“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. …
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2008.
Before Christmas we discovered the same thing. However, we went to the herb (and Christmas tree) farm on Riverview Rd (just south of town) where a small shop—AND GEORGE BAILEY—made it a still wonderful day out. All the goodies were displayed for tasting and sale. Hope that still exists….