Thanksgiving weekend of 2007 was spent in Redding. Nice place to be for a relaxing time. We saw the Lake Shasta Caverns. This is a good experience for older kids as they learn something useful in terms of the forces of nature and also get an impressive aspect of the scale of time that nature works at. For the younger kids the aspect of going around in a cave is exciting for a little while, but not for the duration of the entire tour.
The trip to Shasta Dam was also great – although it could have been better if the tour to the power plant was available as well (we missed the last one for the day).
We also visited the Turtle Bay Museuem. They had a small but nice exhibition on outer space and lots of small experiments that Miloni and Rushabh both enjoyed. Miloni of course was able to get a better perspective on the various principles that were highlighted in the experiments. We also saw the sun-dial bridge there as well as a large garden area with flora from various places. The highlight of the gardens was a large mosaic sitting area with a water fountain.
All-in-all a nice relaxing trip with the family and a good place to spend a day-or-two on your way to Portland or Mount Shasta.
Additional things that can be done en route would be Lassen Volcanic National Park – which was closed due to icing on the road and avalanche, Whiskeytown Lake and Mount Shasta if you go further up North.
I will update this article with pictures soon.
You can rent a boat on lake shasta and stay for 2-3 days but probably t hat would be available only during the summer
I always wanted to rent the houseboat at Lake Shasta. If 3-4 families rent it together its cheaper. However cost per family may still run into 200-300$ for the 2 nights. It should be good fun though.