A Visitor to My Hometown

Here's a meme from DebR.

Here are the instructions:

Imagine you’ve made a connection with another blogger who lives in a completely different part of the world than you do. This blogger is about to take a trip and the connection you’ve made is so strong that she is going to make your house one stop on her trip. (Yay!) Unfortunately she can only stay at your place for 24 hours (boo!), but she’d like to see some nearby sights while visiting with you.

Keeping in mind that time is quite limited so you have to stick pretty close to home (although not necessarily right IN your town - just anyplace you could go as a day trip), try looking around you with the eyes of someone who has never seen your area and tell us some things you’d share with…

A Visitor to Your Hometown

1. Your visitor wants to see something historical. Where would you take her and why?

This is harder then I thought. I asked my family to help me out, throw out some ideas of historical places. Jeff said "Peter Lassen's gravesite". I said "Even people who live in Lassen county don't care about seeing Peter Lassen's gravesite." William said "Peter Lassen has a gravesite?" So, uhm, maybe not.


But hey, it would be interesting to go to our community frontier graveyard. It's pretty interesting. At least to me. Some people aren't as fascinated with cemeteries as I am.


There are also a dozen or more historical murals around town that are really quite impressive, although they wouldn't take long to see, we could see what's left of our original uptown (what hasn't been demolished or lost in a fire).

If you wanted to drive a couple of hours, there's Virginia City. Remember the ol' western television show Bonanza? They were always riding into Virginia City? It's a real town. An old silver mining town. Full of mines, miners, saloons, a ghost or two, a famous theater that sadly burned to the ground several years ago. Mark Twain spent time there. There's a cool frontier cemetery there too.

2. She wants to see something hysterical…well, mildly amusing anyway. She’d even go for cute, quirky, odd, or unique. Where would you take her and why?

Probably the most amusing place in Lassen County is my house. My cats are entertaining. So is Rosie. My husband is entertainingly goofy at times. William is quite the witty teen. Most of us are cute. We're all definitely quirky, odd and unique.

But if we're not enough for you, if we went to Virginia City, then we could stop in Reno on the way home, visit a casino. That's definitely an odd environment. If we went up into the mountains, we could go see the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Westwood.

3. She wants to take some beautiful and/or interesting photos to fill her albums when she gets home. Where would you take her?

This is the easy question. Or perhaps, the difficult question, because there are so many options to choose from. We might not have a lot of anything else, but we've got loads of natural beauty. Pretty much anywhere you look. If we went down to Virginia City, the drive would be filled with wide open spaces, beautiful skies probably filled with gorgeous cloudscapes, mountain peaks every which way you look.

If we stayed in town, we have more of the same all around the valley. We could hike up the Bizz Johnson Trail - more mountains, the river valley, trees, nature above, below, and all around us.

Or we could drive up into the mountains to Lake Almanor. All the aforementioned beauty plus a panoramic mountain lake. I know several spots that are natural bird sanctuaries. Or if you really wanted something amazing, we could drive through Lassen Volcanic National Park. A volcano. Bubbling hot mud pots, boiling sulphur hot springs, alpine lakes.... views. And lots of trees.

4. She’d like to buy a souvenir that will remind her of your area every time she sees it. What would you suggest and where would you go to get it?

I have no idea. I'd say the best souvenir would be a photo. Maybe William could take a photo of me and you together, mugging it for the camera. You could pick up some volcanic rock hereabouts. Wanna bring one of my cats home with you? Please. You can get a Susanville t-shirt at Susanville Supermarket or a Susanville coffee mug at Hodge Podge Lodge. Honestly, I think the most "real" local souvenir would be a Lassen Grizzly sweatshirt or baseball hat at the high school (in the school colors of purple and gold) or something from the Black Bear Diner gift shop (my favorite is the Talk to the Paw t-shirts).

5. Wow, it’s been a long day and you’re both ready for a snack, or maybe even a meal. Where would you take her to really get the flavor of your area?

I mentioned Black Bear Diner. That's pretty quintessential Susanville, although the original restaurant was opened in Mt. Shasta City. We've also got Walkers/Maria's. It's been here for.... I don't know, sixty years? I really have no idea, except it's been here "forever". It serves great Mexican food.

If we went south, I'd probably recommend the buffet at The Atlantis in Reno. It's always voted the best in town and in a town that is alll about buffets, that's saying a lot! If we went up into the mountains, I'd probably take you to my favorite restaurant up in Chester, a little place with a lumberjack theme called The Knotbumper. Or maybe Buffalo Chips Pizza up in Westwood. Good pizza, lots of atmosphere.

Whew. I'm tired, and I didn't even get off the couch! I hope you enjoyed your cyber-visit. After all that cyber-travel, I'm hungry too. I'm off to the kitchen in search of a snack.