(Prompts: Setting, Loath, Compatible, Play)

Summer break is ending and I am loath to return to work.  I would find it much more compatible to stay home and play, but I must return to the school setting in two short weeks.  (Done.  All prompts in those two sentences…. ta da!)

Seriously though, where did this summer go?  It was a lovely time of fun, friends and family. When I look back my trip to Ashland, at the beginning of the summer, it seems like a million years ago, yet it also seems just like  yesterday.

Ahhh… .Ashland.  I have a love affair with Ashland. The seed for it was planted at school.  Sherry and I had put together this sweet little unit around Shakespeare, culminating with a series of vignettes of famous scenes from several of his plays. Along with Roxanne, we kept saying we HAD to go to Ashland to see the Oregon Shakespeare Festival!  We finally planned it and went!

The first time was a whirlwind. We stayed with friends in their lovely home in Medford, we toured backstage, dined well, shopped a lot and, of course, saw great plays!  The next summer we went again.  This time we branched out… just like last time, we dined well , shopped a lot and saw plays, but we added wine-tasting and toured the nearby and super adorable mining town of Jacksonville.

The third time we went we decided to bathe in Jackson Well Springs…. A soupy, lukewarm spa that allows nudity after 8:00pm.   In the pool with us were several aging hippies and some of the dread-locked Earth Mammas from some sort of gathering that was going on in the nearby campground.With hushed voices we sat on those benches that a million naked butts sat on before, read the meditations posted around and contemplated life.  This was followed up with eating well, shopping a lot,  wine tasting and going to plays.

Every year looks a little different, Wellsprings one year, Jacksonville another. Our husbands came once, another couple joined us last time and this year Sherry couldn’t go, but some things don’t change.  We go shopping.  We dine well.  We see plays.  In the end, of course it is about the plays.  And not just the Oregon Shakespeare Festival plays, the Oregon Cabaret theater must not be missed.  It has fun, quirky setting with the best plays, right front and center. And while it is hard to have a favorite, they are all so different, even the venue is different from play to play, I have to say, my favorite was Hamlet last year.

It was traditional Shakespeare…. errr except for the rock band I guess.  But it was dark and brooding.  Held in the Elizabethan (outdoor) theater, even the sky was dark and brooding.  While the locals came in full Pacific Northwest gear, hats, mittens, boots, layers, even sleeping bags, we were profoundly under dressed.  It was only the blankets discarded by people who left early that saved us.  There we sat shivering under layers of blankets, the sky drizzling on us, drizzling on the stage, drizzling on the actors, watching some of the best theater I have ever seen.

Every year I wonder if I will go again. And then the new season list of plays come out, and there is always one or two I HAVE to see and the flurry of emails starts again!

Eating well: Cucina Bizza, Alchemy, Simthfield’s, Larks, Hearsay…. so many more

Post Play Pubs: Blacksheep, Oberons,

Shopping: So sad…. Red’s Threads appears to be closed, Paddington station, Earthly Goods

Wineries: RoxyAnn, Red Lilly