Hello Friends and Family!
Our anniversary was on July 25th and we've spent the last few days celebrating with a camping trip to Ashland, Oregon. It turns out there are some "epic" trails to mountain bike on ... and, fair turnaround, of course, is also spending time at the Shakespeare Festival. Sounds like a fair trade to me! Right now, Chuck is biking down Mt. Ashland and I'm enjoying a cold drink (did I mention we picked the weekend with record-breaking heat!?)
Here's how our days have gone ...
Thursday, July 23: We got up (no alarms) and packed the car for our trip. We left about 10:30 and arrived in Oregon about 3:30ish. Kind of a boring drive ... but we did go through Chico, which I always love to see again! We also drove through Weed. I only mention it, because I just finished teaching "Of Mice and Men" and Weed is mentioned throughout the book. What an English geek. We also passed a place called "Montague" ... since it's one of the family names in "Romeo and Juliet" I thought it fitting en route to the Shakespeare Festival! Ha! I am a geek.
We're staying at the Glenyan RV campground. It's sometimes hard to tell what you're going to get when you see things on the internet, but it's a great place to stay. Our camp site is a pretty good size and there are all the amenities, too. We've really enjoyed it! Turns out our neighbors in the next campsite over are from Placerville (she is a high school English teacher) and the people next to them were from Meadow Vista. We all had a good laugh about that!
Friday, July 24: We tested out the bike trails and did about a four mile bike ride through Ashland together. It would have been longer, but the trails paralleled the road and it was extremely boring. We did four miles, and I was pretty happy with that!! There is a paved bike trail all the way from Ashland to Medford, but it's not nearly the scenic trails we were hoping for. No worries. Back to camp for resting and pool time. We had an early dinner and then headed downtown for our play. OH! Before our play we also found out that Chuck passed his CTEL exam. No need to bore you with the details of the test, but it was hard and necessary for him to keep his credential up-to-date. Anyway, he passed and we were very happy!
Our play, "Much Ado About Nothing" started at 8:30 p.m. and was fantastic! Hilarious, actually! They changed the setting of the play to WWII and it took place in Italy ... obviously not the setting Shakespeare had created, but still enjoyable!
Saturday, July 25: Our anniversary! It was a late night (the play got out about 11 p.m.) so we were looking forward to sleeping in. Turns out the blue jays had a different plan and started their very annoying squawking about 5:30. Sigh. If it's not the kids, it's the birds! Ha! We packed up and headed out to see Crater Lake. It was about a two hour drive, but absolutely stunning! The pictures do not do the view justice. Seriously, one of the more breath-taking things I've seen. There was a certain feeling in insignificance when I saw it. It was formed by a volcano and you start to realize just how small we really are compared to the great power and force of nature. We also stopped on our way back to see the Rogue River Gorge. What amazing site. There is enough water running through the Gorge to fill an Olympic size swimming pool every minute! The sound of the river and site of it all was amazing! I feel like I keep repeating the word "amazing" but truly that's what it was!
We had grand plans for going out to dinner, but we decided to take it easy and stay at the campsite. So, our anniversary dinner was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in between several games of Yahtzee, 10,000 and Phase 10. We had a great time!
Sunday, July 26: Chuck decided to take a mountain bike ride and test out the "epicness" he'd heard so much about. This morning I did a backstage tour of the theaters and really enjoyed it!
While reading the Play Bill on Friday night, they have listed out the plays for next season and at the very top is "Pride and Prejudice." I know it's not Shakespeare, but they usually put on 9 plays every season, so they stray outside of the Bard, too! It will also be the 75th anniversary of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival so they are doing the two plays from the very first season ... "The Merchant of Venice" and "Twelfth Night." There will be a mountain bike race in Ashland in June and I'm planning to see all three plays! Well, at least I'd like to see all three. We'll see how it goes. ;)
Chuck should be back from his ride soon ... and I have the car keys! I'm going to sign off with the promise of attaching pictures when we get back. I hope this finds everyone doing well. I can't believe it's been a year already, and yet it feels like it should be about 10!
Life is good.
Much love,
--M
