On a chilly day in February 1994, the valley’s first and only retail store devoted entirely to outfitting travelers, Travel Essentials (now at 252 E. Main in Ashland) opened without fanfare—no press release, no balloons, no Grand Opening banner, and no employees other than its youthful owners, Bob and Nancy Bestor.

When local author and RVTV cooking host Kumud Gokani moved to Ashland from India twenty years ago, little did she know that most of her family would follow. In 2007 her granddaughter Sachta decided to attend school at SOU, then her other granddaughter Sohana soon followed. Sachta met Andy Card at SOU while they were both in a Master’s program.

In August 2018, the newest cannabis shop to open in Ashland was Kaleafa Cannabis Company (1253 Siskiyou, next to Case Coffee), but its roots go back a lot further than that. The company began as a small storefront in the Woodstock neighborhood of Portland and was one of the pioneers in the medical marijuana movement in that city.

It’s been a long and winding road for the owners of El Tapatio, a Mexican restaurant located at 1633 Highway 99 (next to Butler Ford and above Ashland Motors). When they opened in a small funky building at the juncture of Highway 99 and Valley View Road in 1992, they were one of the first Mexican restaurants in the valley.

It seems like only yesterday that I was a youngster having my first margarita at La Casa del Pueblo (1209 Siskiyou Boulevard across from the college) but amazingly twenty years have gone by. When I stopped by last week for a photo op, none of the original staff (Salvador, Lupe, Ramon and Victor) seemed to have aged at all.