Sep 24: Ashland

On Friday, we idled away the day in and around Ashland, hanging out until our evening play.

The whole morning we relaxed in our cabin until the last possible minute. I was sad to leave the cabin. We ate breakfast in the cabin; I had a peach tart I bought at the farmers market the previous day. It was good like peach pie. I decided to heat it up.

After checking out, we took a brief detour to nearby Hyatt Lake, but found it was nothing special. On the way, we saw cabins by the lake, but none were as nice as ours.

We drove to town, picked up lunch at the Ashland food co-op's deli section, then headed to Lithia Park for a picnic. Lithia Park, which I've explored (and photographed) before, is a large, narrow, remarkably pretty park.

After lunch, we took a walk through a residential neighborhood, walking past pleasant houses. We then strolled around downtown proper. I reiterate my previous statement that Ashland is a traditional cute tourist town. We stopped by the post office to mail postcards. We found a shop, CD or not CD, nominally a music store, with an extensive collection of fun, funny, and funky t-shirts:

• W.W.K.D.? (what would Kirk do?)
• there are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't
• 5 out of 4 people have a problem with fractions. (there were lots of other math shirts as well.)
• a shirt about Monty Python weight-ratios between birds and coconuts
• a shirt of the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• a shirt of the holy hand grenade
• a picture of a mushroom from Super Mario Brothers that is labeled "get a life"
• a shirt that simply says "I don't care about apathy"

The shop's t-shirt catalog is online if you want to see more (or order one of those that I spotted).

We also stopped by an independent bookstore, Bloomsbury Books. I liked the books they picked to promote. We also dropped in Shakespeare Books & Antiques, a cute store with many vintage editions, some the size of almost-square index cards. Next we came across More Fun, a store of "comics for grown-ups." It was fun to browse. :)

Elsewhere, we found a special traveling exhibit on The Art of Dr. Seuss in the Thomas Lee Gallery. I liked seeing his creations up-close in large pieces, more substantial than the smaller renderings his books. Incidentally, some paintings on display were only released after his death.

During this stroll, we noticed lots of street musicians appearing in the late afternoon.

After a brief walk and sit in Lithia Park, it was time for dinner. We went to Omar's Restaurant, a dependable steak and seafood joint that I went to twice before (1, 2), once on each previous visit to Ashland. It wasn't quite as good on this visit; I'd give it a 2 or 2+ on my rating scale. Details of this visit are in the pictures, the only pictures I took this day.

After dinner, we went to our evening show: King Henry IV, Part One. I liked it, especially the elaborately choreographed fight scenes. It's both a history about high-level political (noble) infighting and a comedy. (Falstaff is fun as always.) It loosely follows the real history, though some facts are wrong such as the relative ages of the people involved. The play focuses on Prince Hal as he decides to stop carousing with lowlifes and take his rightful place as a member of respected royalty. As such, through this and other characters, the play explores what people think of or say about themselves versus how they appear to others. Similarly, the play also asks what honor is.