In 2007, a group of us from our church went out to Ashland, Oregon to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Greta, the wife of our head pastor at the time, was an actress and in two of the plays out there that year. She has since been in numerous productions in the Minneapolis/St Paul area mainly at the Penumbra and Guthrie Theatres. I just recently saw her in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” at the Guthrie.
There were about eight of us who flew from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City and then to Medford, Oregon. One of our group had flown out a day earlier, rented a car, and came to pick up about half the group. Another group member picked up a rental car at the airport and drove the remainder of the group into Ashland.
The hotel had been built in 1914 and was quite quaint with bathrooms down the hall and old furniture in the rooms. It had character. My roommate, Nancy, and I had a larger room with a lounge area, a dining table and chairs, and a small kitchen with a tiny fridge. I was at the tail end of six months of pumping chemicals into my body after having been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and having had some surgery to combat it. The intravenous liquid needed to be refrigerated. I had carried it onboard both planes in a cooler compartment at one end of my carry-on.
After having a very nice dinner at a nearby restaurant, the rest of the group went to a concert in the park. But my energy was very low, so I stayed back at the hotel, read a little bit and went to bed. I was definitely too ill to have gone. But I was there and determined to try not to be a party pooper for the whole trip.
We started the next day with a backstage tour of the three theatres. Two are indoor theatres and the third is an Elizabethan-style outdoor theatre. Normally a quick walker despite my short height, this time I was struggling somewhat unsuccessfully to keep up. After the tour, we met up with Greta near one of the theatres and all went out to Crater Lake together.
Wow! Crater Lake! Absolutely gorgeous! After lunch at the lodge, we drove the Rim Road slowly around the lake, stopping several times along the way for photos. The lake was formed by the caldera of a volcano roughly 7,000 or so years ago and is the deepest lake in the U.S. The water is very clear and very blue. It is also up in the mountains and can have snow for most of the year. The mountains around it usually do. We were there in July and needed warm jackets up by the lake.
We timed our trip so we would get Greta back in town with plenty of time for her to have dinner and relax before her performance that evening. She was in “Gem of the Ocean” by August Wilson. Greta was playing Aunt Ester who claimed to be 285 years old and was a soul cleanser. By the end of the play, I wasn’t really doubting any of that.
The next day was Greta’s day off. So we all went down into California to Crescent City and then up the coast to Brookings, Oregon, which was having their annual kite festival that weekend. We had lunch in a restaurant that overlooked the ocean and then headed back down the coast into California to see the Redwoods. We stopped at a place that had cable car rides up through the trees. So far, that is the only trip I have ever taken where I was able to get up close and personal with those enormous redwoods.
On Sunday, Greta took us to the church she was attending while out in Oregon. They had a lovely outdoor service in a beautiful setting. For our afternoon excursion, we chose to visit the town of Jacksonville, Oregon. The entire historic district is on the National Historic Register as an authentic western town. We took a trolley tour around the town, which included some interesting, and often funny, commentary.
We got back to town in time to have a nice, leisurely dinner at a seafood restaurant before seeing Greta in “The Tempest” at the outdoor Elizabethan Theatre. We were fortunate to have wonderful weather all day and evening. Since the only female character Shakespeare wrote for the play is Miranda, Greta played a role usually played by men. Since she had the very complicated lead role in “Gem of the Ocean”, she was cast in a less demanding role in “The Tempest”. The woman has talent and did a beautiful job in both roles (and indeed in every role I have ever seen her).
The next day we traveled back towards Minneapolis. I say “towards” because we didn’t quite make it. Our flight from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis was delayed, and then canceled. Then we were supposed to go on another plane, which was eventually canceled (after a lot of fooling around – we’ll be going in an hour – we’re delayed for another two hours – etcetera). Finally, after 11 pm, we were told that we wouldn’t be going anywhere that night, got booked on other flights for the following day, and given taxi, hotel and dinner vouchers.
Dinner vouchers only work when there is someplace open to use them. We didn’t reach our hotel until past midnight and it was in the middle of nowhere, so no dinner for us. The taxi was getting us the next morning at 5am, so not much time to sleep either. I was relieved that the hotel room had a fridge for my meds. Too bad the airline hadn’t conceded defeat early enough for us to have a nice meal and get some rest before returning to the airport where our breakfast came out of vending machines. I seem to remember jumping into bed shortly after arriving home. My dog joined me.
