Exploring REDDING (a Northern California GEM! 😍) | Waterfalls, FOOD, Castle Crags, & MORE!

After spending weeks on the California coast, we've headed about five hours north to Redding, California for some mountain adventures. Redding is located in northern California and is an outdoor paradise with mountains, waterfalls, rivers, lakes, and a national park nearby, and it's the sunniest city in California, although we're getting one of those rare cloudy days. It's our first time in this part of the state and we are so pumped to be partnering with Visit Redding to show y'all some of the best things to do in the area. Are you ready? Let's go! Sorry, that's so cheesy, but we've been excited to say that for months. Our first stop today is Theory Coffee Roaster, which is an awesome local coffee shop and roastery, and boy, do they have some goodies. We have got quite the spread. So we each got a drink and then a breakfast item, and I got the Rose Cardamama Latte, which is a really fun name, and it's rose and cardamom, and they even put little rose petals on top, which is so beautiful. It has such a good sweet flavor and it doesn't taste like you're just drinking a rose, which is a big pro in my book. It has that florally taste, but it's not overpowering. I've never actually just, like, tried a rose though, so. But what I'm most excited for, possibly, is this gluten-free cinnamon roll. Whoa. Oh, just look at that. This is a hefty cinnamon roll. It's kind of the weight of a baseball. Oh, wow. There's just so much cinnamon under there and that frosting on top. It's so cinnamony. It's so soft on the inside. It has a nice kind of crunch on the outside. You would never know this is gluten-free. This is incredible. What I got, this magical looking drink, is a Hojicha Cold Foam. I just got it because it looks cool. I had no idea what Hojicha was, but I asked the barista. He said that it's a Japanese green tea, so they take an extract from that and then they mix it in this whipped cream here, and then down below is a cold brew. So, just look at that. Oh, so creamy. If you don't come back without a mustache on that, what are you doing? What are you doing? That is so good. Just like the description says, it's salty, sweet, and then it's so creamy with that, and then the coffee just kind of balances out. So, a little tartness from the coffee, sweetness up here, salty. Oh, man. It says it tastes like butterscotch, and it 1000% does. This is kind of like, almost like a butter beer, but in coffee form. I could just like spoon this whipped cream. It's so good. And this delightful little thing is their breakfast sandwich. This looks like this super flaky croissant, and then on the inside, you've got a deal of egg, cheese, and bacon. I don't know if that crunch woke up your family member sleeping in the other room, but this thing is so crunchy. There's so many layers in there. That is a high quality croissant, and then bacon, cheese, egg. Reading is home to tons of bike trails, including the Sacramento River Recreation Trail, which is a paved 17 mile trail that runs from downtown up towards Shasta Dam. And to explore some of it, Pedego Electric Bikes is hooking us up with some e-bike rentals. Wahoo! We're off! Our goal is to make it all 17 miles to Shasta Dam. Duane at Pedego Bikes said that we should have no problem getting there, and it should be beautiful the entire way. Before we head west on the trail, we had to stop by the most iconic landmark here in Redding, the Sundial Bridge. This is a 700 foot long bridge that goes over the Sacramento River and was built without footings in the water in order to not harm the nearby salmon spawning habitat. There are many interesting things about this bridge, but quite possibly the coolest thing is that it's actually a working sundial, and it's one of the largest in the world. The sundial shadow traces such a large arc that it can record only four hours a day from 11 a.m to 3 p.m, and when visible, it moves one foot per minute. But it's not accurate in the winter because the shadow casts too far into the arboretum to be seen, and it will not be accurate today because there is no sun to cast a shadow. Another cool thing about the bridge is this glass bottom, so you're supposed to be able to see through it. You kind of can, but it still looks pretty cool. And we're off to Shasta Dam for real this time. We're climbing up Heart Rate Hill right now, and these e-bikes are so clutch for that. Just throttling it. Oh, it's cheating, but it's way more fun this way. You may notice quite a few burnt and black trees in this footage, and that's from the car fire which swept through the area back in 2018. So there's a lot of dead trees, but there's also a lot of just green living plant life. So it's a really interesting contrast, even with some of the dead trees. These views are incredible. There's mountains. There's the river. This trail is just so much fun. Just when you think this ride couldn't get any better, there's an old railroad tunnel we're about to go through. That's gonna be cool. This is so fun. It's so fun to ride cool trails with really neat features like that, especially on e-bikes. And Dwayne, back at the shop, he said he has toothbrushes for people when they come back because they're smiling so much that you've got to get the bugs off their teeth. I think that's going to be the case for us. All right, we made it. The views from the top of the dam are incredible. On this side, we have all the mountains that we just biked through and the river below. Then on this side, we have the lake and you can see Mount Shasta. Barely. She's kind of hiding behind some clouds, but you can kind of see her just like snowy peak. Oh my goodness. This is... I can't wipe the smile off my face, but no bugs. No bugs. Bugs all hit my forehead though. The speed limit's 25 and I'm... Now it's time to book it back because we are hungry. All right, we made it back. I'm gonna mega helmet hair the rest of the day. Huge thank you to Pedego for the e-bikes. If you're ever in