Ashland
June 12 - June 15
Monday - Day OneWe leave Portland on Interstate 5, heading south towards Eugene, Salem & Ashland. Our goal: to get to Ashland in time to check in & maybe eat lunch and then we drive the 10 minutes to Medford to pick David up from the airport. The rain continues. Philip has found a communist station on the radio (I didn't know such stations existed in the USA - my mistake!) and discussions about copyright, free speech, and monopoly (focus: Microsoft *ptuh*). Though we took the slow route yesterday, taking the coast road through mountains & forests, driving on the interstate in RAIN (oh for the Ontario heatwave, Karin A!) and TRAFFIC bears a striking resemblance to braving rough weather in the Hyaku. Visibility: 20 feet (at best). Even the littlest cars leave wakes of spray & mist that slam into our windshield with the force of sand and gravel. * Driving through Roseburg (dinner stop, first drive to Oregon), the horizon is visible for the first time. Ahead are mountains rolling with clouds: Grants Pass, then Ashland. The rain has slowed to a fine mist. But there's more ahead; these hills, so bright and golden in October when we came through them in the morning sunshine, are foggy and wet. * So we get to Ashland in less rain than we came through the mountains with. In fact, at times on the freeway we thought we might even see the sun (though that was an illusion). But it comes out in Ashland! We find our motel, which is some way away even from Southern Oregon University. It is a newly renovated fake Tudor building, with fancy exterior corridors and very nice rooms. We have an efficiency apartment, complete with baby fridge, microwave & coffeemaker, a living space, and a bedroom. Very nice. By the time we have eaten lunch and get in the car to go to Medford, the sun is out and we have to put on our sunglasses - the first time in two days! David is there, looking very well, fresh from a shopping spree in Miami, and before then from a conference in New Orleans (Nico reports jealously). We settle in, go to dinner (at the Chinese restaurant opposite the Siskeyou Center), and come back. No plays on a Monday; we start tomorrow going to two shows a day. |
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