CUTHBERT

Welcome to the Cuthbert amphitheater.

I absolutely loved this place.

First off because of the name.  In Stephen King's Gunslinger series, Cuthbert was the childhood friend of main character, Roland.  That series is by far my favorite of all of King's writings.

But you have to love the place itself.  To get in here, you walk down a short path through some woods, over a wide footbridge that crosses a river and into the gates.  The river you cross is behind the stage where you see all those trees.  Ducks swim in the river and fly across the sky alone or in small groups.

It is charming to say the least.

Certainly not the largest amphitheater that I have ever visited.  But, that is another plus.  You can buy reserve seating down in the front 15 rows... and five of those were chairs set up close.  Most people enjoyed spreading blankets on the lawn or chairs brought from home.  Picnic baskets abound.  Little kids through geezers dance around.

We brought our chairs.

However, they were too tall.  Your butt can only be six inches above the ground.  So a lovely blond babysat our chairs for us by the gate.

I am not a laid back person.

I am hyper and easily excited when not getting my way.  A brat.

Randy is though.  He accepted this with way more grace than I was feeling, so I kept my yap shut.  But I knew my butt would go numb quickly sitting on the lawn.  Grumble.

The good fortune fairy smiled on us and showed us to nice seats in the 17th row... smack dab in the center.

Not bad for general admission.  I have paid reserved prices for much worse seating.  I have to give kudos to the staff here... they did everything they could to make sure that everyone had a wonderful time.

We did our version of a picnic... a foot long subway cold cut combo and sodas brought from home.

You can't bring in booze of any sort.

You have to buy their booze.  At six bucks for a beer or glass of wine, 

well... we opted for alcohol free viewing.

No one checked our bag.  We could have brought a thermos of mixed cocktails I suppose.  

Maybe next time.

All in all, we had a great time.  The first act was a gal by herself from Portland.

Not my cup of tea... that sort of depressing new age version of old country western... minus the dog and the truck.  You know the sort.  Love does not work out, the guy cheats, whine.

I made it through that hour by people watching.

Randy leans over and says 

"Why is everyone here so old?"  

Yeah, a mostly geezer audience, but that changed the closer we got to Pat Benatar.

I guess only geezers show up an hour early.

See the geezer in the hat next to grandma?

Yeah, they stood up and swayed around in front of me for the whole two hours that Pat and Spider were doing their thing.  It looks like I have a great view... and I would have if they had sat down.

So I watched a fractured flicker of the show, playing peek a boo with grandma and geezer.

Toward the end, I stood up too.

But at least I had the courtesy to check behind me to see if I was blocking anyone else first.  

Nope, geezer and grandma ran them all off.

Only the techs were behind me at that point.

It was a very cozy show too.

Pat and Spider talked about their life and their songs.

They joked about Oregon water... which we are sure was NOT water at all.

Spider donned a duck hat!

Duck fan that I am, he grabbed my heart on that one.

Fun stuffs!  Great show!

Let me tell you... for age 57, Pat looks fantastic and sounds even better.

She can still belt it out as if she was 20.

Even our trip home was a gift.

We managed to find a perfect parking spot for escape and made the exit quickly.

Then it was time for a drink and a bit of TV before bed.  Perfect.

GUESS WHO IS GOING TO THE ROSE BOWL? YAY!

Okay... this is the Ducks vs USC game... I could have used the video where Arizona State throws bottles at the Ducks and fans and boos them... but I like the duck fans running into the field and everyone is happy here. Well, except for USC.

Guess who is going to the Rose Bowl? Oh yeah... The Ducks!

Ducks 37... Beavers 33. This was a real game... started out looking great for the Beavers... but the Ducks came up and took it back. Close til the end... a nail biter!

Toe hardly bothered me at all after they took most of the nail. No pain pills! That was good because I spent the afternoon of my day on the road to Springfield with a bazillion insane Beaver and Duck fans. There were cars sporting feathers, green and yellow painted people, orange and black painted people, signs, flags, graffitti, and COPS everywhere.

You wont know where this is... but I take 205 to the I-5 exchange. Here 205 ceaces to be... if you go to the right, it's I-5 to Portland... North. Go to the left, you are I-5 South toward Salem. Autzen Stadium is in Eugene... across the freeway from Springfield where I am. A 5 minute drive. ANYWAY... it took me 20 minutes to get from 205 to I-5. Normally it takes maybe 2 minutes. But traffic was like that in only two places for brief, endurable periods of time.

I did not get lost or run out of gas. People were in good moods and I never saw a flat or an accident. As drives go, it was not bad. Nice that I could drive it in daylight for a change.

Today its cold and foggy here. I love fog. I know, you are not supposed to... but I grew up in San Jouquin Valley's pea soup fog and miss it. I don't miss all that fatal accidents in the fog.

So silly as it sounds, the fog has me in good spirits. I'm thinking of braving it and going to the store. Not that there isn't everything here I could think about wanting... well stocked house. But Deerhunter is at work. I have my run of the place.

I feel like walking around, but don't know the area well enough to know where a good place to walk is. I'll have to have him show me where to do that tomorrow. Feels funny to be alone in it. Maybe I can find a Starbucks and people watch for a bit.

So that's how it goes in Anandaville. I hope you have a wonderful Friday and weekend. I know I will. Big grins all!