We try to attend the Great River Shakespeare Festival every year, and this year we came to see “As You Like It”. It was fabulously done with a great troupe of actors and I loved the costumes. There are so many characters in this play, so it can be hard to follow, but this time, I followed it really well and that was partially due to the intimacy of the audience and players, which they intentionally created by placing all the seating right on the stage surrounding the actors. Also partially due to their brilliant idea of introducing all the characters one by one with a fun little start to the play where each character comes forth saying who they are, in what relation to the other characters, and when the same actor plays multiple characters in different costumes (as is typical in Shakespeare plays) they came forth in each costume.
It was neat, and this troupe usually has such a beautifully unique way of presenting the plays each year. I really appreciate all the creativity that they put into this production. Every year, it is really something special to see! I also really appreciate the diversity of the cast, which may be surprising to know that way down in rural Minnesota, there is a fabulously skilled and diverse cast of people performing these ancient plays, and you can tell their passion for theatre.
So the play was last night, and it was the perfect topper for my birthday! The play was followed by an ice cream social, so we got free ice cream, and John and I strolled around the gorgeous gardens, watched the fireflies igniting the night, and the moon rising over the sweet WSU campus. I loved that they had a new feature in the garden this year, an Anishnaabe medicine circle that I could identify immediately by the equal armed stone cross with juniper (or cedar?), tobacco, sage and sweet grass planted in each direction. They had a nice plaque describing the intent and ceremony of its placement, and I offered it my hair and blessings. I wish I’d had more privacy, or I would have done my own prayer songs to the plants and stones, but it’s enough to at least whisper blessings and offer breath and hair, which are pieces of the self that carry one’s energetic signature.
At the start of our day, we had a wonderful hike in one of our favorite state parks, Great River Bluffs. We did the King’s Bluff trail, which led to a gorgeous view of the Queen’s Bluff, its consort, and the valley’s and river below. I was struck immediately at the wondrous pair, the King and Queen, or as I’d rather say it, the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine, these mountain bluffs standing together with their smaller “children” hills surrounding them. I made prayers with smoke and song up there and made many gorgeous photos, such a view and such lovely blooming flowers along the countryside! We then took the North and South lookout trails which were much shorter, but offer more stunning views. At the South, there is a massive part of the stone bluff poking out that you can shimmy out onto, so I made special prayers to it. I never, ever tire of the wonder of this part of Minnesota. It is my favorite part of our state that I’ve seen so far. I still think about moving down here.
We then rested in the shade and lunched on some delicious snackies, then headed for the International Owl Center in Houston to visit the ambassador owls, hear a presentation and cool off in the air conditioning. We met Ruby: a Great Horned, Bea: a Burrowing owl, JR: an Eastern Screech owl, and Piper: an American Barn owl. They were all so beautiful! I’ve never seen a burrowing owl and was astonished at how tiny she was! Same with the Eastern Screech! Although I’ve seen a mating pair of Eastern Screech owls that nest near my workplace, it’s really something to see them up close and marvel at how tiny they are! You can then appreciate that it’s cats who are a great threat to them, they’re just minuscule little things! When you see the Great Horned and Barn owls, which are much larger, you can see why these are the threat to cats!
This is JR, the Eastern Screech owl. I couldn’t get much closer and they had rules about getting too close or disruptive to the birds. He was a bit jittery and making some interesting noises.
This is Piper the Barn owl.
This is Ruby. They also have a live web cam on another Great Horned owl called Iris.
This is Bea, and the one the naturalist took out to show us up close. She was amazingly tiny!
We then headed back to the Airbnb for a shower and R&R, then I decided I didn’t want anything fancy for dinner, and we just went to a local taco place for dinner, El Patron, which is kind of like a Chi-Chi’s. We had a fun time there before the show.
Here’s some photos of Levee Park in Winona.
Since I’ve missed blogging our previous days, I’ll detail a bit of what else we’ve done with our time off so far. We started this whole mini-vacation on Wednesday with a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi in St. Paul. The air quality was really bad that day, but we wanted to do something fun and not too strenuous. We saw tons of eagles and a heron, and the views from the river are lovely. I got some good photos, despite the wildfire smoke obscuring everything. We then went to Como Park to have a picnic lunch of Nelson’s Deli sandwiches and walked around the park, getting loads of glorious flower photos!
As we left Minneapolis on Thursday for our drive to Winona, we decided to try to climb the stairs at John Latch State Park, but I made it only about 150 of the 550 stairs that seem to ascend straight up into the abyss before deciding that I’d not likely be able to make it and we turned around. Poor John’s Achille’s heel, which has been inflamed for some time, got much worse after that, so that was obviously a poor choice :( Poo! I’ve been massaging it with pain cream, and he’s been icing it and took some Advil yesterday, but I notice this morning he’s still limping quite a bit. We plan on taking it easy today with a movie and a baseball game in LaCrosse, WI.
Our trip wraps tomorrow morning, so we may grab some legendary Bloedow doughnuts on the way out of town, and we intend on stopping off at our favorite King’s Bar in Meisville for some of the yummiest hamburgers for lunch!
