Happy Labor Day weekend from the gang at ANewsCafe.com! Be safe during summer’s final hurrah, especially while driving.
The American Automobile Association projects that holiday weekend travel will be down this year from last year’s high levels, partly because Labor Day falls on Sept. 7, after most kids have started back to school. AAA counts trips of 50 miles or more, and predicts that those trips will be down 13.3 percent nationwide and 13.1 percent in California. Still, that’s more than 39 million people on the roads nationwide this weekend, taking longer trips. Lots of folks in Northern California take short hops to a lake or a mountain or the Inter-Mountain Fair in McArthur.
For more on AAA’s traffic forecast, click here.
Animal Regulation here in Redding warns drivers to be extra careful around greenbelt/forested areas because of deer. Fall is the “rut,” or breeding season, for deer, which means all the males are sex-crazed and not looking both ways when they cross the road. Kind of like the parking lot outside of a Hooters.
Redding has lots of greenbelt areas, of course, and deer use them as byways, keeping to cover as much as possible, but frequently crossing roads for water or grazing or safety or wild rutting sex. We know to be wary of deer in rural areas (such as, say, in Igo, where the deer believe the asphalt areas are discos), but we can forget that deer often run right out into traffic within the city limits as well.
If you hit a deer in Redding, you should report it immediately to Animal Regulation at 241-2550. Call that same number for more information about the safety hazards presented by deer.
- Mark Your Calendar for Sunday, Sept. 13, when the Northern Hispanic Latino Coalition has its 13th annual Family Fun Fair in Anderson River Park. The smoke-free, alcohol-free event runs from noon until 5 p.m. and will feature music, food, games, arts and crafts, and lots of amusing stuff for the kids. For more info, click here.
- DVD I Watched on the Dreadmill: “Unknown,” a neat, twisty thriller about five guys who wake up at a crime scene with amnesia. They’ve been exposed to a chemical that’s messed up their brains, but their memories slowly come back and they learn which among them are the good guys and the bad guys. Stars Jim Cavaziel and Greg Kinnear. Fun.
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