Tag: Ashland Oregon
Summer Entertainment Is Back!
Although my husband and I did a little traveling last summer and felt more comfortable (post-vaccinations) dining out and going to special events, there were still some big holes in our usual summer schedule. This year, though, we really feel like so much of what was missing the past two years has returned. Within the span of just over a week recently, we were able to enjoy two activities which have marked nearly every summer of the 13 years we've lived in Southern Oregon.
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A Positive Sign
We got a positive indication this week of one aspect of life here coming back from the near standstill it's been this past year. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a Tony-winning regional theater founded in 1935 which produces musicals, world premieres of new productions and commissioned new works as well as Shakespearean plays, announced its 2021 season after being forced to go dark just after the 2020 season opened last year. Located in the college town of Ashland (and conveniently close to my home), the Festival drew theater lovers from across the country and around the world who, along with all the professionals associated with the organization, pumped millions of dollars into the local economy. Restaurants, hotels and bed-and-breakfasts, shops and tour operators relied heavily on a season that ran from February through October each year. You can imagine how deeply the shutdowns and travel bans resulting from the pandemic affected the entire community.
Too Close to Home
I had intended to write my blog this week about our recent trip to the Oregon coast, but events over the past week have pushed that topic to the back burner. On Tuesday an intense wildfire broke out about 15 miles south of my home in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon. Beginning at the northern end of the town of Ashland, home to Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (about which I've written several times), it tore through the small towns of Talent and Phoenix and to the edge of Medford, a city of more than 80,000. We'd had more than a week of 100-plus-degree days, humidity in the low teens and no measurable rain since late June, and that day winds of 20 mph and gusts up to 40 mph pushed the flames up the valley to the northwest.
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A Great Place for Moviemaking
MovieMaker Magazine recently announced its annual list of Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker, and I was delighted to see our nearby Southern Oregon town of Ashland on the list (for the seventh year in a row!). The magazine divides its list into small- and large-city categories, with 10 slots allotted to the former and 20 to the latter. Ashland, the smallest town to make the cut (population just over 21,000), came in at No. 6, with the periodical's editors calling it a "pound-for-pound cinematic powerhouse" and lauding its "gloriously out-sized film culture."