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September 4, 2009

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

I am writing this post in the hotel room in Ashland where we are seeing the plays at the Shakespeare Festival one last time.

But to back up a little, we left on Sunday to attend our granddaughter, Ashtin's 10th birthday party. Her birthday was actually Saturday, but she was partying all weekend. She had a sleepover on Friday night, a bowling birthday party with friends on Saturday and then the family function on Sunday. There was quite a bunch there with family from both sides. After the party, everyone gleaned Leslie's garden and left. But we spent the night so we could continue on south the next afternoon.

The next morning after Leslie and Jay left for work, we took the girls to the State Fair in Salem. We saw all the pigs, sheep, cows and poultry we wanted to see and then we hit the rides. While Dave entertained them with all the fun stuff, I headed out on my own to view the arts and crafts and the gardens that were on display. We met up a while later and treated them to hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream. We headed back to the house later that afternoon and waited for Leslie to get home from work before we headed south for Roseburg where we were going to spend our first night.

While in Ashland, we saw several great plays. We started out with "Paradise Lost" and that evening, "Don Quixote". We enjoyed them very much, especially the various props in Don Quixote. Quixote's horse and all the farm animals that were part of the play were like puppets and really added to the effect.

The next day, we did the usual browsing in the various stores around town and eating in some of our favorite restaurants. Then we watched "All's Well That Ends Well" later that afternoon and "Much Ado About Nothing" that evening. We ended our stay with "Equivocation" and "Henry VIII". Since this is the last season that we will be coming to Ashland, we tried to fit in everything for the last time. We have had really great seats, except for "Paradise Lost" where we were seated on the side and in the front row and most of the action was on the other side of the stage where a large table was obstructing our view. In "Much Ado About Nothing" we were in the front row center and just about got drenched in one scene when one of the actors jumped into a fountain and splashed water on us! Our room at the Columbia Hotel was even different. We usually stay in one of two other rooms in the back but since they were all ready filled, this time we had to settle for a room up front where there is a lot of street noise. Oh well, just more to remember Ashland by. Our weather has been great during our stay and even in the evenings in the outdoor theater we didn't need a jacket.

About our decision to quit making out bi-annual trips to Ashland. The theater here is great - in fact it's some of the best in the country. But we decided that after 25 years, we had pretty much experienced just about everything here and thought we might as well try something new. The whole experience is getting a lot more expensive and our income seems to be going in the other direction, so it just seemed like the right time to move on. I'm glad we didn't wait until now to decide, because today, it would be hard to make the decision we did. We really do enjoy our time here and we will miss this. I can see us making the occasional trip down here to see a play...just not the marathons we have been doing for the past 25 years.

We also celebrated Dave's birthday while in Ashland. After a huge breakfast we walked the loop through Lithia Park to wear some of it off. It was a beautiful morning for a hike, and it was nice and cool in the shade of the creek trail. Dave had opened gifts from the girls over the weekend where they had gotten him a couple of nice sports shirts and some new jeans, all of which he really needed. He had to wait for my present on his birthday, which was a book that he had wanted from a local writer back in Wheeler.

Friday we will leave for Bend to visit our friends George and Margie, making stops on the way at Harry & David's, the Rogue Valley Creamery and our annual visit with steamboat friends in Eagle Point. We will drive through Crater Lake Park on our way to Bend. We'll spend the night in Bend and then leave on Saturday for the 5-hour drive home. We want to get back because Lara and her family are at our place for Labor Day weekend.