PPPortland

Portland, the city of ports, well not really but its a really cool city anyway. One of the coolest spots was where we stayed which is in the art district around Alberta street. It's filled with coffee shops, unique restaurants, and an odd collection of stores. Everything around Portland is local and organic, there's a huge push for everything to be different and unique, for example there was a vegetarian BBQ place right around the corner (how is that possible?). The city really prides itself on it's individuality, sure there is Starbucks and all your typical chains but they are far out numbered by all the local eateries, and you would have to be insane to go to one of those places over the other awesome array of food options (which are mostly mexican or thai, so what else do you need?). Our first full day in Portland we slept in pretty late after an exhausting weekend and woke up around 12. We then proceeded to have Thai for lunch at one of the restaurants on Alberta, it was all very delicious. After lunch we met up with our friend Leaf and had a quick impromptu jam session at his place. Afterward we went to a local watering hole which was about 30 minutes away. This place was a small hike away from the road, but once you got down the small trail it opened up to a river bed with a small lagoon that was perfect for swimming or floating around. The bed of the river was covered in flat smooth rocks which made it really easy to loose your balance and bust your ass, which happened a couple of times. Following swimming we all went to a BBQ place for dinner, it was pretty good but its hard to compare when you come from the BBQ capital of the world. Once dinner was over we had a pretty slow night comparatively, CJ and myself just decided to skateboard around the neighborhood for a little bit. Day 2 we ventured over to another popular street right outside the city called Hawthorne st, it also had its fair share of headshops, recorded stores, and oddity shops. For any one that thinks vinyl is dead just come out west, its a booming industry. Following our visit to Hawthorne st it began to rain, as it does so commonly in the pacific north west. So we decide to do what any respectable citizen does when it rains and that is drink. We attempted to make it out to happy hour at the Portland City Grill which which sits high on the 30th floor of a building and has a great view of the city. Well we were a little too late and the place was packed with no where to sit, so we went back to alberta to find a spot. For those who don't know what 'happy hour' is it is a time of day, usually 4-7, where bars have amazing drink specials, it is awesome and my best friend, North Carolina needs to catch up. We find a nice spot call Hilt and we post up there for awhile and play some pool. After some pool we decide to head over to Nate's cousin's for a minute. While there we meet Bridget and Jeremy who have 3 really cool kids, they are old friends of Nate's cousin. We find out that they were at the Phish show too and were only a few tents down from us. We bond over seeing the same tweaker girl try to beat up her boyfriend at the show. We talked about our trip and where we are headed, and turns out they live in Humboldt county, and since our other friend Chad (way to go Chad) bailed on us they offer us a place to stay, so we say of course. Once they leave we head over to Leaf's house. We have another impromptu jam session, then we sit around for story time. Leaf has to be one of the most interesting people I have met, he has been through a lot and has all the stories to back it up. The guy has hitch hiked his way up and down the west coast several times and is about to go to europe with no real plan except a plane ticket back. Leaf has enough stories to fill a book and make it a best seller, he also makes tucker max look like a pussy. He has a very unparalleled view on life and a strong belief in the power of manifestation. He explains to us why he believes the power of manifesting things is so strong with various stories involving focusing your mind on things you desire to happen. I truly believe that Leaf is on to something and I wish him the best on his journeys. Portland is an amazing city, there is a huge art scene and the city just encourages you to be yourself and do something different. You constantly see people dressed in different and odd ways which is cool to behold because you should dress how you feel because you should be you for you. It is also very pet friendly, you see people just walking into stores with their dogs and several places will place bowls of water outside for dogs, not to mention there is an organic pet store and every corner. Thats another cool thing is the push Portland has for everyone to go green, be organic, and buy local, which is a philosophy I think every city should try and follow. Furthermore, all the people we met there were super nice and open to us, not to mention most of them weren't Portland natives. Most of the people we met were transplants from the east coast. There are also a lot of younger parents on the west coast (i.e. late 20s) and they all appear to be happy. It's also endearing to see their children dressed like they are in their own unique outfits and mohawks or shaggy hair. We all had an awesome time in Portland, its such a mix of people and ideas, and if it wasn't for the other 9 months where its rain and grey I would be sold. The next day we woke up early to head out to the red woods + humboldt county= california., until next time, god bless america

-mac