Peninsula's Crooked River Herb Farm heads to that pretty town square in the sky

“Recreational shopping” – wherein we spend a Saturday afternoon aimlessly wandering small-town streets, checking out the shoppes and picking up doodads we never knew we needed until that very moment -- just isn’t what it used to be. No time, no money, and – increasingly – no shoppes have pretty much wiped it off our schedule. We thought about that last Saturday when we took a quick spin around Medina’s pretty town square, once an eminently ramble-worthy destination lined with quaint little stores and shops. Not today. The chocolate shop, the miniatures store, the teddy bear biz – all gone; and as for the few that survive, checking them out barely used up an hour – hardly worth the price of gas to get there. Now, another of our favorite Saturday destinations is gone: Crooked River Herb Farm Shop, that friendly little repository of rustic gifts and goodies that has drawn us into Peninsula for the past 14 years. ...