Ashland, Aug 24, 2018

Nathan, George and I headed off to Ashland to go see 2 plays: Oklahoma and Book of Will.  We left at 8 am.  Rebecca stayed home to pet sit. We stopped in Roseburg for lunch.

The Indian food buffet was OK but not any place we would go back to.  But it hit the spot at the time.

We stopped at the Wolf Creek Park to walk around.  We thought we could find a walking trail.   But this was more of a camp ground park.  It was pretty.  This goose followed us around.

We also saw some deer and a cute kitty.  

It was very smoky

We arrived at the Flagship Inn around 3 pm.  Got checked in and settled.  Then we drove to the Lithia Park

Very pretty

Nathan tried the Lithia water.  

This is what he was drinking.  Ugh.

We moved the car to a spot closer to the theater.  We wandered through town.

We went wine tasting

This was our favorite wine here. It was a pear cider\pinot gris mix.  Very light and refreshing.

An interesting sculpture.  Note the key hanging from a finger in the bottom left.

key and a quarter.

We popped into several art galleries.  Nathan would have bought this felted uni-fox if it had not been $1500. It sure was cute.

Another wine tasting.  This place is part owned by Sally Walker's cousin.  He was not in, but we wine tasted anyway.

Then it was dinner time.

Nathan had the whisky sour and I had a margarita

whisky sour

We ate outside by the creek.

Nathan ordered the traditional English meal with a vegetarian shepherd's pie.  George and I each had a sandwich.  Mine was a bacon, apple and cheese sandwich.  Quite tasty.

It was time to head up to the Angus Bowmer Theater to see Oklahoma.  No photography allowed.  What a fabulous show.  Great singers.  Fun to hear the familiar tunes but with a whole new twist.  Full of gay and lesbian relationships.  They brought it up to date.  I highly recommend it.  What a treat.  

(New York Times reports the new play is the brainchild of a gay man named Bill Rauch who first gave the idea life at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2016, where he is the artistic director.  In this Oregon "Oklahoma!," the central couple Curley and Laurey are two women.  And the secondary romance is between two male characters Will Parker and Ado Andy, which was changed from the original Ado Annie)

It was 11:30 pm by the time we got back to the motel.  Fun day.

Sunday and home

I guess we partied well

Me, Barbara, Sharon, Olivia & Kris in front of the house.  Too bad that I could not fit the house number into the picture.

We had breakfast and relaxed a bit then we talked about plans for going home.  We had to be out of the house by 11 am and  there was a lot to do.  So we packed up and left - it was  a little before 11 am.  We stopped at the Java Depot first.  It is a fun little coffee shop and culinary odds & ends store.  We looked around a bit and then got our coffees to go. Next stop, Barnacle Bill's to get shrimp to take home.

This is also where we got the shrimp for dinner last night.

Then we went to the outlet store.  There were a few things people wanted to get.

We went to the Lawrence Gallery in McMinneville.  It is going to be closing the end of August, so I am glad that we had a chance to go there.  

Kris was talking to the owner, who is retiring.  

We went into McMinneville for lunch.  We ate at  1882 Grill. What a fun place.  We had not eaten there  before.  It has been open for 3 years.  It was after 2 pm when we got out food.

front of Barbara & Sharon

Front of Olivia & Kris

We ordered wine and pizza.  The one on the right was a peach padron pepper pizza.  It was delicious.  I have never had peaches on a pizza before.

The last piece we had to try to divide evenly so that we could all share.

Olivia and Barbara headed home.  Kris, Sharon and I had thought of several wineries to go to.  We called Bells Up winery because you can only go there with an appointment.  No luck, they were booked all afternoon.  Next thought was Vidon.  We thought we would go to Raindance after that.  

We go to Vidon at 3:45 pm, they close at 4 pm.  We asked if it was too late to do a tasting.  They said to come on in.  They were busy with 2 big purchasing groups and they obviously had no time for us.  There were 6 wines in a flight.  We had tasted 2 and had liked them both.  It was a struggle but we finally got the 3rd tasting.  They really totally ignored us.  I was curious about them with their NASA Connection. But we never got to find out the story. At 4:15 we finally just walked out. I have never done  that before, but then I have never been totally ignored at a wine tasting place before.  They should have just told us up front that it was too late for a tasting.  It was a pretty place.

Because of the waiting we decided to not go to another place and to just head home.  We got to Sharon's place.  She had not brought her keys with her, thinking that people would be at home  when she got there.  But they were all out helping Matt to move out of his apartment.  So we went to Kris' and had a glass of wine while we waited for Glenn to come with Sharon's keys.  

We finished our wines and I took Sharon back to her place before heading home.  All in all a very relaxed fun weekend.