Redding, CA

Oh I come from California in a Tesla named Joulie,
Not here to acquire, not a real estate buyer,
So please don’t stink eye me.
Without the dog to look after, I end up babying Joulie, our white Model 3. We don’t have range anxiety but we probably should. Lulled into complacency auto-driving north on 5, we skipped a Supercharger in Corning and found ourselves in Redding with 19%, not enough battery charge to get to Mount Shasta’s Supercharger, an hour and 3000 feet elevation gain away. So JG spent an evening Joulie-sitting in Redding, charging at 6 KWH, in the Red Lion Hotel parking lot.
Redding has empty storefronts, votes conservative, and looks very white compared to the Bay Area. We are tourists in flag-decorated pickup country, so it already felt different from Santa Cruz. We stayed at the Hampton Inn, where white, non-Hispanic women cleaned the rooms.
The following morning we joined the dog walkers on the trails in the Sacramento River’s flood plain for a stroll. The valley oaks offer wildlife food and shelter and withstand the river’s flooding thanks to their deep roots. Under the overpass and at the end of spur trails folks had built camps for sleeping in. That part is like Santa Cruz.