the area, you have to go and do this trail. It is one of the most beautiful bike trails we have ever been on, but now it is time for some lunch. For lunch, we came to a local spot called Wilda's Grill, which is known for this bad boy right here, a Buddha Bowl. This thing is loaded with tons of ingredients. It has brown rice, red beans, cabbage, avocado, cilantro, jalapenos, garlic chili sauce, and Asian dressing. Then you can get either tofu, falafel, or chicken, and we both got chicken. This is gonna be so good. I'm not sure what my plan of attack should be on this. Try to dig down all the way to the bottom. Get some of the goodies there. There is so much going on in this Buddha Bowl. The sauces are so creamy and tangy. You can almost taste like a little bit of like sesame or soy sauce in there, and the chicken is moist and tender and delicious. Man, I'm gonna devour this. So I decided to turn my takeout box into a giant plate, and this seems like a really good way to eat it if you want to be able to mix it all up really well. That is just so fresh tasting. Just the crunch of the cabbage, the avocado in there, the sauce is so good. I love the beans in here too. It just gives it like kind of a different like flavor element. Oh my goodness. This is something that I a thousand percent want to recreate in the van. Alright, it's a few days later and we're recreating the Wilda's Buddha Bowl. So we ended up having a little bit of a van mishap after eating at Wilda's Grill, which caused us to put Exploring Reading on pause until we could get it mostly sorted out. We'll explain what happened in a couple videos because we don't want to take away from this one, but it's about six days later and we're back in Reading, and today our plan is to explore the nature northeast of the city. We're going to check out waterfalls, see some mountains, and other gorgeous scenery, and our first stop is Bernie Falls. Bernie Falls is said to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls in all of California. Unfortunately, it's not very dog friendly, but it's just a short walk to an overlook, and you can also go down to the falls. It's so short. As soon as you step out of your car, you can hear the roar of the falls. I see it! Wow! We've been trying to cover our eyes because we didn't want to spoil it. Oh my goodness! It's way bigger in real life than I thought it would be. Yeah, for sure this is one of the most beautiful ones. We haven't seen them all of course, but yeah, it'd be tough to beat this. Wow! The falls are 129 feet tall and it was dubbed by Teddy Roosevelt as the eighth wonder of the world. The falls are fed by a natural spring that flows over a hundred million gallons every day, and you can even see it coming out of the rocks over here behind me, which is really neat to see, and we read that the water doesn't get much warmer than 42 degrees. There are just so many streams of water. If you're counting each individual stream, there's probably like a thousand waterfalls here. You can feel the mist down here, and I can confirm the water is very, very cold. We're continuing our waterfall adventures and have headed about 40 minutes from Bernie Falls to McLeod Falls, which is a series of three waterfalls. You can drive to each waterfall or you can hike between all of them, which is about 3.6 miles, and that's what we're gonna do. This trail has been an easy walk through the woods, but we are getting close to Middle Falls, and wow, we just got a little sneak peek of it, and it is gorgeous. Look how wide this one is. It is huge! This one is just rushing out of this gorge. That is gorgeous, huh? The Middle Falls is definitely the biggest falls and probably the most impressive, but they are all worth checking out. For lunch, we came to a spot called Yaks on the Five, which came very highly recommended to us, and as soon as we saw the menu, we knew we had to come here. This place is so fun. They let you draw a name, and that's the name they'll announce when your order's ready, and we got... I'm like the moment of truth. Yeah. Miss America. Miss America. There she is right there. So you're looking at Miss America, baby. Or is it Adam? Actually, hold up. That's me. I drew it. I guess it's Adam because he drew it. I'm Mr. America? I don't, I don't know. There she is. There she is. So Yaks on the Five is known for their creative burgers, and they make everything homemade, and this monstrosity is the jalapeno bacon. On this delicious looking thing, there is jack cheese, jalapeno bacon, fried onion strings, house-made ranch drizzle, beer batter, jalapeno chips, and aioli. There's also a beef patty in there, and it looks so darn delicious. Yeah. That burger is outrageous. Starting with the bun here, you can just tell it is homemade. It's nice and fluffy, but it holds well together with all these ingredients. There's just so much going on in here. All these onion strings, nice and crispy, and you can see all the little seasonings in there. The jalapeno bacon. Oh man, yeah. It's nice and spicy. Very crunchy with like the all the fried things going on in here, and then the burger patty is out of this world too. This is one of the best burgers I've ever had. And I got the make me want to cry garlic obsession, and as a garlic lover, I'm very excited to try this. I got it without a bun, which is why they have this pretty little lettuce on top, and it has aged cheddar, house-made fried onion strings, ranch drizzle, and fermented garlic aioli. Smells like garlic. I can't wait. That is a garlic explosion in your mouth. Oh my gosh, if you love garlic, this is the best burger you could ever have in your life. We also got the Scott's Tots, and any Office fans out there will recognize that term. So that's what made us get this, and it also looks super delicious. So the Scott's Tots are brown sugar cajun rub, bacon crumbles, gorgonzola, jack cheese, chili lime drizzle, chopped cilantro, and a squeeze of lime. Whoa, that is ridiculous. Cheesy, crunchy, I kind of got a little bit of a tang from the