Vacation Time

At this time of the year, I have lots of opportunity to interact with visitors to my community on Lopez Island, WA.  Many of them are on vacation, and our local economy relies heavily on them. Those of us who live here year-round aren’t on vacation, and for most of us, this is the busiest, least vacation-like time of the year.  This week, my husband and I took some time off, though, to visit our daughter in California.  Here’s a glimpse of our visit; since I’m on vacation, I’ll let the photos tell the story.

Our daughter works for Belcampo, a farm-to-fork organic meat production company. She spends most of her time at the company’s headquarters in Oakland, but during our visit we were to stop in at the farm near Mt. Shasta. 

We flew into Medford, OR and were delighted to be greeted with this mural by Betty LaDuke. 

The explanation of the project reminds me of what we hope to accomplish with BOUNTY - Lopez Island Farmers, Food, and Community.

Belcampo’s commitment to act as good stewards of the land is the foundation of all of their operations. We were happy to see this sign where cattle, sheep, and goats were grazing.

They seemed pretty happy about it, too.










We were able to do a bit of sightseeing on the weekend, starting with a performance of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Festival in Ashland, OR has been on my list for a long time, and I wasn’t disappointed - that one show whetted my appetite, and I hope we can take in more next year.

Did I mention that my daughter is a fantastic
cook?  She treated us to delicious meals, including hearty breakfasts like this one before we set off on a hike.

Fires in the area blocked views of Mt. Shasta most of the days of our visit, but the skies cleared a bit for our hike up from Castle Lake (that’s Mt. Shasta in the distance - at 14,179 feet it’s the second highest peak - after Rainier - in the Cascade Range). Don’t think I’ll be trying to reach that summit; this viewpoint was reward enough.

We head home tomorrow, returning to another beautiful spot and carrying that feeling of Vacation Time in my suitcase.