In a year where everything seems to have gone sideways (failed Spring Break, chaotic summer, no true vacations), Thanksgiving was shaping up to be the same.
Cody and Brenda decided to go to Pillsbury for Thanksgiving instead of Dunsmuir. Which put the family in an awkward situation. With us still going to Dunsmuir, we were making my parents decide who to spend the holiday with: Dana and Cody in Pillsbury or our family in Dunsmuir. It didn’t seem like a fair position to put them in (choosing their favorite child) so I actually floated the idea with Martin of doing something completely crazy with just the four of us...like going to some place completely new, maybe Hawaii or Mexico. Stupid me forgot how much of a nightmare (not to mention how expensive) it is to travel Thanksgiving week.
So then came the search for a place driving distance from SF where we could spend the week. But then that felt odd. Going somewhere just to struggle to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner for four in an unknown kitchen. So plans were further refined where we would spend Thanksgiving at Dunsmuir with my parents (who judiciously decided to spend the weekend before Thanksgiving at Pillsbury with Cody and Dana and the following weekend in Dunsmuir). But I still wanted a little adventure and so began the hunt for a fun location in between SF and Dunsmuir that had small cabins we could rent for a two night stay before we arrived in Dunsmuir on Tuesday for the rest of the week. Seemed easy enough...
After a few google searches and a few attempts with ChatGPT, I had narrowed it down to the area around Lassen. However, in the end, it was good old fashioned word of mouth and suggestions from my mom that secured us a great cabin in Mill Creek just outside of Lassen. It checked all of the boxes that I wanted for the two nights (except wi-fi, which I learned once we got there).
We had an early night on Sunday at the cabin, a full day playing in the snow in Lassen (which come to find out was mostly closed in the winter) and then a quiet dinner again back at the cabin Monday night before heading to Dunsmuir. It was exactly what I wanted… including the lack of wi-fi.
As an aside and more of a mental note for the future. Come to find out every restaurant near Lassen and Mill Creek is closed on Mondays in the winter so we had to drive the 30 minutes to Chester to get a late lunch on Monday after Lassen. With terrible cell service and no wi-fi we drove to Chester with no idea where to actually go to eat. We made the expert move of driving through the entire town before making the decision to eat at the restaurant that had the fullest parking lot. It was a hit. Lock this tip away for when we finally get around to our epic roadtrip with no GPS or Google!
