All the tourists are long gone on an early, frozen morning at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The lower duck pond in Lithia Park is completely frozen over and snow has fallen overnight.

Posted on December 28th, 2008 under lithia park, only in ashland. Tags: lithia park, oregon shakespeare festival, snow, winter. Comments: 3

When the temperature drops below zero (-20 Celsius) all life seems to disappear. At the upper duck pond in Lithia Park all the ducks were gone. Where to I do not know. People were also gone. I’ve never seen the park so deserted or so beautiful.

My camera wanted to run away and hide too. It took three attempts before the lens would come out of its retracted state. I don’t think the image stabilization feature was working, and I didn’t have a tripod. Nor could I risk setting the camera on the ground as it would probably be stuck there until spring. But I did get this shaky image of the frozen pond.

Posted on December 23rd, 2008 under lithia park. Tags: lithia park, nature, snow, winter. Comments: 3

This may look like ordinary playground equipment. However, if you are in Lithia Park at just the right moment you will get to see that it is actually a moon launching apparatus. After particularly successful launches a bunch of snow sprays out as a sort of afterbirth. It’s very beautiful to watch. I was about 5 seconds too late with this picture for you to see the actual moment of launching. Sorry.

Posted on December 17th, 2008 under lithia park. Tags: lithia park, moon, snow, trees, winter. Comments: 2

Continuing my walk on Ridge Road from an entry 3 or 4 days ago, this is a view across Lithia Park from the west looking east. You can make out pieces of Strawberry Lane (where I took a nasty spill on my bike many years ago before they paved it) and Scenic Drive.

The nice thing about Ridge Road is you can see so many different things from it. Look to the south for nice views of Mt. Ashland and the Siskiyou Mountain Range; to the east you get Lithia Park (if you look down) and this; to the north is downtown, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Ashland Springs Hotel; and to the west you can see SOU, Grizzly Peak, and much more.

Posted on December 12th, 2008 under lithia park, only in ashland. Tags: houses, mountains, trees. Comments: None