Great fireworks display in Alderpoint last night. Scared the dog, and made me wonder if I were using the wrong calendar. Perhaps tonight will be even better as a lead up to the 4th, but I'm thinking that maybe the display was by someone who couldn't be in town on the 4th. I'll probably never know.

Dining notes:

3 Good Foods in Arcata is my latest local eatery to notice. I went here with a friend who is a famous lawyer and promissed me $3 all I could eat meatballs. The reality wasn't quite that good financially, but the meatball was great, and the spaghetti it topped was also excellent. I had the "deconstructed" almond desert and it was so good that I almost stayed and ordered a second one. I'm putting this place on my list.

Ashland: I don't know if I named the names, so now perhaps I'll be able to. I have to say that I have never had a bad meal in Ashland, but it may be possible, so here are recommendations of places where the food was excellent on our last visit:

Breakfast: Brother's - it is on the main drag just north of the Plaza (that weird little triangle with the fountain, and the statue that looks like it would be the Confederate Solider but isn't, at the entrance to Lithia Park). Mary Alice really likes the biscuits and gravy, I enjoyed the granola.

Lunch & Dinner; Larks in the big hotel, Tabu just down Pioneer from the main drag, Hana Sushi (?) on the Plaza (if it's dinner see if you can sit in the outside tables by Lithia creek out back).

I get bored with the same old route from the Best Western to Patrona for dinner (Had the Patrona Burger, really good tonight) so I decided to follow some new paths. Next thing I know I'm walking down the railroad tracks heading south. I met a guy pushing his bike along the trackside trail. He used to be in Ag, acres of pears that sort of thing. Now he writes EIRs for Indian tribes and lives in the Sierras with a whole bunch of sheep. Make the money in town, back up into the mountains with some alfalfa for the sheep. I have a friend who does that in law: he has a boat, makes some money in law, goes off on the boat for a year or two. Money runs out, back to law.

Me, I got started too late for that. I'm still catching up, putting metal roofing on the house, things like that. Someday, tho, I'll take off for a 4 month "world cruise" or something lke that. My plan is to keep on lawyering until they pry my cold, dead fingers off my briefcase. I'll let you know how it goes. My 10th anniversary as a lawyer is coming up this August. Check with me on my 20th in 2019 and I'll tell you if I plan to keep on with it.

Up late, to Brothers cafe and ate: biscuits and gravy for my sweetie, who pronounced the dish done to perfection. Granola for me, with a double milk (2% with cream added, don't ask). Then off to Crater Lake (photo coming when I get home where the thing will upload) a drive of about 90 miles, or two hours. Nothing to me, it's that far to court. It was spectacular, stupendous, incredible, and well worth the trip. We walked around looking and snaping shots for a couple of hours before heading back. Here's a chipmunk.

photo chipmunk.

Now you may say, ED, isn't 4 hours driving kind of cutting into your vacation? Not at all, those 4 hours were part of the vacation as we climbed up into the mountains. One stop on the way is the Rogue River Gorge where the entire river plunges into a gorge 500 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 23 feet deep. Here's a picture which can't possibly give you an idea of the power you feel as all that water rushes through that small space. River runers note -it looks like a class 6.

Then dinner at Larks, the restaurant in the Ashand Hotel. American cuisine an one of the best meals we've had in Ashland. I had meatloaf, and then a rhubarb tart with strawberry icecream. My sweetie had a fish. Service somewhat slow, food a great delight.

The play was very powerful, certainly the best thing we've seen here yet. The author is a Nigerian Nobel Prize winner, and the play is about a man's unexpected failure at a crucial moment in his life - a moment for which he has prepared all of his life, and for which he has received high honors all of his life, and, of course, the aftermath of his failure for his people who have relied upon him. You could read it, and I have, but seeing it performed by a top rate company is the only way to really experience it.

Tomorrow its to home. Monday morning in court in Eureka. Had a great time, wish you had been here.

That is, it is the first time in 25 years that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has presented it. It was quite good - of course it is nothing but political propagada from start to finish. The Chinese have The East is Red, the English have Henry VIII. But for all of that the play is a great spectacle - and Henry was very well played, a young lusty actor with lots of energy. We only see Henry with wives 1 & 2. The play ends with the baptism of Elizabeth and a prophecy of what a great person she was to be.

There were no sub-plots, no lower class bumblers giving us comedic interludes, in H8. That gave it a focus that was unified. The problem so far with lower class bumblers is that the OSF doesn't do them very well, so they are not funny. That certainly was a problem in Much Ado About Nothing. As was the setting - but more about that in tomorrow's report.

DInner at a japanese restaurant, at the outside tables by Lithia creek. Wonderful food, slow service. But we gave ourselves plenty of time and had good conversation while waiting.

The day isn't over so expect this report to be augmented.

Slept late, in the morning off to my sweetie's fave breakfast place, right across the creek from the Theaters. She really wanted to repeat last year's enjoyment of biscuits and gravy. I just eat a bown of cereal and could have gotten it free at the motel, but we're on vacation together and so I went to the restaurant to get it. Got it too, granola with double milk, quite good. Alas, biscuits and gravy are weekends only - they make the biscuits Saturday morning & so they're really fresh for the weekend. She had lox and bagel and pronounced herself quite satisfied.

Breakfast was followed by some intense window shopping with some in-store browsing. The street-side parking is free, but it's in 2 hour parcels, so I had to move the car twice. Had a great time in the used bookstore, Ashland being both a college town and the home of the Shakespeare festival their used books are of high qualitity. No time to read, however, so I didn't buy any.

Just north of town, but still on the main drag, is a fish pond/outdoor garden supply which we visit each year to dream about getting a larger fish pond. This year we bit the bullet and did it. It will take some digging on my part so look for reports about it in a month or so. Great cat at the store also. Very fat. Sat at the edge of the display pool watching the fish.

Then we found a Rite-Aid at the south end of town. Those of you who live in cities may wonder what's so wonderful about that? We spent at least an hour in there and came out with all sorts of stuff.

We skipped lunch, so expect many details of dinner.