Back in September, I found that someone had clicked to our website from a blog called Swiss Miss. It turned out it was not Wanderful that was the cool website to be written about in that post, but another road trip blog called The Continental Crawler, named after Michael and Jen’s eBay bought 1950’s trailer. Our pal Ratcliffe left a comment on the Swiss Miss blog post with our web address in it and that’s how people were finding us. So I visited their blog and thought it was pretty crazy that we had both taken off from about the same area (Montclair/Brooklyn) and at the same time - except they were going the more exciting and scenic way, and we were driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio. I emailed them and received a reply from Michael, we decided “let us be linked-blog friends.” and so we were. Every so often we’d receive emails from Michael about random things like “Go to this ghost town.” (we had already passed it) or “Is there still corn?” (yes there was, it was a late year for corn harvesting). Their final destination was Portland, OR, where they were moving to lead a less stressful life. Both Michael and Jen are freelancers (photography, graphic design) which made the move that much easier for them and inspiring for me - for I too am a graphic designer/photographer (but not really the latter), and I like seeing others in the field living wherever they’d like to live after creating a name for themselves.

Michael invited us over their AWESOME house when we were in Portland, and after skipping out the first, I don’t know, five times we were supposed to go there, we finally ended up at their place the night before we left. We spent about five hours talking about life and life on the road, I didn’t even know we had that many hours of road stories. Being that they are more seasoned in living life and doing business, we got a lot of great advice on just about everything, including: moving, living, working, freelancing, traveling, what dog food will make your dog fart a lot in front of guests (never heard a dog actually fart, oh Wally), that sound really matters for online videos, and a bunch of blog tips - they prefer to keep posts short, one line - I meant to keep this post at only one line for them, but it turned out to go on a little longer. They’ve also inspired us to do some sort of weekly video on Wanderful, an episode about our day maybe, after watching their well done Continental Crawler episodes.

We were recording a great video for all you Wanderful fans the other day when my camera BROKE! The screen went black and now I can’t see a thing I’m recording. SO while I had big plans to premiere a video today, it was all ruined by Canon’s ability to disappoint me over and over again. Don’t worry, I am upgrading to something even better. I have been too lazy to post videos on our Wanderfilm page here, but you can visit our Vimeo page for some short clips. I swear, in the next two weeks you’ll have at least an hour’s worth of Wanderfilm to catch up on.

Anyway, thanks for having us over Jen & Michael. & Wally + Tanner even though she was sleeping.

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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Portland is a damn neat place, but I must report that it’s probably not the promised land. Portlanders may not agree with me. Take Alan, for instance. Alan is a big enthusiast of magnetic power; not to mention he’s a master of transcendence. Apparently the two are related: he has an “energy field” hovering above his bed, but I call it a gallon jug of water with a plant sticking out and some magnets attached. He happened to be our neighbor at the RV park. Alan has lived in Portland for years. He’s made a permanent home out of his Airstream RV (not as cool as our T@B, despite having more posters of firemen). Portland is his favorite place.
Since I was uncomfortable letting my conversation with Alan drift into subjects of the metaphysical otherworld — “Oh, you regularly leave your body so your spirit can fly over the city in your flying van looking for handsome hitchhikers, Alan? That’s so interesting…” — we spoke of the weather. “Say, it sure is cloudy out this morning, don’t you think, Alan?” This is how I found out that it is always cloudy in the morning in Portland, no matter what the weather will be like later in the day. Alan says that snow and ice are rarities in the winter — just bring a sweatshirt with you and you’ll be set year-round.
After a few minutes of skepticism I found Alan to be genuinely interesting and charming. I’m not sure I believe everything he says, but it’s fun stuff to think about. “There are spirits all around us,” Alan told us that afternoon. “Would you like to speak with them?” We were understandably curious.
“Okay. What do we do?”
“Stand with your eyes closed. Ask the spirits to move you in a direction for ‘yes’.”
We asked. Katie’s right knee moved slightly forward. I didn’t feel anything.
“Now ask them to move you in a direction for ‘no’.”
Katie’s right knee moved slightly forward. I didn’t feel anything.
“I moved in the same direction!” said Katie.
“The spirits have a sense of humor,” Alan smirked.

