Good Vibes in Portland
DAY 15 – COREY’S ENTRY - APRIL 27 – 9:30AM - AUNT CONNIE’S HOUSE – BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WASHINGTON
We are now in Washington, our third state. You can see the silhouette face of old George W. himself on most highway signs.
I am currently sitting in my Aunt Connie’s beautiful seaside home, but all I can think of is Portland. I’ve wanted to travel there to check out its creativity, live & workspaces, sense of community, hiking trails for days, and generally nice people.
We stayed at an AirBNB with a wonderful lady named Tessie, which was nice because it gave us a sense of what it would be like to live in the city ourselves.
Brunch! This city certainly loves their brunch. Most restaurants are breakfast or lunch spots and have lines out the door.
I truly enjoyed the art and creativity the city offers. It’s a quiet and respectful city full of inspiration. I decided to shoot street photography style here. I’ve been slowly building the courage to photograph strangers. We happened on one fellow who saw our camera and said, how he loved that we should “share, and create, create and share!” That's just the vibe of Portland.
We visited Portland's Japanese gardens, which had such a feeling of peace. Good vibes in Portland.
It’s interesting though that after being in a city I truly enjoyed, I still missed the settings of the Redwoods and Yosemite.
DAY 15 – EMILY’S ENTRY - APRIL 27 – 2:41PM – AUNT CONNIE’S HOUSE – BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WASHINGTON
We just drove out of Portland, Oregon. Corey has been dying to road trip to Portland for years. On our way to the city, we stopped in a local Oregon winery called Brooks Winery. Corey's sister is friends with the winery's owner. It was a beautiful winery with beautiful people there.
We spent the entire first full day completely reorganizing the car. Corey took out everything and placed it on the sidewalk. We were staying with a lovely Cardiac nurse named Tessie from AirBNB. It looked like we were hosting a ridiculous yard sale of granola and dirty shoes in someone else’s yard. The next day, we wanted to experience Portland. We learned in Portland, you could get an espresso and craft beer just about anywhere. It seemed that everyone had a big dog, a Subaru, drank espresso, hiked, biked, and was outdoors whenever the sun hit. It reminded me of a Southern town in the fact that nobody was in too much of a hurry but usually had something to do.
My favorite part was when we went to a Saturday Street Market and shot street photography of the locals, musicians, travelers, vagabonds, and dreamers.
We are now staying on Bainbridge Island, Washington across the river from Mt. Rainer and Seattle at Corey’s Aunt Connie’s house. This is the first day in 3 weeks that we’ve taken the afternoon off and it is surely glorious.
Bonus Story: I found out it's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon. When we pulled into a Chevron on our way into the Beaver State, I began to get out of the car. I looked up to see a bearded man missing a front tooth give me a giant toothless smile. He promptly said, "It's illegal to pump your own gas in the state of Oregon." He must have known I was not a local by the dumbfounded look on my face. I stared at him for a minute. I don't know the laws in this strange land of Oregon U.S.A. He had a Chevron workers suit on and looked nice enough so I asked him, "So what do I do?" He asked for my gas choice and credit card. As I slowly handed over the Visa, I pondered if he was a con man or crazy. Goodness be, he did give back the plastic and washed my windshield. After all is said and done, it was awesome not pumping my own gas, and I want all states to change their gas laws.
