Outing to Lavender Festival

Captains Log July 17 – Off to the Lavender Festival!  Bill had a couple of stops to make in

Lavender Field

Medford which is on the way to the festival location.

The weather was beautiful and they had a nice crowd and a good group entertaining the crowd.  The drive there was rather exciting – through a couple of small towns, hilly and curvy roads with very few homes along the way.  The further we went the narrower the roads got.  We were thinking we might have been on the wrong road but every 5 miles or so once we left Medford there were signs that just sad “Lavender Festival”. Apparently a different farm hosts each year and arranges for half a dozen vendors to set up, music, and a food truck (since you in the middle of no where).

The family that owns the farm hosting this year is from England, therefore their farm is the English Lavender Farm.  You are on your own to walk around the

One of the drying racks

lavender fields and this farm had a gift shop set up in their drying room.  It’s a nice little building and they have some big rack hanging from the ceiling with bundles of lavender on them.  There were many tables and displays of sooo many uses of lavender.   There were oils, sachets, air fresheners, candy, honey, just so many items.  Bill wanted a sachet to put in his drawer.  We did try serving of sorbet.  I had coconut lavender and Bill chocolate lavender.  We also bought 2 bottles of English Lavender Hard Cider!!

We were really ready for lunch and we came thru a quaint small town, Jacksonville, that reminded us of Windermere, FL.  We Googled the restaurants and went with the German one since we haven’t eaten in a German restaurant in ages.  The food was excellent but a little slow service

Bill at a lavender field

due to no one wanting to work when they can get mega bucks from unemployment.  In Oregon places like McDonald’s are offering jobs to 14 year olds and up with starting pay over $14 an hour!  So they have a 14 year old who delivers the food and cleans up the tables.

No other stops on the way home but I did tell Bill to quickly pull over.  There was a guy parasailing over a big field by the road.  He was in the process of landing and Bill pulled just in time for me to get some photos. 

We got back to the campground a bit later than I had thought we

Paraglider we watched land

would but we jumped right into selling wood to our campers and cleaned the few sites that had been vacated.  The entire loop is rented by a church and they are all scheduled to leave on Monday, so it’s nice to get started early! We drove around and there were some spaces still empty so we hope they don’t show up and so we don’t have to clean them Monday!

I went out to the wood pile and picked 1 1/2 pounds of
blackberries.

Delicious berries

  There are tons out there and not they seem to be ripening pretty fast.  I just put them in a container in the fridge for now.

It was a lovely day and we certainly enjoyed our day out and about!