Shakespeare Festival

The last week of August, we headed to Cedar City with my parents for the Shakespeare Festival. Unfortunately, on our way there we were delayed by a minor accident on the freeway when, while traveling in the center lane, a little white car that was going very dangerously slow pulled out in front of us from the carpool lane. As soon as she was in the center lane, she put her brakes on and stopped. I didn't have time to stop despite my best efforts, so we ran into her. The worst part was dealing with her after that though...I have never been in an accident with such a cranky person before. She insisted that the accident had been our fault and refused to exchange information and move on unless we signed something accepting full responsibility. She would barely allow Nate and I to talk to each other or our insurance without being in our face. Despite the fact her car appeared unscathed and damage to our car was minimal, the police ended up having to talk to us even after they had told us it wasn't necessary, because she wouldn't leave sooner unless we said we were at fault...

Notwithstanding this aggravating incident, we arrived in Cedar City in time to visit one of Nate's cousins and go out to dinner before our show. We took the kids to watch the green show beforehand, which they seemed to enjoy. My parents even bought everyone a tart as a treat.

Then, another of Nate's cousin's generously babysat Austin and Emma while we stayed with my parents to watch The Merchant of Venice. This was one of Shakespeare's plays I was less familiar with, but ended up enjoying. It had some seeming antisemitism running through it, but such was common during Shakespeare's time. The themes of vengeance and self-interest vs. mercy and love, and the way these traits came through in the characters was intriguing.

The next morning we went on a short hike to Cascade Falls. This was a short easy 1.2 mile round trip hike to what turned out to be a very tiny waterfall. Apparently going at the end of the summer after a really dry year results in visitor's seeing just a small trickle of a waterfall. We still enjoyed it though, and there were some grand views from the trail.

After eating lunch back near the visitor's center, we headed back. We stopped at the Red Barn for some ice cream first though! My parents were generous enough to buy us all a cone!