Girlfriend Field Trip! Relax…Refresh…RoadTrip!

Mt. Shasta Lavender Farm and Living Memorial Sculpture Garden

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A good friend posted on Facebook that she and another friend were going to the Mt Shasta Lavender Farm the following Wednesday and anyone who wanted to join them was welcome!  I was free that day so decided to come along.  It was a fun day and reminded me that there are interesting things to see in our own regions and sometimes we just need a good ol’ fashioned field trip!!

The Mt. Shasta Lavender Farm is located outside of Montague, CA about an hour and a half drive from Medford, Oregon where we all live.  There were four of us, so we piled into one car but not before enjoying some homemade lavender scones made by good friend Janice Cox of Natural Beauty at Home.  For Sweet Lavender Scone Recipe click here

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The Mt. Shasta Lavender Farm is in a beautiful setting with spectacular views of Mt. Shasta!

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There is a stylish building that definitely reminded me of being in Provence which houses a small boutique where they sell all kinds of lavender goods and free cups of lavender lemonade – delicious!

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There is a section that is French lavender and one that is English lavender.  They provide nice baskets and scissors for you to collect the lavender.

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In the middle is a lavender labyrinth which is nice to walk through and meditate or pray.

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There are nice tables and chairs with an arbor or umbrellas, a nice place to eat if you bring a picnic lunch.

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Also suggest bringing a hat and sunscreen as it can get quite hot and there is no shade in the fields.

Another friend had mentioned that since we were going out that way we should stop at the Living Memorial Sculpture Garden in Weed, CA.  It was just a 10-15 minute drive from the Lavender Farm.

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The sculpture garden was founded by veterans in 1988 to pay tribute to those who have sacrificed their lives in war.  The sculpture garden has 11 beautiful and thought provoking sculptures made by artist Dennis Smith.  They are spread out around a forest of trees planted by hundreds of volunteers.

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We had not brought a picnic lunch to eat at the Lavender Farm so by this time we were starving.  We were close to Weed, CA and had heard that the Hi-Lo Cafe was good place to get a bite to eat so we stopped there for a late lunch.  We absolutely loved the retro sign and vintage decor inside.

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It was a large menu with choices from breakfast all-day to hamburgers, salads, fried chicken and more.  Our waitress was extremely nice and friendly and made our molten volcano dessert extra special for us!

998056_10201575224488860_1814686192_nAll of us have lived in the Rogue Valley for almost 20 years and had never been to these great gems just a 1.5 hour drive away!  Loving the Girlfriend Fieldtrips – Relax, Refresh, Roadtrip!!

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6 responses to “Siem Reap, Cambodia and Angkor Wat 2008”

  1. Eleanor Hoague says:

    This was one of the most useful reports that I have read. Very, very helpful Thank you

  2. Mike Medina says:

    Hi… I found the account of your travel experiances in SE Asia very interesting and informative. Just having returned from a 5 week trip myself I was wondering what your overall opinion of the region is in regards to tourist. Personally I felt that Thailand Bangkok and Chaing Mai specifically were not foreigner friendly. I was subjected to numerous scams, acts of trickery, price gouging, and repeated attempts to seperate me from my money while in Thailand. Overall I would say that my experiance was that a majority of the Thai people looked at me as a walking ATM machine and it was a real turnoff.

    My opinion of Vietnam was quite the opposite as I found the people to be much more helpful and much less money hungry.

    My Cambodian experiance was even better than my Vietnamese portion of the trip. The people seem genuinely happy to have you in their country and very proud of their history (past not recent). But even where their recent history is concerned, the way the killing fields memorial was presented with such reverence and spirituality that it turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip, not morbid at all as I had feared.

    I am planning a rtw trip starting in August 2013,and I will definey spend a month or two in Cambodia.As for Thailand, well I think a one day layover or flight transfer is about all the time I would ever want to spend there!

    • Judy Gambee says:

      Mike – It sounds like you had an amazing trip! I have to agree with you that we preferred both Cambodia and Vietnam to Thailand, though not entirely for the same reasons. We did not get haggled too much, but did have a situation in both Bangkok and Hanoi where a taxi or tuk tuk driver tried to take advantage of us. Overall, we just didn’t care much for Bangkok but really loved Saigon and enjoyed the craziness of Hanoi. I agree that the Cambodian people were very proud of their history and really appreciated that we were there. We felt the same about the Vietnamese, and appreciated their willingness to discuss the war. I think they are more willing to move on from it then some Americans are!!

      Good luck on your rtw trip in August – sounds fabulous!!

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  4. Jacelyn says:

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