Portland, Oregon

Over the past few months, I've felt so overwhelmed with stories from our USA adventuring that I simply haven't documented anything.

It all started with the 4 months we spent with my family in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During this time we visited Scott's family including 3 visits to his brother, Skip, in Indiana and 1 visit to Shane, in Kentucky. Yep, I have a relative in Kentucky! Similarly, I'm sure he says, "Yep, I have a relative that lives in a truck".

We reluctantly left my parents, sister, and our most epic workshop in Ann Arbor to start our drive west. Thank you, Dad, for letting us invade your man-space for nearly 4 months!

The truck, the workshop, and our kitty saying goodbye to us.

You might be asking why we started driving west when our ultimate goal is to head south into Baja, Mexico and beyond. We lived in the Portland, Oregon area from 1995-2008 (I actually didn't arrive until 1997). We would never pass up the opportunity to visit dear friends and as a bonus, sample lots of awesome beers and have endless opportunities to see live music.

Some of my lovely lady-friends (where is Nooby?)

We've been in Portland for 9 days and have spent nearly EVERY day/night enjoying our friends' company. A day hasn't gone by when we didn't say, "Damn, I freakin' love Portland". Our livers seem to be holding up too!

My friend Dan put together a great blog post about his weekend seeing old friends (us included!) and seeing live music last weekend during Musicfest Northwest. The way he described his weekend is how I would describe the entire week for me (except for the "winter" part):

Occasionally a Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday can be so filled with people, places, adventures, and things I love, there is little time to muddle my brain with the guilt, doubt, and mundane details that normally take priority. On those very rare weekends we eat, drink, and pursue fun with such fervor that it's as if there is no tomorrow, no Monday, and certainly no one ominously reminding you that, as in the current epic novel I'm reading... "Winter is coming".

A great development since we've been in Portland is that one of our friends, Holly, offerred up her condo and her car while she is gone! We have to move out of her place in 6 days but we can use her car during the duration of our stay in Portland. El Tigre is taking a hiatus while we are driving around Portland running errands. Any ideas for a unique and thoughtful thank-you gift?

Holly's loft that we are calling home

We are currently working through a very large to-do list. Most of this falls in Scott's lap which presents an interesting dilemma for me -- do I try to help or just stay out of his way? It turns out my role falls somewhere in between...