Three years ago our friend Brian went on a one month road trip across America. When he got back to New Jersey we invited him over to share his tales from the road, and that he did - He told us about a hundred stories that night and showed us even more photos. What I remember most from his stories:
-A photo of him jumping on what looked to be the edge of a cliff in the Grand Canyon
-A story where he attended a powwow with some weird hippie dude who ran a hostel he stayed at
-A photo of him holding a cougar cub as big as your average cat.
-And when he proclaimed “Portland is a cool city. It’s like a city made up of a bunch of rejects from other cities and they’re all just living and doing things and wahwahhaahahaa…” and he kept going on in his Brian language and using hand motions I don’t always understand.

Brian has a lot of time to go in his head and think and come back with well thought-out opinions on just about everything in life. Then he tells me “hey Katie, go see this movie, it is good.” and I go see it and hey, it’s good! So I trust Brian’s opinion most of the time and feel quite inspired by him after we hang out (which doesn’t happen often enough these days). So of course after hearing all about his road trip I realized that a road trip was probably the thing for me.

Brian’s definition of Portland sounded great! And on our long list of things to do and places to see, Portland was first on my list. As the road trip neared, I realized I was growing out of Montclair and maybe it was time to find a new place to live. So the search began: I would love to live in New York City but I refuse to live in the semi-affordable Brooklyn and I don’t believe I’ve got the money or balls to make it in Manhattan. Boston is too Boston (it’s the only way to describe it, go there and see for yourself), Chicago is cool and all but it’s too cold (actually it was really warm when we were there, I just hear about the cold), Cleveland is bleeeaaahhhghhhhh, Milwaukee is too drunk and iPhone droppy (well, for me it was), and Minneapolis is just too cool for us losers. Perhaps, I thought, I am one of those other-city rejects who would fit right in, in Portland, Oregon.

Hopes were high when we drove into the city almost two weeks ago.

“Holy crap Mark! Are those purple mountains….majesty??” So I looked up the lyrics and then tried to figure out where the purple mountains mentioned in the song are located. I still am not sure. These looked purple to me.

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Yesterday was filled with ups and downs. First, let’s go over a list of things I’ve eaten since the morning of the first day of this road trip. I started off with some Reese’s Peanut Butter Sticks, courtesy of our pal Kevin Dunphy who stopped by the night before with a big bag of candy for our going away present. The first year I was friends with Kevin he gave me his left-over Halloween candy for my birthday, what a guy! And the list goes on, somewhat in order: Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk, Doritos, Chipwich, cottage cheese with sugary fruit, Pop-tarts, cheddar cheese crackers with peanut butter, cheesy hash browns, peach pancakes with whipped cream, french fries, cinnamon roll, cheesy eggs with potatoes, Taco Bell, then I decided to go healthy and eat some watermelon chunks from Wawa, followed by an entire bag of king sized M&M’s. So, looking over that list, it seems I’m going to get real fat on this road trip if I don’t change my eating habits ASAP. I started today off with an English muffin and more watermelon, progress.

Yesterday we said goodbye to my dad up in Milford, Massachusetts. We didn’t have time to see him before we left, so we made Milford, a place we’ve visited many times, our first stop for the trip. It was nice because it was a good way to ease into a three and a half month road trip. The visit was a success as usual, even though we didn’t get to enjoy the area as much as we should have (our own fault, too busy to research what to do in Providence!) When we visit him it turns out the best days usually don’t involve much sight-seeing, just hanging out with my dad and telling jokes. Up until two years ago I never really hung out with him like a pal, but now it’s always a great time and I consider him a good friend. Not a best-friend-forever-tell-him-all-my-secrets friend, but someone who knows me pretty dang well and forgives me for being a crazy, inconsiderate beeword when that side of me comes out. You have that side too right? Or some kind of side? I can’t be the only one.

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