June 6-8, days 69-71: Ashland
We're at the Relax Inn, 66 bucks a night. We're relaxing here, preparing for the coming section. We've decided to hike northbound from Ashland, although Oregon still has a lot of snow. But it won't be as bad as the Sierra. At the PO we picked up an SD card duplicator, a charger for AA batteries, and 10 high-speed SD cards. At the local outdoor shop Mountain Provisions we were able to copy the last hard drive – for the last time, because we're switching to a new system (SD card duplicator). Shop owner Bryant let us transfer our data on his business computer overnight. Terrific! Besides that, Mountain Provisions is a great store. We got snowbaskets for Olli's trekking poles; Sabine already has them on her Lekkis. Of course we looked for shoes. A plethora of Altras ... Bryant immediately located Sabine’s Lowa Gorgons online; he's a Lowa dealer, so Sabine ordered a pair. They'll be sent to a PO we'll be heading toward in a couple weeks.
Next day Trail Angel Jennifer took us to REI and Best Buy in Medford. Sabine had contacted her via the trail angel list regarding computers. By the time she called back, Bryant had already entered the picture. But we arranged to have Jenny drive us to Medford. Olli ultimately bought the snowbaskets for his Komperdell poles at REI because Bryant didn't have the right ones. We bought two waterproof SD card storages, each of which holds 12 SD cards.
(A summary as brought to you from your translator: All this business of carrying and copying and storing and sending and ordering replacement drives and disks and cards has been rather complicated – not to mention tiresome to translate! The upshot is: SWOH are switching to SD cards, including for backups, from now on - carrying these throughout their trek.)
Ashland is a beautiful town with a rich cultural heritage and we wanted to go to the art museum and theater next day, after taking care of errands. Ashland is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. There's a big open-air theater, half covered (Elisabethan theater), in the middle of town, along with several other theaters. But first we wanted to pitch our new tent, waterproofing the seams with the paste provided for that purpose. Olli dropped by "Super Cut" to tend to his tresses, and after that we had a meal at the "Wild Goose," both in our neighborhood. We asked Sima at the motel if we could pitch our tent on the site of the former pool, now filled in with soil and bark mulch. No problem! Once we'd pitched our tent, it was time to resupply at the "Shop 'n Kart," also in our area. Great store: a lot of things, e.g. grits, can be purchased in the amounts needed without packaging, and it's open till midnight. We were thoroughly pooped after that. Sabine postponed coloring her hair to the following morning. Yup, it's that time again!
On Saturday, while the Six-Moon tent waterproofing paste was drying, we paid a visit to the Schneider Art Museum. Unfortunately, it was closed due to "Change of Exhibition." Instead, the building next door – which belongs to Oregon University – was open: art students were showing their works, some of which deeply impressed us. At 1:30 pm we attended "Between Two Knees" at the Thomas Theater, a funny, self-critical intergenerational story of familial love, loss, and connection that spans the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, forced reeducation via Indian boarding schools, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, and the 1973 takeover at Wounded Knee, where 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement took over the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The demonstrators criticized the US government for reneging on their contracts with the Native Americans and demanded resuming contract negotiations. Intelligently made theater! We were rather surprised by the American audience’s response: after the play was over, the everyone immediately rose in a standing ovation, but the applause ceased after 15 seconds, after which everyone left the theater. Fortified ourselves at Cafe Ruby. Back to the theaters, chatted briefly with Greg from the music group that had performed on the open-air stage. Strolled around Lithia Park afterward.
Then we returned to our neighborhood, enjoyed a beer at the Ashland Caldera Brewery (Sabine had a Coconut-Chocolate Beer – delicious). Walked to Relax Inn, picked up our backpacks, and packed up our new tent. Ordered an Uber at 10:30 pm, which took us the 9 miles to the trail. After another 5 kilometers, we found a lovely spot next to a creek and pitched our tent. At 1:30 am, after writing some blog entries, it was light's out. Finally back on the trail again!
Pictures