Thursday, September 8, 2016

Day Three – Ashland

Today we head east into the high desert.  We are fifteen miles east of Ashland moving towards Klamath Falls when our friend Gary texted me to see if we are still in Ashland because he and Edmund arrive in Ashland later that afternoon.  Tom and I already discussed staying in Ashland another day so we called Gary to see what they had planned, which was to see The Wiz that evening.  That was all we needed to convince us that another day in Ashland is what we should do. With no hotel reservations constraining us I hopped online and booked tickets to the play with my trusty iPhone.  (How did we ever live without those darn things?) 

Our change of plans for the day now directed us towards a day hike then a return to Ashland.  We were within a mile of a trailhead along the Pacific Crest Trail in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (declared by Bill Clinton in 2000) so we diverted to the Green Springs Mountain Loop Trail and were rewarded with a pleasant walk in the woods and a gorgeous view of the hills of the intersection of the Cascade and Siskiyou mountain ranges. 

Trailhead
Trespasser?
We had to work for the views on this hike
The high view with Ashland in the distance
The rewarding view
More spoils

Trail to utopia

Cascade-Siskiyou forest

That evening we connected with Gary and Edmund for a nice dinner a Greenleaf restaurant before catching the show at the brilliant open air venue The Allen Elizabethan Theatre (temperature was perfect!).  The original The Wiz is a 1970s blacksploitation film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz.  As such, in today's climate of culture some of the play’s comedic anecdotes were dated and cringe worthy, but overall the play was enjoyable colorful eye candy and high energy performances.  When plays are performed in this theatre the costumes feature Elizabethan accents and The Wiz held court by creatively blending costumes from The Wiz and the time of Shakespeare. 

The Allen Elizabethan Theatre showing The Wiz

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