gorgonzola, the chili lime or jalapeno lime drizzle, whatever that is in there. Man. Dang, that is hands down one of the most unique flavor profiles I've ever had. It's sweet, it's tart, I don't even know how to explain this. It is so good, and I think Michael Scott would be very, very proud. I have extreme garlic breath now. Want a kiss? He wants a kiss. So since Kona hasn't been able to do everything with us here in the Reading area, we got her a little something from Yaks to make up for it. Puppy patty. Oh my gosh, can I have one whole bite? Just down the road from Yaks is Castle Crag State Park, which is known for its craggy peaks, and to get a better look at them, we're hiking the Crags Trail to Castle Dome, which is a little over five miles, and a little over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. We hear it's pretty challenging, and right now we are so full, so it may be a horrible idea to do this hike after eating all that food, but we have a feeling the views will be worth any pain. We've been just climbing and climbing on this trail. It's been pretty tough, but we are coming up to our first view right here. Yeah, whoa. It's amazing. Yeah, it's like a castle. We made it to the top, and check out this incredible view of the crags behind me. They're just so jagged, and besides the crags, the views up here are just incredible. We have mountains basically as far as the eye can see over there. There's some snowy mountains right there. Mount Shasta's over here, but there's this rock kind of covering her right now. You can kind of explore a bit up here, but there's definitely some drop-offs that we're staying very far away from, so we're doing like the cautious approach up here, but even with what we can see, and even on the hike most of the way up, it's just stunning. Being surrounded by all these granite peaks really reminds us of the Dolomites or the Wind River Range, some of our favorite places. I think we spent over an hour at the top just admiring all the views. We kept finding little nooks to go to to see different perspectives, and the best part is no one else was up here the entire time. We had it all to ourselves, which made it extra magical. All the places we visited today are about an hour to an hour and a half away from Reading. There's an epic spot only 15 minutes from town called Whiskytown Lake, which is a gorgeous lake tucked in the mountains and is where we're camping tonight. We've been camping here off and on while in the area at one of their RV sites, which is basically just a parking area, but it's nice and flat, and it's the perfect spot to stay to go kayaking in the morning. All right, we are in the water. Let's do this. It's a little a little choppy, but it should be fun either way, huh? So Whiskytown Lake was formed by Whiskytown Dam, and the water now covers the land that was once the mining town of Whiskytown. The town started around the mid-1800s and got its name when a miner was hauling supplies back to his mine, and the pack on his mule's back broke, and a whiskey barrel tumbled down the hillside, breaking and spilling its contents into a creek. The creek came to be known as Whiskey Creek, and the settlement next to it came to be known as Whiskytown. We read that before they filled it in with water, they did move some of the buildings, but it's just pretty crazy to think that we are kind of floating above an old mining town. You can't help but wonder what kind of artifacts are still buried way down under the water. We had some white caps for a bit, and the waves were just crashing onto the kayak. It was a little miserable, not gonna lie, but we found this island, and it seems to be more protected from the wind, and it's a lot calmer. So much more enjoyable. Back on dry land, almost. We're ending this part of our Reading adventure on a sweet note at Taste & Sea Creamery, which we hear is the best ice cream shop in town. I got me a gluten-free cone with two scoops. This one's a cold brew coffee, and it's the bourbon brown butter pecan, I think. It looks like awesome. That coffee flavor is top-notch. I think it actually is theory coffee, which we had at the beginning of this video, which makes it even better. That bourbon butter pecan is so good. You get a little bit of a bourbon flavor at first, and there's just so many pecans in it. It's loaded. So I got malted cookie dough with pretzels and blueberry goat cheesecake. Might be a kind of a weird combo, but man, they look so good. Look how many bits and pieces are in here. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that is tangy and sweet. You get a nice blueberry flavor. It's like almost there's like a whole slice of pie in there. Look how much crumbs from the crust and all the filling in there. Wow. Yeah, that one's good too. Sweet, salty, a little bit of that malt flavor. So many like pieces to crunch on. You know, we love ice cream that have tons of bits and pieces, so this is ridiculous. This part of California doesn't seem to be as popular or get as much love as some of the other areas we visited, but we feel like everyone has been missing out. We've said this before, but our favorite places to visit are these underrated spots because they tend to be less busy and they always just are hidden gems, and Reading has been no exception. The size of the town is awesome and all the nature nearby. We've just had like the best time here. We just can't believe that we've never thought to come here before. But thankfully our time in the Reading area isn't quite done yet. Next up we're gonna head a little bit out of the city to a new national park for us, Lassen Volcanic National Park. Are you ready? I think we've said this about 50 times so far today and it never gets old. Is the burger getting to you? A little bit. The garlic in my mouth is so strong that I wouldn't be surprised if y'all could smell it. You gotta hold her because this one needs all of my arms. You ready for this? Oh yeah, nice. I used to do that one at middle school dances all the time and still now.