Ashland

After several years of weekend excursions in May to watch D play Ultimate, M has found that a long travel weekend in May is a fitting complement to her birthday. And who am I to argue. She did all the footwork and the bargain hunting. She got us cheap flights to Medford, an Impreza, and three nights at a hotel in downtown Ashland. We flew down early Thursday evening and flew home Sunday afternoon.

Ashland is an upscale town - with a college, a major Shakespeare venue, an up and coming outdoor recreation scene, and plenty of nice restaurants and galleries and coffee shops. Which makes it a bit of a contrast to much of the rest of this corner of Oregon. It's on I-5, or at least very close to it, and I suspect the next time we drive through on the way between Seattle and San Francisco, we'll detour through town.

We saw two plays, neither of them Shakespeare. Although Shakespeare in Love is about the guy and benefits from familiarity with his plays - Romeo and Juliet, in particular. Hannah and the Dread Gazebo was definitely not Shakespeare, but a really nicely done story of both Koreas, of confused ethnic identities, of immigration and language, and the discovery of family baggage. It was also a really neat example of how a potentially depressing plot line can be made very funny, yet remain meaningful.

As always, the trip involved food. Breakfasts at Morning Glory, Greenleaf, and Brother's. Dinner at Hearsay and Amuse. All were very good, some were better (Morning Glory and Hearsay). The healthy part is that we can usually skip lunch. The less healthy part is that we often need a snack by mid-afternoon. M discovered the lemon meringue tart thing at Mix Bakeshop. I tried several coffee places, but both the coffee and the coffee house were best at Noble Coffee Roasters in the Railroad District.

We spent a couple of hours walking through Lithia Park (another post) and an hour driving up into the hills to the east on Dead Indian Memorial Road.