We've been in Ashland, Oregon for the past few days, staying with our old friends Bert and Nancy. Ashland is the home of the famous Shakespeare Festival, and home to many adorable deer who roam the town's residential neighborhoods. The locals refer to them fondly as "rats with hooves."  For the first time in dozens of trips here, we haven't seen a single play. It's become an unplanned R&R stop after the rigors of preparing to acquire an RV, getting the house ready for renters, figuring out how an RV works (not), and packing for a year in a closet the size of a thimble.

Our visit with Nancy and Bert has been relaxing and pleasant and mostly very kicked back. Kate and I accompanied Bert to his writer's group the other day. Several accomplished local writers get together regularly to read their works-in-progress aloud and critique each other's work. Readings that day included a quirky piece about a woman in a bathtub conversing with a drip of water shaped like Jesus (it was really good, but I sense I may not be doing it justice with my description). Notably, the writer of this piece was my high school girlfriend Deborah whom I haven't seen for 50 years and who turns out to be in Bert's writing group. Somewhat to my chagrin, she apparently has had a rich and fulfilling life without benefit of my further intervention. Worse, she looks pretty much the same as she did in high school. Humbling. Which reminds me, I recently won an award for being humble.....

My Award

Writer's Group. Third from left-Kate. Fifth from left-Bert. Far right-Deborah.

But back to the writer's group. Another reading was from a novel-in-progress about an elderly couple traveling the country in an RV. Their experiences include running into a tree, hitting a deer, being attacked by a bear, and sort of adopting a pregnant hitchhiker and her dog. 

After the writer's gathering, Kate went with Nancy to a meeting of Nancy's women's discussion group. Kate met several women there, including one who recently acquired an RV. She and her husband took an overnight trip in it, found that they were clueless as to how all the systems worked, saw a bunch of threatening looking warning lights blinking, and returned home early. 

The RV karma could be better.

We wrapped up our stay in Ashland with cocktails at the home of Deborah and her husband Herb. 

                       Nancy, Bert, Kate, Deborah, Don


Now we're off to a guitar festival in Montana, via the wilds of central Oregon and northern Idaho. We've just heard we've been accepted as volunteers at the Festival -- Sarah is volunteering too.

After several attempts to track our trip through "so easy anyone can do it" map tracking apps, gadgets, and software, I have opted for what I like to call the "analog approach." Here's the first edition.