. He puts this down to microdosing magic mushrooms. A study undertaken by Johns Hopkins researchers on a group of people suffering from cancer-related anxiety or depression showed that they experienced significant relief for up to six months from a single large dose of psilocybin. You can find out more about this at https://www.mushroomz.ca/2015/11/19/welcome-to-flatsome/. Larry put his time left to good use and prepared a video, speaking as though from beyond the veil to those gathered. It made for a reflective weekend. Ultimately, we all have this terminal illness called life.
What would you say in your video to those gathered to celebrate your life?
It was a beautiful service. He lived a full life and has seventeen great grandchildren. I tell myself I should not be sad to see him go. Instead, I should be happy that I met him.
But I was sad.
Reflection, it’s Really Redding.
To me, the danger seems clear enough. Some won’t agree. Even if you don’t, the potential calamity that awaits our grandkids is too much to risk. And so we must err to the side of caution in any event. This is a step in the right direction. We have a leader who can at least acknowledge the danger of inaction.
As I post this, the forest around Redding is ablaze with massive wildfire and our skies are muddy brown. We are in the 4th year of a terrible drought. Is this just a glimpse of our future?
It’s not worth the risk. We need action now.
Given the drought, it has seemed like a decadent pleasure to run our fountain. Especially so during these last several hottest days of Summer. But the local birds surely enjoy it. Local wildlife must be impacted by drought too.
This bird is certainly thirsty.
Redding has it’s share of tough old birds.
We have water. It’s Really Redding.
Sometimes the war drums of the drought campaign ring hollow in River City.
I am 100% for saving water (see how I ripped out my back lawn and replaced it with decomposed granite). But Redding is not in the desert.
We have water.
Marc Beauchamp, columnist for our local paper, recently ran an email he’d gotten as an opinion piece in his blog. I don’t know who wrote it. But the author articulated some points about Redding and our relationship to water (and our present drought) that I believe are worth sharing. My sentiments echoed.
An excerpt:
“As an adjunct to this line of thinking let me offer this. The truth is that the city of Redding has plenty of water. We sit at the confluence of five or six of the most important rivers/streams in California.
“In addition, Redding receives more direct rainfall than Seattle, a little known fact that should win a wager at any respectable cocktail lounge south of here.
“This terrible drought notwithstanding, we are awash in water even at this time. The rainfall that we receive in addition to riparian rights and precedent use would dictate so.
“After all, downstream urban use and AG interests came along much later than Redding. Redding has water and this fact is due to our geographical positioning.
“On the other side of this argument is that our geographic positioning lashes us with a very hot summer season and our community suffers for this. I believe that our inability to attract high quality corporate investment and thereby all the attendant benefits (wealthy middle classes, high quality shopping, quality higher education, quality cultural events etc.) is due to the Death Valley summer conditions that we endure.
“San Diego, La Jolla, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto and any number of coastal cities enjoy the benefit of their geographical positioning as well.
“They have moderate temperatures year round and the wealthy choose to live there. They receive these benefits but do not want to accept the negative side of their geographic positioning which is that there is now insufficient water for all of them to live there, much less continue developing.
“Since we suffer the inconvenience of our location we, at the very least, should receive the benefits of our location.
“When it is unbearably hot here we do not ask the residents of Los Angeles to pay our air conditioning bill.
“When they do not have sufficient water they should have no moral or legal claim to the water that we might use on our landscaping done by LW Landscapes or similar companies, or any other use that we might have for our water, certainly not without compensation.
Let Redding offer to those south of us this proposition. We have plenty of water and you can locate your family here and your businesses here and be assured that you will have sufficient water.
“We here in Redding should be watering our lawns, building water features, and even finding some discount sheds to make sure our landscape looks spectacular. Every landscape should have a shed so that maintenance tools, like rakes or hoses, don’t obstruct the gorgeous landscape being created. We should also let the Market figure out where is a good place to live and have sustenance.
“Los Angelinos taking a 2 minute shower twice a week while we run through the sprinklers on our lawns would do more for the promotion of Stillwater Park than a phalanx of overpaid “Marketing Directors”.
“Hope this view might provide a perspective for dialogue between the haves and the have nots.”
There was more to the piece, but that’s the section that struck a chord with me. Here’s a link to the full article.
Redding has been asked to cut water use by 36%. Complying seems more an act of artificial solidarity than anything of real hydrologic value. Seeing now all the dead landscaping showing up around here isn’t helping Redding, and it isn’t really helping the rest of the state much either.
