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March 14, 2008

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

We left Saturday for Bainbridge Island to spend the night with some steamboat friends, Tom and Marge Kane. Our plans were to get to their house by early afternoon and take the ferry together to Seattle for the NWSS annual dinner. It takes about 5 hours to get to their place and Dave used our new GPS system in our car to direct us to their place. Unfortunately, he didn't have the exact address to input and after driving around in circles he finally asked a lady who was walking her dog for directions. We were really off the beaten path and we finally arrived at their place. They live right on the shoreline and the ferries are constantly traveling back and forth which is quite a different scene than what we are used to looking out on our little Nehalem Bay.

The dinner was grand and we had a nice time visiting with different members. We just missed the ferry back to Bainbridge Island and had to wait about 50 minutes for the next one so we were really late getting to bed. I don't think I could ever get used to waiting for a ferry. On Sunday, after breakfast we headed south for the five-hour trip back home to get ready for our next adventure to Ashland on Tuesday.

Instead of heading south toward Ashland, Tuesday afternoon we detoured to Hillsboro as Dave had rescheduled a much-needed haircut. Then we started south and on our way through Salem we met Leslie and her girls for dinner at Red Robin. The girls were all excited about leaving on their trip to Disneyland on Thursday. Their dad is down in LA taking a police course all week and they are all meeting on Friday to spend a couple of days at Disneyland. Leslie is taking her mother-in-law along with her to help with the kids. They are coming back early on Sunday so they will really be tired by the time the weekend is over. Leslie called while we were in Ashland to say that the girls had excellent reports from her parent-teacher conferences so that made it easy to treat them to Disneyland.

We spent Tuesday night in Cottage Grove, which is about halfway to Ashland and we stayed at the Holiday Inn. Dave always takes care of making reservations and had reserved a king-size bed for the night. However, when we checked in, they didn't have any more king-size beds because they had overbooked and Dave overheard the desk clerk on the phone saying they had given the last king-size bed to a "walk-in". So much for making reservations ahead of time! Besides, the desk clerk had a real attitude and I don't think we will be staying at the Holiday Inn anymore. Too bad too, because we've stayed there for years, and have always enjoyed it in the past.

We finally made it to Ashland where gas is $3.50 a gallon. We had filled up in Hillsboro for $3.30 at Costco. Anyway, we got into our hotel and readied ourselves for the first play that afternoon. We saw one of my favorites of Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream". I think I have seen this play about 4 times and each time it is directed differently. This time the play was set in a 50's disco-type setting. Midsummer Night's Dream is kind of a whimsical play with fairies and magic and the guys that played the parts of the fairies didn't have to do a lot of acting, if you know what I mean. When you see guys wearing tutus and 3-inch boots dancing it is quite entertaining in itself. It sounds like it was kind of weird, but it was really well done. The other plays we saw were the "Clay Cart" which was an epic Indian social comedy with a lot of Hindu mythology in it, (I wouldn't recommend it); the play "Fences" by August Wilson was kind of heavy but well done. It was about the 1950s change and hope for the African Americans, both within society and within the family. (I would highly recommend this); and the last play we saw was "Welcome Home Jenny Sutter" which was about a young female Marine coming home from Iraq and her adjustment back into society. (It was okay).

On Thursday, we drove back home from Ashland and I feel that I have been on the road traveling so many miles this week that I have "lived" in the car. As always, it feels good to empty the suitcase and be back home again. We took the camera with us on our trip but didn't manage to take any pictures! So there are no pictures this week.

Today, I will get caught up on housework and such as we have to go back into Portland for a Blazer game on Saturday night.