The Ides of April are approaching quickly, so I finally started working on our taxes this afternoon. I didn’t have enough time to finish them because we had tickets for Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s 8th annual 48-Hour Play Festival – live and in-person at Foothill College!

This year’s theme was “Shakesbinge” – each team chose a Shakespeare play and a TV show and had to combine them, along with a required line of dialog (“That’s all, Folks!”), the use of a remote control as a prop, and some kind of commercial, producing a short (and generally funny) play. The process started at 7pm Friday; the script was due at noon on Saturday, and then the director and actors took over.

There were six plays this year:

• StreamSpeare Pitch Meeting (The Merry Wives of Windsor + Friends)
• Star Rich III: The Search for York (Richard III + Star Trek)
• Slay All Day: A Midsummer Night’s Binge (A Midsummer Night’s Dream + Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
• Chapter VII: The Bounty (As You Like It + The Mandalorian)
• Tempest/Battlestar Galactica (The Tempest + Battlestar Galactica)
• Diced (Titus Andronicus + Chopped)

The audience votes for their two favorite plays – this year, Diane and I both voted the same way, and the audience agreed with us: Diced won, and Star Rich III was second.

It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the three plays in Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s season: Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, and Sense and Sensibility.

Another day, another hike.

We left Yosemite Blue Butterfly Inn for the last time (for now, anyway) this morning and drove into the park to go explore Mirror Lake. There was a lot more traffic today than yesterday, but we still had no problem finding a parking place in the main lot.

We took the shuttle to the Ahwahnee Hotel, then hiked the rest of the way to the lake; it was a pleasant walk, and not very crowded. The water at the near end of the lake didn’t live up to the “mirror” name, so I’m glad we went to the end to enjoy the prettier view there!

We walked back to the Ahwahnee for lunch (much better than Degnan’s Deli yesterday, and only slightly more expensive) and a little light shopping before hopping the shuttle to return to Yosemite Village and our car. But there was a TON of traffic on the road, so we got off at Yosemite Falls and walked back to the car.

Instead of coming home the way we drove up, we left on CA-41 and stopped at the Wawona Hotel; it was picturesque in a very different way than the parts of the park we’d spent most of our time in. We didn’t have the time or energy to walk to Mariposa Grove – perhaps next trip.

And we’re home again – it was a busy three days!