Day 5: Ashland, OR
Welcome
Yesterday we enjoyed a rest day and celebrated Jonathan’s New Zealand birthday.
We awoke to find ourselves in southern Oregon, just across California’s northern border in a town called Ashland. Blue Paradise was neatly parked out the back of the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Ashland, an IHG Hotel, and despite the glorious day outside there were torrents of water splashing onto the roof of the bus and running down the windows. It turned out that Mr Bus was giving Blue Paradise a very good soap, followed by a scrub and a rinse, a thorough hosing down to remove the grime accumulated from several days on Interstate 5. Our bus driver’s real name isn’t actually Mr Bus but I haven’t asked for his consent to appear as a blog character, and he doesn’t seem to enjoy talking to people so decided to proceed by using a pseudonym. Disclaimer: The following story is based on real events and characters however names, dates, and locations have been changed in the interests of privacy.
Sun-bleached hills provided a beautiful backdrop for my journey to the supermarket, a trip which had turned into the number one priority for the morning after a quick inspection had turned up both an empty fridge and larder. I picked up a pot of yoghurt and a loaf of bread and walked back to the Holiday Inn Express & Suites where Mr Bus was now lathering up the trailer with his pole-mounted mop, earbuds in and intensely focused on the job. I boarded the glossy, wet coach and set about my breakfast preparation, toasting and buttering two slices of bread and evenly distributing the flesh of a nicely ripe avocado on the crispy, flat surfaces I had prepared. Salt was then added. I sliced a handful of cherry tomatoes and added them to the party, salted again and followede this with cracked black peppercorns. In the fruit bowl I discovered a perfect nectarine, and I used a sharp knife to carefully separate the hard stone from the soft flesh of the fruit. Next I peeled and chopped a banana, and finally I sliced up a kiwifruit, removing the tough stem and nonchalantly plating it next to the other fruits, and dousing the lot with several large scoops of Greek yoghurt.
This one is for all the haters out there (of breakfast).
It was Jonathan’s New Zealand birthday, and all his comrades excitedly delivered him his birthday praise when he emerged into the main cabin to begin his day. Liz studied the weather reports and after some deliberation it was decided that we would first head into Ashland’s downtown for an explore and then to the local hot springs if the impending thunderstorm blew over.
Our taxi dropped us at the town centre, and we made our way straight to the number one public attraction, a 4.3-star-rated piece of public infrastructure that was screaming out at me from the display on my Google Maps. The Lithia Fountains were turned off, we were sad to discover, and although we missed out on the potential health benefits from the high sulphur content of the water, it is perhaps it is fortunate that we didn’t experience the high barium content that caused the closure.
We spent some time wandering through Lithia Park, a beautifully sculpted urban green space with towering fir trees and Redwoods lining a creekside trail. Then rain started to fall, gently at first and then as the thunderstorm began to break, we headed to a nearby pub to seek shelter, and beer. It was a fleeting piece of weather and although it had chased away the Saturday craft market there will still plenty of shops in town to explore and we walked and browsed for a time.
Liz and Jon headed off in a cab to swim at the local hot springs and Tristan and I headed back to the bus for some computer work. This was the point in the day when I dictated the blog, wandering along the footpaths outside our incredibly shiny bus and talking into Microsoft Word for iPhone, pretending to passers-by that I am on an important video call.
Jon enjoying the clean bus.
That evening we all put on our finest clothes, dressing our legs up in trousers and our torsos in slightly nice t-shirts for our dinner date with members of the band Alvvays and their crew. A dozen of us crowded around the largest table that Ashland’s premium Indonesian restaurant Blue Toba could muster where we ate delicious fare and celebrated the tour, and the life of Jonathan William Pearce.
The author and the birthday man.
In lieu of asking members of the band and crew of Alvvays for their consent to appear as characters in the blog I have removed their appearances from the above photograph.
