Sunday night we lugged our suitcases into a stranger’s house that somehow contained all our stuff exactly as it was left well over a week ago — or was it a lifetime ago? No matter. Nothing matters when you forgot to bring your heart back home with you at the end of your trip.
We should know better than to visit Oregon in the summer. Oregon in the summer is sunshine and wild raspberries and bare skin and long dusks and cool rivers and tall tall trees and gluttony, sweet unholy gluttony. Oregon in the summer is every metaphor for every addiction. Oregon in the summer is a red-haired, tattooed siren on a rock, luring travelers to their doom with enchanting songs of $3.50 PBR-and-tator-tot deals. Only instead of a shipwreck, they get nine endless months of rain, mist, and clouds. That’s the balance. That’s the payback for a summer in Oregon.
Everyone wanted us to move back, of course. And by everyone I mean the beau’s old high school friends who still live there, and his college friends and rugby friends who’ve since moved up from California. Plus two of my own friends, one of which I’ve known since 7th grade and stood up in our wedding, are in Portland now. Not to mention his parents are there, and his brother. It’s like a ready-made community. A community that’s very much into bacon and mixology.
And so now we think. Do we do this thing? Do we invest in many iterations of outerwear and slog it out in the Pacific Northwest? Year after year, through babies and apartments and houses and bills, through interminable winter and fleeting summer, until we die?
I don’t know.
And what about Colorado?
What, indeed.
I want to post more about Oregon. More pictures, more words, but I need time to find those things. This was the problem I had with Colorado, and still have. Just know that these posts may yet come, but also know that I will try my best to make my reviews of these respective trips as interesting as possible.
In the meantime, I wonder. What is home? Where is home? Because California sure as hell doesn’t feel like it anymore.
My god those are beautiful pictures. Just wonderful.
And you had me at “outerwear.” Outerwear is the most fun,
Ohhh Oregon. Summer is wonderful but the 9 months of rain! (I grew up in western Washington and went to grad school at OSU, you’d think it would just be ingrained in me to handle it.) I recommend Colorado…drier, higher. Similar to Idaho. 🙂
Well you know where my loyalties lie – those 9 months of grey rain are so worth it. And no lie, I actually just said to John on the weekend that if I had to live anywhere else besides Vancouver, I would pick Oregon. Even over other places in Canada. The Pacific Northwest has its own magic. Yeah the rain can get to you by the time March rolls around, but it kinda grows on you too. And when that sun pops out for a random day in January, it’s like you’ve never seen it before and you run around like a giddy idiot.
Oh yeah, and it’s gorgeous – love those pictures.
Those pictures are beautiful!! I’ve always wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest, this post just makes me want to even more!
I can totally relate on the “Where to move?” saga, because the hubs and I have been debating that one for years. Move back home with family? Move somewhere we love? Stay in LA where job/insurance is good? Argh!! Anyway, my vote for you goes to CO. But it’s totally biased because I have family there, spent summers growing up there, and just downright love that freaking state.
I have to vote Colorado. Not as green, but lots more sunshine. I dreamt about it last night – dreamt I could see Long’s Peak from my hometown in Iowa.