Jaspers - Medford

We decided to kick off Spring Break this past weekend by visiting Medford. Our friends, the Burrs, will be doing their rotations in Medford come June. We volunteered my parents and their house for the weekend to help give them a tour. Of course we went along, even though it wasn't quite pool weather yet.

On Saturday, I visited my brother Sam at Guitar Center to get the skinny on buying an electric keyboard. While we were there, Sam recommended Jasper's Cafe for us to try, saying he thought it was the best burger in Medford. Coming from Sam, I didn't even have to question the validity of that statement. We went straight to Jasper's!

To prove Sam's point, Jasper's sign read "Gourmet Burgers with Attitude" with a banner citing how they were voted Best Burger for the last three years in the Medford area. Jasper's is a little white shack on the side of a main road, with a very small indoor dining area. Luckily for us it was a beautiful, spring day in Medford and eating outside was a pleasure!

My dad, Scott and I walked into this shack to place our order and were greated by a full house and chalkboards displaying all the menu options. March Madness was the burger of the month. While we were waiting in line, a waiter (I'm assuming manager?) came through to take orders from those in line to help guests get through a  little faster. He asked if we were ready, and my dad mentioned that we needed some time since it was our first visit to Jaspers. "Oh! Wow. Well, don't worry," the waiter said, "I wont tell anyone." Then he turned around and yelled, "Hey everyone!" You should have seen the look on my dad's face. No real announcement was made, but we now had the attention and laughter of all the patrons.

We each ordered a different burger and a side of sweet potato fries. Another confirmation that we were in for a great lunch - the girl at the register asked if we wanted ranch or fry sauce with our order. She didn't even blink when I said both! Burgers eaten that day - Avocado burger, Western Burger, Pittsburger. All declisioso!

If you are in the Medford, Oregon area and haven't eaten at Jaspers, then you haven't lived a full life.

Our New Neighbors

My parents came to visit a couple weekends ago. Just for fun. Have I mentioned that I love that my parents live in the lower 48?!

After we returned from a Lebanon adventure my dad looked out our window, "Look at your new neighbors! When did they move in?"

My dad's only real hobby before moving out of Alaska was whale watching from the comfort of the living room couch. It doesn't surprise me then that he was the first to spot our sheep friends. Actually, Scott had seen them two days prior but failed to mention them to me, and I guess I was too busy keeping a schedule to look out the window and smell the sheep.

That's changed! We are tracking the sheep now. They wander in pattern around our vast backyard pasture each day - starting each morning in view from our back porch, moving then toward the tree parimeter, grazing over near the Lowes distribution center in the afternoon, and settling back behind our building at night.

I was telling some kids at church that we were tracking the sheep and they asked me if I had name them. NAME THEM? It looks like there are more than 50 out there. I can't even tell the difference! The only thing I know about these sheep is that they look much dirtier than the cartoon ones you see in Easter marketing. I may have enough time in the day to figure out which one is the smallest though!