Ashland, OR, 25-Jul
For our last full day in Ashland, we walked around more of Lithia Park and went to the Japanese garden. For dinner, we went to Medford to visit high school friends of mine.
We decided to make this another down day, so it was very low-key. The first thing we did was go back to Lithia Park and walked along different sections than we did a couple of days before. This took us both further south and to the upper trail.
After we finished our loop, we went across the street to the Japanese garden. We had poked our heads past the gate last time we went by, but knew we would be able to go back later. It is quite small but still has almost all of the features you would expect, from koi pond, bridges, and waterfalls to Japanese maples, lanterns, and a sand garden. It doesn’t have a tea room, but there seems to be a site selected and presumably funds are being raised.
We still had time before lunch, so we decided to take a look at the library. It has an original building and a newer addition, with lots of places to sit and read. We found an open table but had problems connecting to the Wi-Fi. We shrugged and did offline things,but another patron asked and apparently there was a problem with their service provider. That meant the internet terminals and checkout stations were also down.
For lunch, we found a Japanese restaurant where we were the only people. The food was quite good, especially the tempura batter. After that, we went to the closest ice cream store to have scoops. We then went back to the room to relax for a bit.
We were going to have dinner in Medford, so we decided to go up early and find a café to spend some time. We ended up at a place that used to be a gas station, which was a bit confusing when we were driving up, but the lack of pumps and the building looking bright and airy were good clues.
We stayed at the café until not long before they closed, but since we still had some extra time, we walked around the park next door. At the other end was a pavilion which had exercise equipment, so we gave several of them a try. One thing I found interesting was the ones which would normally have adjustable weights just relied on body weight for resistance. I found that an interesting compromise between adjustability and making something reliable outdoors.
When we made it to the restaurant, the people we were meeting were just getting out of the car as we were parking. They were high school classmates of mine, and while I've seen one a couple of times in the last several years, the other I haven't seen for probably 35 years, so it was really good to see them and introduce them to Melody. Conversation was lively, and it felt like it had been almost no time at all since I've seen them.
Once dinner was done, we returned to Ashland and did some packing to get ready for the drive to Portland.
