ashland follies

To celebrate (and I use the term loosely) my 40th birthday weekend, James and I are in Ashland, Oregon for four days. We are staying in a lovely B&B called the McCall house. One of the many period details left preserved for our enjoyment is the remote controlled fireplace:


The fireplace quite conveniently also serves as a white noise generator. And when I say "also," I mean in addition to...um...nothing at all useful. Except for the ambience, of course. Because nothing says "romance" like a projection of flames from a rolling tube onto a sheet of frosted glass, plus some glowy log and ember things.

That makes it sound like I don't like the place, which is actually not true. The house is awesome. Here is James examining a stereoscope that was in the parlor (note actual fireplace).


There is an ornate tub and cute wallpaper with pretty birds.

I totally would use this wallpaper, if I had the ambition or talent required to hang wallpaper.

On the way up we drove past Mt. Shasta:


Its snowiness was our first clue that maybe our plans to visit Crater Lake today were misguided. Somehow, back in India when I was first planning this excursion, I failed to realize that mid-April is still the height of winter at Crater Lake; yesterday we discovered via the park web site that there is still over 10 feet of snow on the ground in the park, and several of the roads are closed for the season. That put a major damper on our ideas for a brisk 10-mile hike, especially considering that I was planning to do it in trail running shoes.

So today we are going to go to the bookstore and pick up a book with local, snow-free hikes. I will assign James to plan an itinerary while I shop for cute clothes, shoes, and yarn, of which there is an abundance in this town.