I did a terrible job of keeping everyone up on the Portland trip. There just wasn’t enough time. Every day of our trip was full. I promise to post pictures soon; there’s so many to upload and edit.

It’s almost impossible to sum up Portland. I could walk into any restaurant and eat without questioning or settling for the one vegetarian option on the menu. In fact, often there were too many vegetarian options. This made things very difficult because I only packed one stomach. I left town with not just a food baby, but food quadruplets. Looking back, I’m kicking myself for not having Cupcake Jones ship me a dozen cupcakes. Why did I only eat one?!? Oh, and don’t even get me started on the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream parlors. Those were just cruel.

It was also odd (in a very, very , very good way) to be in a political environment that reflects my own beliefs, to be surrounded by people who are on my side. People were polite and nice and respectful. They drove the speed limit on the freeways and let you into traffic. The market vendors would let you buy things, but they didn’t try to sell you anything. And Portland doesn’t seem to have “Truck Month”. It all made coming home really hard. It wasn’t difficult to imagine our lives in this place. We’d live in one of the small neighborhoods outside of downtown Portland. We could walk down the street to the local market, cafe, or coffee shop. A few blocks over from there, we would take Hooper to the park and on weekends, pack up the camp gear and head to the beach. You can throw a rock on the Coastal Highway and hit a state park. Sigh.