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In Oregon, Portland’s name was decided by a coin toss. In 1843, two men who shared claim to the land, known then as “The Clearing,” came together to decide on a new moniker for their mutual investment. Here’s how I imagine the scene went (My apologies to the entire city of Portland, its valuable heritage, and any resident past, present, or future).
Harnessing all the powers of their individual creativity, Asa Lovejoy rallied to have the land named after his hometown of Boston. “We’re calling it Boston!” he proclaimed. Not to be outdone by Lovejoy’s sheer creative magnitude, Francis Pettygrove turned purple in a frenzy of a brainstorm. Just before his head went ‘pop’ he turned to Asa Lovejoy and said, “No, no, my friend. We will name it Portland, after my hometown of Portland, Maine.” Astonished at his tenacity, Lovejoy sneered and produced a penny from his pocket. “My good sir,” he said, “I fear that my razor-sharp cleverness has met its match in you. It appears that our domineering creative instincts have carried us through this duel to the point of stalemate. I suggest that the title of this land rest on the outcome of a simple coin toss. Heads, we’ll call it Portland. Tails, Boston. One more thing: since I came up with this bold strategy, I demand that if I win, you must wear powder make-up, full costume, and a wig. You will plant yourself in that rose garden over there and act as a living monument to me for the rest of your days.” Pettygrove liked his odds. “You’re on,” he said. The coin flew through the air, catching the sun at the peak of its toss and glinting brightly. It landed on Heads.
“Wait, wait, my good boy,” Lovejoy stuttered. “I’m sure you saw that the coin slipped out of my hand! It was a complete fluke! I accidentally buttered my fingers this morning instead of the biscuit on my plate. What do you say we try again?” Pettygrove thought for a moment. He noticed a container of powder make-up and a wig poking out of Lovejoy’s briefcase. He loosened his collar a bit. Pettygrove was overcome by uncertainty, but he had alway been a man of patience and fairness. He cleared his throat and said, “Fine. Best two out of three.” Lovejoy rejoiced. Unable to hold back his excitement, he roared with maniacal laughter. “Hold on to your handlebar mustache, Pettygrove, you old lickfinger! You will burn in the savage blaze of my victory!!”
Pettygrove scratched his head, wondering what ‘lickfinger’ means. The coin once again flew in the air. It landed, once again, on Heads.
“Portland, it is,” said Pettygrove, satisfied. Pettygrove walked off into the sunset, dropping rose seeds along his path. To this day, if you listen closely to the wind blowing over Mt. Hood on the outskirts of Portland, you can hear the faint sounds of sobbing. Some say this is the ghost of Asa Lovejoy.
In retrospect, it’s probably better that the city is named Portland. It would be confusing to have two major metropolitan areas named Boston, don’t you think? The actual penny used for the famous coin toss in on display at the Oregon Historical Society. That’s the only truthful bit to this story.
I’d like to conclude by offering another apology: to the entire state of Oregon, all of the United States, and every living creature that has ever inhabited this Earth.

This morning I woke up with all intentions of doing something in Portland all day. Instead I stayed in the T@b and threw myself a pity party. Ooooh poor me I’m on a road trip and feeling sad. What is wrong with me?

Tired of my whining, Mark slyly slipped out and went to the Store-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (STSNBN) to exchange our propane tank for the second time in TWO WEEKS! How can propane run out so quickly? I’ll tell you how: Winter. Really, it’s coming along quite nicely this year. Although Portland has been great when it comes to weather, the 70’s! Could you imagine? And they have trees here! Real trees! All we’ve been seeing for the past two or three weeks are pine trees. I thought surely by the time we reached a state with leafy trees, all the leaves would have fallen off the branches. But I was wrong and wow they’re orange and red and yellow! So Mark’s propane exchanging trip took over an hour because he had to wait over an hour for someone to simply unlock the cage, grab a propane tank and give it to Mark - He already paid! But for some reason the store just couldn’t function correctly in that hour leaving Mark with no choice but to “yell” at them. Sometimes I laugh when Mark yells at me because I think he’s joking, but sometimes his yelling can be scarier than how my mother yelled at me when I was younger. And I have a feeling Mark scared those people because he said all the managers had a meeting and then came out to apologize to him. And at the end of the story he added “And all the customer service people looked as though they were crying, must have been a tough day.”

So while Mark was making everyone in customer service cry at the STSNBN, I was laying in the grass, recovering from a run and was approached by our neighbor who lives in the sweet Airstream (can I mention Airstream on here since we are sponsored by T@B? T@@@BBB T@B. Okay, that should make up for it.) Maybe our neighbor, Alan, knew I was having a self-inflicted bad week, because he went on and on (in a good way) talking about how everything ‘just is’ - if it’s good, that’s because you are thinking of it in a positive way. And if it’s bad, that’s because you’re thinking of it in a negative way. And you’ve got to step back and think about whether you like the way you feel because of the way you’re reacting to things, etc. etc. Everything he said I’ve thought of before, but maybe he was just supposed to remind me about these things.

Mark came home an hour later as Alan was giving me an energy cleansing……………….

And that turned into Mark and me laying in our bed for an hour, earphones connected to our computers and ears of course, playing BRAIN POWER, a CD we copied to our iTunes that Alan loaned us. Maybe it was the sun shining on my already-tired-from-running forehead for the entire hour Alan and I spoke, or perhaps the vibrations produced by the deep beat that CD made, that caused me to fall asleep right away. I woke up ten minutes before the CD ended, freaked because it was now blasting a noise that sounded like an airplane taking off next to our T@B. My ears adjusted and I fell back asleep only to be woken up by extremely loud beginning notes of Led Zeppelin’s version of You Shook Me.

Then we ate some excellent Indian food and so much ice cream that my stomach muscles hurt from being stretched too far. Good night!

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