Why we travel

Another post from Joanne –

I’m online this morning looking at ticket sales, hotel prices etc. for my summer trip to San Francisco to see the King Tut exhibit at the DeYoung Museum. After my winter trip to Egypt, I’m so excited!
A good friend who lives in the Bay Area asked, “Why ever are you coming HERE when you live in paradise! We work all year to come up to Mount Shasta.”
…and then I opened an email with a quote that explains it all:
Well known travel writer Pico Iyer suggests that we travel “…initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again – to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”
We in Siskiyou County are proud and delighted to be a part of “slowing your time down” and helping you to “fall in love once more”.
Hope we’ll see you this summer.
Joanne Steele
Siskiyou County Tourism Director

Uplifting films at Mt. Shasta Film Festival

Below is a dispatch from our friend Joanne Steele, who spent nearly 9 hours with her husband watching films Friday afternoon on the opening day of the Mt. Shasta International Film Festival (click the link to see what’s showing)- that’s today, October 10th. She’s right – if you’re here this weekend, get yourself in to see a film or two!

Here she is:

Friday, Oct 10th, 12: 55:  We’re settled into Theater 2 at the fifth annual Mt. Shasta International Film Festival, ready for a full weekend of films.  I’m already impressed by the organization in the theater. Volunteers are cleaning, directing, greeting, corralling and advising. Festival-goers are bustling in, some from as far away as Pennsylvania! A group of women from San Carlos came up for a weekend of good films! Redding and Sacramento are well represented. And lots of Siskiyou County folks are taking advantage of this great event.

According to Jenny with the Festival, there are still tickets available. Jeffery Winters deserves high scores for selecting topnotch films, so every empty seat is a missed opportunity! If it’s still the weekend and you are a tank of gas away from Mt. Shasta, come on up (or down).

Right now I’m sitting next to 12 year old Dominic who directed a short that will be showing tomorrow (Saturday) morning. I’m told that he is so talented, his film compares well with everything else showing this weekend. I love the idea that festivals give independent filmmakers an opportunity to screen high quality offerings, AND if gives film junkies like me the chance to see a full range of the creative potential of the medium.
Lights out – more later…

We saw “Validation” and “A Man Named Pearl”, both a real shot in the arm on a day when the financial world is literally falling apart. Fortuitous that the Film Fest is on a weekend when we all need reassurance that all is really well with the greater world. People like Pearl Fryar are still creating beauty, the Daughters of Wisdom are still hold the spiritual space for all of us, and Desmond Tutu is still out there teaching us about forgiveness.

Tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be seeing more films – funny stories, sad stories and scary stories, and after a full weekend of being reminded through exceptional films of how well the world really works, I’ll be better prepared as will all attendees, to face what Monday has to hand us.

A quick swing by the refreshment stand for a LARGE popcorn to last into the evening, and back into the theater…
Happy Weekend.
Joanne Steele

Poets tonight!

The Mt. Shasta Writers Series is hosting author Pete Fromm and local poet Cat Ruiz tonight at Native Grounds Nursery in Mt. Shasta. Prior to the reading by the guest writers, local poets can share their work at the open mic. Fromm is an award winning Pacific Northwest writer who has tried his hand at novels, a story collection and a memior, earning four Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Awards. He will read at 8pm.

Ruiz, an instructor at College of the Siskiyous in Weed, released her first volume of poetry this March, Stirring up the Water, which won the Native Writers Circle of the Americas First Book Award in Poetry. She will be reading at 7:15.

The reading should be fun, set at Native Grounds at 1172 S. Mount Shasta Blvd. Be sure to check out their beautiful pond that’s stocked with trout. I believe a donation is suggested. For more info, go to www.mtshastawriters.com