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Continuing the series I began a couple weeks ago, here are some downtown businesses long before they opened for the day.
Another photo of The Black Sheep can be found here.
If you have a large screen, click on the image for a bigger view so you can see your options with Noah’s River Adventures. Do you want to go down the Rogue River, Klamath River, or Salmon River today?
I think you are OK making a left here if this is the only oncoming traffic.
After wandering around town for a while we entered Bella’s Sports Pub. It was packed on a Wednesday afternoon at about 2. The service was horrible, the music was awful, and it was way too loud so we left after a single beer. Next we ventured into Madison Bear Garden. This has to be one of Chico’s, if not all of Northern California’s, finest establishments. Beers were only $2, the music was great and at the right volume level, games were on the many tubes, food was good, and everyone was having a fine time. I think we spent the next 4 hours or so here.
The above picture was the only time the place wasn’t wall to wall with people. Again, I found this incredible on a Wednesday afternoon. Don’t Chico’s students have class? It seems they drink more in Chico than in Canada.
Many cities have a sister city, or two, or more. Your town probably has one too. Chances are you don’t even know what other places form such a partnership with yours. For instance, I lived in San Jose, California for more than six years but I didn’t know San Jose had eight sister cities, let alone what those eight were.
That isn’t the case with Ashland. We have perhaps the best sister city relationship on the planet. It is with Guanajuato, Mexico near Leon. Not only would more than 9 out of 10 people in Ashland be able to identify Guanajuato as Ashland’s sister city, but a significant portion of the population has participated in some way with that relationship. For instance, my kids had people from Guanajuato visit their school classes this past week. I’ve even been to Guanajuato–not once but three times thanks to the Ashland-Guanajuato partnership.
This week we are celebrating the 40 years of ongoing and ever-growing partnerships between Ashland and Guanajuato. As part of the celebrations the town’s main street of Siskiyou Boulevard has been lined with American and Mexican flags.
As far as I could tell there were about three or four times as many donuts on display as there were donuts listed on the menu. We thought about just having them pick a dozen for us as the price wasn’t much more than us picking four donuts, but in the end we made our selections. You’ll get to see them tomorrow.
The Black Sheep, like Omar’s, is an Ashland icon. Fashioned like a British pub, you can play darts, make calls from a London-style phone booth, or just enjoy an English beer or meal. On Sundays they have Celtic music. I’ve actually been to the Black Sheep twice in the past couple weeks. I’ve never been in Louie’s (bottom left), but I’m guessing it, and the Black Sheep, were quite crowded last night for St. Patty’s Day.
The building the Black Sheep is in is more than a hundred years old (130 years next year to be exact). The Cafe sign on the side of it isn’t that old but I’m guessing it is several decades old. The heraldic banners you see in this picture are all over town, especially the plaza area, because of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Today’s entry goes along with this one from last week. For easier reading, try clicking on the image.
Tomorrow we will return to Ashland. For my last photo from Seattle I offer the sign above the Pike Place Market.
As mentioned a couple of weeks ago when the Utah trip tour began on this blog, the salt flats on the way back to Oregon were really pretty. The sun was shining in the southeast and crazy cloud formations with rain and snow were happening in the northwest. We were expecting lots of snow on the road and when we left Utah, Nevada’s traffic and weather site stated that we would be putting chains on in at least 3 locations. Yuck. Therefore, there was no time to stop and take pictures of the salt flat scenes.
However, we lucked out in Nevada and never had to put on chains. The first stop we made was at the above, desolate-looking rest stop near Wells, Nevada. No one was around for miles and miles. It was the first chance I had to take a break from driving and snap a picture.
I took this picture of Starbucks before the Festival of Light parade on the last Friday in November. Above Starbucks you can see two bright lights. Those celestial bodies are Venus and Jupiter. A week later they made a very unique smiley face in the sky with the moon helping out.
