On The Way To Ashland OR

We take off from Billings at 6:00am Thursday for Seattle. That means you don't get a decent night's sleep as you must set your alarm for 4:00am. Some old people like to sleep in. It's a little crowded at the Horizon/Alaska gates at SeaTac.

Arriving at 7:20am where we wait in the terminal, walking, reading, drowsing and eating 'til 1:40pm. They have a surprising amount of retail activity going on here, almost as much as Rimrock Mall, including some excellent restaurants. Both of us have an omelette with smoked salmon: very tasty.

We get in to the new Medford OR (MFR) terminal around 3:00pm. I guess they don't believe in Central Standard Time or maybe it is Chicago they fail to acknowledge.

We shop for essentials at Harry and David's retail store on the edge of Medford OR: taste some wine from the new wineries opening every day it seems in the Rogue Valley and try their snacks: very tasty.

We have a brunch with the Mazzucas at our favorite breakfast place on Main St, just across the street from the Plaza Inn. See below. Excellent as usual. I think we have persuaded Nic and Zac that this is the place for breakfast and lunch. Many of the company at OSF think so too.

As you can see, early April is early Spring in the Rogue Valley, at least in Ashland there are many flowering trees and bushes and the grass is always green.

We take in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by W. Shakespeare, done in modern dress. We were saddened by the death of J. Caesar in this production, in contrast to most others that I have seen. That lady in the strange hat and gigantic green bag stage right is our oldest but still serviceable daughter Margaret, aka Peg.

We took the kids to a funfair where they rode Go-Karts on the edge of Central Point (see an earlier entry on blue cheese) when lo and behold we ran into some people who were intent on practically giving away some giant recreational vehicles such as the above.

We even went for a ride. More on this part of the adventure at a later time.

To keep Carol happy we went to her favorite store, where else but Paddington Station, guarded by the faithful Paddington Bear, see above.

There are lots of new places and people in Ashland since our last visit there, including this quiet Noble Coffee Shop & Roasting Establishment in the Railroad District. New friends include Mick and Anjie Reynolds, see below. They are not tourists, but entertain them regularly.

All in all, a great time was had by all. We plan on going back in the Fall, perhaps when the Traditional Jazz Festival is taking place in nearby Medford OR, usually the first weekend in October. There must be some items that my failing memory has forgotten.

And The Winner Is Standing Stone Brewing Company, Ashland OR

This is our favorite restaurant and micro-brewery in Ashland OR. They do well with large groups including young children. They do well with old and young couples. They have a nice outdoor area as well as a large indoor area. They brew some good beer in a variety of tastes. Their hamburgers are extra-special, especially the Black and Blue Burger which features the famous Crater Lake Blue Cheese together with some splendid thick bacon. They have pizzas, fish and chips plus a number of fancy things. Their clam chowder is adequate. And they are close enough to walk to the theatres and our favorite hotel, the Plaza Inn. And their prices are reasonable too. Have a look at their menu and some nice pictures on their website.

Ashland Oregon

These are a few of my favorite things in the Ashland area, in the mountains of southern Oregon, just 14 miles north of the border with California. The town is a small university town whose main industry is serving visitors to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which has been going on since 1935. Apparently it has only begun to assume major regional status in the last 15 or 20 years or so. Many Californians, especially from the Bay area come up here for retirement, escaping the crowded highways and taxes of California. And by selling their chicken-coop houses in the Bay area for 1-2 million and buying much nicer places in Oregon for perhaps a tenth of that amount and living on the rest.

There are lots of flowers in the springtime, and they allow tours backstage almost every day. This is really fun as they usually have one of the resident players show you around.

We started coming here some time in the middle to late 90s. Our first time was on an Elderhostel which we went on to see if we liked it because we had in mind to go to New Zealand and Australia with the same outfit. It was a marvelous week with lectures in the morning and early afternoon and plays in the evening. They usually managed to get one of the players from the show the night before to come and talk to us the next morning. They and we were fairly passionate about the theatre so it made for some good interchanges between players and audience. The latter, of course, is an essential part of the theatre. For some reason the food was extremely good for a college campus. The only drawback was that we stayed in college dorms so we had fairly Spartan single beds and shared bathrooms. It did, however, satisfy an ancient fantasy that we probably all had in the 50s of getting our girl friends or boy friends into our dorm room and running around the room naked.



Ashland is about 15 miles east of Medford, both on the I5. The latter is an agricultural center for the region. More and more grapes are being grown in this area.



There are a surprising number of good restaurants in this town of 20,000 or so.



They usually have an outdoor show in the summer before the main show(s).