After our visit with Annie it was time to start thinking about heading to Modesto for our home health positions. We stayed up in Tacoma until Wednesday morning to finish some appointments and get our car’s serviced, and then we hit the road. Our destination was a small town just outside of Ashland in southern Oregon. We rented an Airbnb to stay at for two nights. This way we could have an entire day to explore southern Oregon!
Talent/Ashland, Oregon
As you can see from the pictures below we rented an airstream! The couple that owned the airstream was an Italian woman and a man from New Jersey who had used it for camping and living out of for a period of time but now rent it out. They have settled and started a family in the countryside of southern Oregon after years of traveling.
The Airstream sits on 5 acres of property in the hillside just outside of small town named Talent. Ashland is about 15 minutes away. The farm was not yet fully up and running, but the plan was to turn it into a small vineyard.
Lithia Park, a town park in Ashland, was one of our favorite spots. The park starts in downtown Ashland and is so long, as it follows the river, that it actually abuts with the northern tip of the Klamath National Forest. If you wanted, you could start in downtown Ashland and hike straight out into complete and utter wilderness- not that we were prepared or wanted to do that.
After a full day of exploring southern Oregon it was time to hit the road again. We drove through northern California, which consists of rolling mountains and occasional taller mountain peaks. I’ve never seen so many scenic pullover spots in my life! Eventually though, we started to descend into “the valley” as they call it.
Modesto, CA
Modesto sits in a part of California which is referred to as “the valley” or “the central valley”. The area is well known for agriculture, and in particular almond cultivation. Much of the food that you see in the grocery store with a California sticker on it comes from this area.
As the landscape shifted from our familiar mountain terrain to a valley, we reminisced about how well the Pacific Northwest treated us. The Pacific Northwest has to be the most picturesque area we have ever lived in, hands down. We definitely plan to go back! Whether that means exploring other areas of Washington or perhaps Oregon we don’t know yet. Our brief time in southern Oregon has definitely opened our eyes to a different side of the Pacific Northwest. There is yet much exploring to be done!