Bill and Devi's Wild Ride!: Hippie Watching in Ashland...

Cute book we saw while window shopping.

As we so often do, we had posted on Facebook that we were headed towards Ashland. I hadn't realized that a good, hashing friend of ours "Batt" had moved there. We met Batt in 2008 at the Bay 2 Breakers Hash weekend in San Francisco and became fast friends. We were both living in the bay area then and she is a traveling nurse. This was right before she purchased her first motorhome to live in full-time. About the time we moved to Tahoe she moved to Carson City and helped us with the South Lake Tahoe hash, we saw a lot of her up there and have great memories. I picked Batt's brain a lot when we started looking for an rv to full-time in and she gave me some great advice and we also learned from her mistakes ;) In the 2+ years we have been full-timing we have yet to meet up on the road, something we've really been wanting to do - when we were crossing the country through the south, she was north of us, when we were in Arizona, she was in Colorado, etc, etc... But when she saw our post on FB she replied that she was now living in Ashland - wow, would we actually get to meet up?! She said we should definitely stay at her rv park, Jackson Wellsprings, a hotsprings we've actually been to before but didn't realize they had parking for big rigs. Unfortunately, though, we were coming through over Labor Day when she would still be at Burning Man and she wasn't going to come back until the Wednesday after and we were leaving that Monday. Soooo close...we were bummed but we had to keep moving, I was anxious to get to the bay area to see my daughter and back up to Tahoe as well.

We checked into the park and it turns out they put us in the spot right next to Batt! I hadn't seen her new rig yet, but knew she had an Airstream and even though there were 3 other Airstreams parked in the area, I just knew that was hers (especially once we saw a few hash stickers on her stuff!). And then we saw where they had put us - let me just say OMG!! This has to be our very best rv spot to date and can't imagine that anything else could come close. It looked as if it was someone's personal site with a storage shed and murals painted all over the fenced in yard. There was a patio overhang and furniture out for lounging. At one time you could tell that someone had really taken care of the yard as there were ponds, a garden, fire pit and yummy blackberries all over the place. We immediately fell in love and knew we were going to stay longer than our intended 3 days.

Many of you may have heard our "bullshitsu" story and this is where it actually took place. When we were here last, we had come for a romantic weekend and stayed at a Bed & Breakfast while attending several of the Shakespeare Festival plays. We came over one evening to soak in the tubs at Jackson Wellsprings where Bill had camped with his daughter and a couple of hashers years before. They have a pretty good size hot tub that is clothing optional after 8pm and a large cooler swimming pool. The tub was filled with bearded old men and nubile young wenches, a few people were practicing Watsu (water massage) in the middle of the tub and we were joking around that it was really just an organized groping session. When Bill went out to the sauna I was asked by one of the old guys if I wanted a Watsu session, I declined but I think Bill and I were giggling the rest of the evening and we now always refer to Watsu as Bullshitu! Anyway, I digress...

We love the relaxed, lay back atmosphere of this place and all of Ashland. We quickly found the Ashland Co-op and the local brewery where we were also introduced to some spirits from the local distillery, in addition to my new favorite from Bend the Crater Lake Hazelnut Espresso Infused Vodka - YUMMY!

I love to garden and living full-time in an rv one doesn't get much opportunity to do that. But after pulling into our magical little spot this over-grown jewel was calling my name and one morning I woke up and it was the day - the day I would try to bring out the glory in our yard. I donned my work gloves and went through at least 4 large green leaf bags in about 6 hours before I was pooped. We had a great day just hanging out and ended it with some cocktails and appies on the deck admiring our handywork.

One morning as I was walking to soak I noticed a big blue truck in the public parking lot that was covered in playa dust and knew that someone had just arrived from Burning Man. I didn't even think it was Batt because I didn't think her truck had a cab on it and she would have parked at her site. On my way back home I did notice that it was gone and figured they had come in for a quick overnight. But then as I was starting to go into the rig I noticed a dog wandering by that looked exactly like Batt's Ramsey. I had never met him before but had seen pictures, and guess who was right behind him?! None other than our neighbor - she had come home early because she was missing her puppy!! The funny thing was that the day before we had just extended our stay to a week because we were loving Ashland AND we realized we just couldn't park right next to Batt and leave without seeing her - the bay area and Tahoe would just have to wait a few extra days...

We saw one play while we were here and it was magnificent - "All The Way", about LBJ's time in office from Kennedy's death to his reelection - a must see if in the area!! Our last night in town we went out for dinner to the "New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro". I had read about it on YELP! when we first arrived but unfortunately had forgotten some of the key points by the time we actually went - oops! Let's just say the reviews were accurate. It took us about 10 minutes to find the entrance, we arrived without a reservation, and it took them a few minutes to determine if we could have one of the 5 remaining tables in the 6 table restaurant! The decor was very cool with hammered, copper tables but their attitude stunk all night and it was probably the first time I actually resented giving a restaurant my money.

We were lucky enough to enjoy two dinners together and reminisce about our crazy times and catch up on the new ones. We fell in love with Ashland and cannot wait to go back!