Distant lands are not so far away.

23 June evening
The transition has been dramatic--from ninety degree temperatures in the Bay this week to throwing snowballs this weekend. The drive was fairly uneventful, and we had a lovely picnic in the Central Valley thanks to Miss Friday’s generosity.
Unfortunately, it’s too early in the season to take a boat out to Wizard Island, which I’d been looking forward to, and there’s snow on a lot of the trails so the management has judged them to be off limits. However, there are still many lovely things to see and I plan to look at all of them. We’re thinking about a drive around the lake tomorrow.
Our room has three different views, all facing out on the lake. The clerk told us that the one from the bathtub was the most impressive (he was actually quite enthused about the bathtub), but I must disagree. Although it is beautiful, it does suffer by comparison to the other two. You may admire my photos to see my supporting evidence.
Tonight we have dinner reservations at seven, and my trousers have been deemed inappropriate for the Great Hall, so I’m going to go change.
Pictures, with witty anecdotes.

24 June morning
To bed at ten, up at four. I suppose this should have been expected. I cleared out of the room so Miss Friday could sleep, and went down to breakfast and settin’ on the veranda with a good book.
And it was. Two pages into Territory(You could buy it here, nu?) and I’m in love. The pacing, the atmosphere, and of course the Doc.
Eventually back to the room, for a quick bath and water up my nose, and now we’re off on an expotition.

24 June afternoon
Unfortunately many of the trails are snowed in--again, a bit early in the season--but we struck out and found several places to tramp around, including Annie Falls, the Pumice Desert and the snowy Wildflower Path, where I found one wildflower. I’ve done my best with the camera, but it simply can’t see what I see, can’t capture the scope or the focus of what I’m looking at. So you’ll all have to come up here instead.
Miss Friday has arranged for dinner in the Great Hall again tonight, and if it’s half as lovely as last night then we’re in for a treat. High quality ingredients, simply prepared.
Pictures, but less wittiness.
25 June afternoon
We had an adventure! Miss Friday has an affinity for the back roads, and so we did this bit of exploring. She reports that the roads here in Oregon are in far better condition and the signage is superior to her expected usual. Before we left I succumbed to one case of touristiness and bought a liter of Crater Lake bottled water (which was, of course, bottled in North Powder, north of Baker City).
We made it to Ashland far ahead of schedule, and are getting settled into the room. No pictures today, but you can always check last year's room photos because I'm in the room next door. So it's all the same, the TV's just on the opposite side.
Soon we'll go shopping, and Comedy of Errors is at eight-thirty.
I'm looking forward to a proper shower--I have nothing against baths, but they strike me as lacking in 'make you clean'. You scrub off all the sweat and dirt, and then you stew in it. Me Soup.

A Comedy of Errors is Human

Still no photos. Our first show was the Comedy of Errors, performed as light operetta in the old western tradition. As in there were lassos and six shooters and wily Chinamen and snake oil salesmen. The plot suffers (as in all presentations of this work) from requiring that the stupidest people in the world be assembled in one place to make the plot work.

As befits a show of this nature, there were a number of 'meta' moments, aided greatly by the addition of a Chorus in the classical Greek sense. The script was slapped around until it was dizzy; the sacred Words of The Bard were monkeyed with. And I was pretty okay with that. The second act lost some of the focus, despite a classic Benny Hill/Buster Keaton chase scene that thankfully did not become tiresome despite its length. However, I believe this performance may be the most enjoyable I've seen--better even than my previous favorite, performed by the Flying Karamazov brothers.