Other stuff in southern Oregon

OK – so I’ll admit for most of the blogs since we left Vegas, I have been complaining about all the snow and the cold. Even the last blog had me spouting off about the frigid conditions. Well, apparently, Oregon is not unlike Minnesota – if you don’t like the weather right now, wait a bit. Over the last couple days, it has gone from frigid to too dang hot! Oh well, at least I get to muddle through the emergence of hay fever season again, perhaps a few times – just in a different location!

We visited Jacksonville Oregon, a small town that had a gold strike in 1851 that put it on the map, and made it the County seat. However, the gold and other minerals eventually played out, and by the depression, there were simply no jobs in Jacksonville. People abandoned homes and basically left them as they were when they left. It essentially became a veritable ghost town.

In the 40’s and 50’s, locals saw the tourism potential of this town arrested in time. They began working to attract and artist community and opened some shops and restaurants. By the 1960’s, the influential launched a campaign aimed at Washington DC, and in 1966, the entire town of Jacksonville was added to the National Register of Historic Places, one of very few examples where an entire community has received that status.

Today it is small shops and restaurants, along with some historical touring of the town and some of its historical buildings. We grabbed lunch at the Schoolhaus Brewhaus, a very authentic German restaurant that now occupies the original Jacksonville elementary school. The Woman had a very nice cheese fondue with a variety of dipping items including worst slices, bread, veggies and some nice apple slices. I had and authentic mug of doppelbock – oh yeah, and some schweinbraten.

In Jacksonville, we found the Bozohouse. In 1892, Vance DeBar Colvig was born the youngest of 7 children of the local Judge Colvig. Always being referred to as the “clown” of the family, Lance worked in Vaudeville and joined the circus to take advantage of his personality. In 1930, he signed a contract with Walt Disney himself, writing songs for many of the early Disney animated movies. And because of his engaging personality, he became the movie voice of many of the early Disney characters, including Goofy and Pluto. In 1946, Capitol Records created the infamous Bozo the Clown character to promote its children’s record library, and hired Colvig to promote Bozo at events. His characterization was so effective that a TV series was launched in 1949, starring Vance Colvig as Bozo.

We visited the Belle Fiore Estate winery. A renowned allergy doctor in the area, Dr. Kerwin, set out to create a unique Mediterranean Estate, while dabbling in his newfound interests in wine grape horticulture. We took a special tour where we got to tour much of his home on the Estate grounds, walk through the vineyards, and get private tastings of some of their most coveted wines.

We thoroughly enjoyed the tour (despite the tastings). The home reminded us of the villas in Tuscany we had been in maybe 8 or 9 months ago. The detail in the immense home from the intricated marble floors to the frescos on the walls really made us feel we were back in Lake Como looking at Clooney’s house.

We hiked another couple miles of the PCT – the Woman just can’t get enough of that. We actually stopped in at the Callahan Lodge. Located a half mile or so from the PCT it attracts through hikers. Unlike the Camino de Santiago, there generally aren’t lodgings that are right on the PCT. However, this might be one of the closer ones, as the PCT shadows the I-5 for a bit along here.

We biked about half of the Bear Creek Greenway. The Greenway is a paved multiuse path along the Bear Creek, stretching from Ashland to Medford in Oregon. It’s a scenic route, as long as you don’t mind a little road noise from I-5. We managed to score 4 caches along our trek for the day. I also learned that despite my hip being a real problem at times when we are hiking, I can bike for tens of miles with little pain, and after the ride, I am almost pain free for quite a bit. Bonus! (This is our personal sommelier at the Belle Fiore Estate)

Talk to you soon!