ROAD TRIP! Don’t Drink the Water and Off to the Coast

Lithia Park (image: A.N. Smith-Lee)

In 1908 the Women's Civic Improvement Club of Ashland petitioned for the creation of community space along Ashland Creek for a city park. The town engaged John McLaren, superintendent of Golden Gate Park, to design the new space. McLaren served as landscape architect of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in 1870. The original name of Lithia Springs Park was later shortened to Lithia Park; initially, there was a spring-water source at the park. The discovery of lithia water near Emigrant Lake (south of the city) led to a plan to establish a mineral spa on the grounds. Voters approved bonds to pay for the project, which included piping the mineral water from its source to Ashland.

image: A.N. Smith-Lee

Although the park was popular, the mineral spa plans proved too expensive and were abandoned in 1916. Probably a good thing, since a fountain in the park spouts full-on Lithia water, which leaves a bright red/orange stain where it flows and tastes like salty rust; I couldn’t even swallow it, perhaps envisioning my interior permanently stained the color of active lava. But the park, though not large, was eminently beautiful, capturing the best of autumn colors along its unsullied paths. Just outside the park is the roundabout that fronts Ashland's city hall (left).

Ashland Springs Hotel (image:oyster.com)

Many of Ashland's historic buildings have been preserved and restored. The city has 48 individual structures and two historic districts (the AshlandRailroad Addition District and the Downtown District) on the National Register of Historic Places. One that stands out (literally) is the nine-story AshlandSprings Hotel, towering over the town like an Art Deco wedding cake. “The tallest building between Portland and San Francisco” in 1925 when it was built, it’s been completely renovated from ruin.

We drove around for a while, searching for the “bad” neighborhoods in Ashland, with no luck. No rundown homes with rusting cars out front, no iffy trailer parks. What’s wrong with this picture? We headed north and found a few of them in Medford, which reminded me too much of the California town I grew up in, a poster child for uncontrolled suburban sprawl on a too-flat landscape. We ate at a vegetarian café in the pretty older section of town – the café will go unnamed, because the food was mediocre and they forgot half the order until we went up to the counter to ask for it. The older section of town was predictably deserted, victim of the uber-malls at the edges of town. Great little coffee shop there, though – the Limestone Coffee Company. There’s a lot that can be done with these all-too-familiar parts of too many towns, and Medford is making an effort to do it. In my travel books, I’ve been to dozens of places where residents loved their home enough to have gotten together and re-created a vibrant downtown as a center for the arts, restaurants, and boutique hotels – a destination for visitors and homies alike. Medford has a massive Harry & David plant (fruit gift baskets, confections, bakery) with tours, and beautiful surrounding country including an up-and-coming wine region that may eventually outshine Napa Valley. We decided to explore some of it: we drove north and veered west for the coast…