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Oregon Bound

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Patricia

We rarely leave the house early when we take road trips. Friends and neighbors leave at 4 a.m., 5 a.m., 6 at the latest. Not us. We like to travel on full stomachs and give ourselves plenty of opportunity before we lock the door to remember that one important item we meant to pack but forgot. It also gives me a chance to throw four or five more articles of clothing into the car which I will never wear, but which seemed utterly crucial at the time.

So, we plan our road trips around late departures. This means that in order to arrive in Ashland on a Tuesday for a 2 p.m. performance, we have to leave the Bay Area on Monday some time after lunch. Which is what we did today! And that put us in Mt. Shasta, our Monday night stop, right about dinner time.

We’re staying at the Mt. Shasta Resort, on the shores of Lake Siskiyou. It’s lovely here. All woodsy and piney around our “chalet”.

In the morning we should have time for a hike along the lake shore before we scurry up into Oregon.
We’ve been listening to A Feast for Crows all the way, but we do have a dilemma. It takes 35 hours to listen to this novel. If we want to finish it on this trip, we’re going to have to drive right past Ashland to, oh, somewhere near Whistler, Canada. It should be nice there this time of year, and I hear there’s a new highway……

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Beginnings

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Patricia

Welcome to the Bracewell Travel Blog. Up first: The Shakespeare Festival at Ashland, Oregon.
The Festival was instituted in 1935, but I have only been attending since some time in the 1990’s. Things in Ashland have changed over the years, of course. Even in the twenty or so years (lord! That long?) that I have been attending performances there: new theatres built, old ones closed, hotels, restaurants and boutiques have come and gone. One change distressed me. Once, there was a room in the Festival Museum where you could play dress-up with costumes from previous years, resulting in photos like this:

Or like this:

Or like this:

Alas, no longer. That room is gone, although I don’t know why. (Wouldn’t you just kill for that russet cape??)

But, the play’s the thing, right? On my first trips I spent the day in the shops in town, or exploring the neighborhoods and Lithia Park, or driving up to Jacksonville (terrific graveyard). Nights were reserved for dinner and the theater – not always the Shakespeare Festival, but sometimes the little Cabaret Theatre on First St. I limited myself to one play per day. This year, though, it’s two plays a day, rain or shine.

2011 Theatre Schedule:
Willful…August: Osage County…Measure for Measure… Love’s Labor’s Lost… Julius Caesar… Henry IV, Part Two.

Check back here for reviews and for more about Ashland.

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