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As I was eating breakfast I watched the fog creep up from the valley, expanding ever higher until it had engulfed our neighbor just below us. I knew we were next so I grabbed my camera and shot the above through the dining room window.
This is what it looks like to be on the upper edge of ground fog. It grabs you from beneath, but the sun still tries to fight its losing battle from above. The winter sun was no match and we were entombed in the stuff moments later.
We’ve had lots of foggy mornings lately. I grabbed my camera to take the above picture not so much for the fog as to get the bright oranges and reds on the Japanese Maple tree in the bottom of the picture. Unfortunately, if I focused on the leaves and had them show up in true color in the picture the sky (and everything else) would turn white and you couldn’t see the fog or mountain tops. It was either colorful leaves or sky/mountains/fog. I couldn’t get both in a single picture even though that is what my natural eyes were seeing. Oh well, it’s still a decent photograph anyway.
As each day gets a little darker and colder than the last this time of year it is fun to dip into the archives and remember what it’s like to go fishing in the nearby Rogue River in August.
The third of Ashland’s “Big Three” parades is the Festival of Light, held every year on the day after Thanksgiving. The other two are the 4th of July and Halloween parades. This one is the least popular, probably because it is the coldest. But there are still thousands of people in attendance.
After the parade Santa lights up the town (the “Grand Illumination”) from the balcony at Alex’s restaurant. Carols are sung and little kids get their picture taken with Santa at the Black Swan. Over a million lights go on.
The picture, above, is before most of the lights went on since it was taken before the parade. You can see the Varsity Theatre (home of the Ashland Film Festival), and the Ashland Springs Hotel.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at Larks which is between the hotel and the theatre. It was the best Thanksgiving dinner I’ve ever had.
Today’s picture goes along with yesterday’s. It was taken a couple of months after yesterday’s photo in 2004. My kids and I were hiking on Bull Gap Trail. In the background (upper left) you can see Wagner Butte.
Bull Gap is a trail that leads you right up to the ski lodge on Mt. Ashland. I’ve hiked it a couple of times and ridden my bike down it a half dozen or so times. If you want to bike down it you should ride your bike up the main road to the lodge or you can ride up some fire roads to get there. If you start from Ashland you’ll be in for a long day. If you don’t have the time you can drive a car up to four corners and ride up from there.
Both Bull Gap and Wagner Butte are in the Siskiyou Mountains. From both you can view the Cascade Mountain Range.
I’ve been showing some pictures of Mexico on my other blog this week. Most are of Ashland’s sister city, Guanajuato. By searching for those pictures, I’ve discovered some others of Southern Oregon like the last two days’ photos.
Today’s picture is of a hike I took with my kids several years ago in May. Snow was still on some of the local mountains even though everything had turned green. The hike was to Wagner Butte, a place that can be seen from Ashland. We didn’t make it all the way there, but I went back a month later without my kids to complete the trip. (Wagner Butte Hike is over 10 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 2,200 feet.) This photograph was taken after just a mile (which is actually the steepest part of the whole hike).
We would have hit snow long before we reached Wagner Butte anyway so the intent on that day wasn’t to do the whole thing. To get to the trailhead you go through Talent, the town just north of Ashland. Best time to do it is late spring or summer as there can be tons of wildflowers.
I was digging through some old pictures and found the above one from a trip we took to the Southern Oregon Coast more than four years ago. The beach house we rented was in Bandon. Those aren’t pictures you see on the walls. Those are windows. My kids seemed more interested in the TV, but I couldn’t stop looking out the windows.
I took this picture with a cruddy little camera out an airplane window a few years back at about 7 a.m. I was on my way to Mexico. Ashland is right below me. I had just taken off from the Medford airport and was heading south. The tracks my flight were making can be seen most mornings in Ashland. The higher mountain sticking through the clouds is Mt. McLaughlin, a mountain I climbed the prior fall.
A view from Ashland Middle School… This is the track with Grizzly Peak in the background. I took this picture on the way in to see a volleyball game. On the way out I took basically the same shot. The other photograph looks very different, however, as the sun was setting, the clouds were mostly gone, and the lighting and colors were all changed. I’ll post that picture sometime in the future.
Ashland is perhaps best known for its theatrical arts. Besides the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, there are countless plays going on in and around town. On most nights you have your choice of between 3 and 8 or so different plays to see. Not bad for a town of just over 20,000 people.
With all of these professional actors, directors, etc. in town it’s no surprise that the schools have amazing drama programs. The middle school plays are as good or better than high school plays elsewhere. The high school plays are as good or better than university plays elsewhere. And the SOU plays are better than professional plays elsewhere.
Unfortunately, I can’t stand plays. So I only go when I have to. Unfortunately, that is very often as my son loves to attend and participate in them.
The above photo is from the curtain call of Ashland Middle School’s rendition of “This is a Test.” They also performed “Small Actors” on the same night a few weeks back.