Hi Gram,
Our trip is going well, but I think it will be tough for a bookstore, driving, and time with adults in the woods to top all the fun he was having with other kids, games, rides behind a boat, and canoeing the past few days. We each slept pretty well, then took our time getting going in the morning. After breakfast, I caught up on the blog a little while he watched one of the Minions movies. Once the movie was over and I’d caught up a little, we checked out and headed to Powell’s books in downtown Portland.

Powell’s City of Books is a legendary independent bookstore that spans an entire city block. It started in the 1970’s in a former car dealership and expanded and morphed over the years. It’s easy to get lost wandering the stacks from room to room and floor to floor of used and new books shelved side-by-side. Once he had an armload of books and I’d found a sticker for my laptop – with all my travel, I need to keep a minimalist lifestyle that doesn’t include acquiring more books – we headed to the cashier and locked in our purchase.

After heading back to drop the books at the car, my intent was to grab lunch at a food truck. Portland is known for its collection of food truck pods, filling half a block or more with food trucks serving any kind of food you can imagine. I found one on the map, then we headed that way. Portland has been going through some changes recently, enacting laws and policies aimed at being kinder to the homeless and going easy on petty criminals to keep a small infraction from ruining the rest of their lives. They’re still figuring it out, though, and in the meantime some people are taking advantage of the system. We walked by a few meth heads, on the other side of the street or a few blocks away, screaming at nobody in particular or arguing amongst themselves and saw a few tent camps. We just kept walking and were in no danger, but were disappointed when we reached the food truck pod to find all but one or two of them closed. I looked up another pod, and after walking a few blocks we found the same thing – every one of them closed up. We headed back towards the car, looking for a restaurant or truck pod, but just found police calming down the yellers, men and women crumpled on the sidewalk, apparently sleeping off whatever they had ingested, and plenty of closed storefronts.

Accepting failure, we got in the car and headed out of town, aiming for our next stop outside of Eugene, OR. Both still hungry, we found a Burgerville along the highway where we stopped in for some unhealthy comfort food. With our bellies full, we drove for a while before stopping to grab some groceries and headed up the mountain. Seeing the vast swaths of trees in different stages of growth and feeling the winding road cling to the switchbacks is exciting to me, but to a teenager, a recently acquired book is much better. I remember being a kid and having my parents point out cool features and attractions only to kind of shrug and get back to my book. Now, of course, I understand what they were talking about that impressed them so much, but at the time I just didn’t understand what the adults saw in all this stuff.

We pulled into Orion and Robin’s driveway, and I got out to hug my friends that I haven’t seen in a couple years. I introduced Howard, but this is where it all became too much. Their dog Leroy is friendly but Howard doesn’t like dogs and gets nervous around them. The natural surroundings and homesteader lifestyle is fun to me, but it was too different from the life that he’s always known. I have a history of stories and experiences with Orion and have great talks with Robin, but they’re not kids and hard for a teenager to relate to. His initial response was wanting to go home and get back to what he’s familiar with. I told him that he could read a book for a while and we’d talk about it after we’d had time to adjust and see what we thought of it. While he was reading in the car and on a swing for a bit, the adults shared stories and conversation until dinner time. Orion grilled up some hot dogs for everyone, Robin got us some cole slaw and potato salad, and we all sat down for a good meal. Some bees and flies tried to ruin the ambience outside, so we headed into the kitchen to finish up.

We set up our camping gear, then chatted for a little bit before Howard and Robin were each tired and headed off to bed. Orion and I sat up chatting for a few hours, but eventually we got tired too and retired, closing everything up and turning off the lights before heading to my tent for a good night’s sleep.

It was a little chilly when I woke in the morning, but in a crisp, comfortable way that wakens the senses without putting them into shock. I got up and walked down to the kitchen, made myself some tea, and went through my stretches and brain exercises. After a while, Orion came in and we chatted for a while. It felt great catching up with an old friend. Whenever I see him, conversation just comes naturally and we can talk for hours. Robin joined us after a while and we all talked about maybe heading down to the coast to ride some dune buggies or hang out on the beach. Seeing that it was getting to be late morning, I headed over to wake Howard so we could get to the coast with enough time to enjoy the day. Orion and Robin cooked up some breakfast and we ran our ideas for activity by Howard. He just wasn’t having it. He was homesick and uncomfortable, and laser focused on just getting out of there. I let him go surf his phone for a while in the car while Orion took me to the garden to show me what he’s growing and the struggles he’s had to overcome. It’s really cool the way he and Robin have developed the land here, making planters to get the vegetables off the rocky soil, building a greenhouse for starting seedlings, and tapping into the natural spring for their water needs. He has plans to add some other features such as a pond and larger greenhouse, and moving the solar to a better spot so they can continue to optimize living off the land.

When we got back down to the car, I saw that everything was just too much for Howard to be comfortable, so decided that we’d pack up early and head back to civilization instead of scarring him for life. He and I made quick work of taking down the tent, packing up the sleeping bags and pads, and getting everything back into the car. We said our goodbyes to Robin and Orion, and headed back down the mountain. I didn’t want his last experience on the trip to be a sour note in his mind, so I decided to go spend one more night in Bayshore where he could see the other kids, play games, and remember all the fun that he’d had. We got there around 8:30 or 9, and as we walked in everyone shouted their hellos and hugged him, welcoming us back. He had fun playing cards with the other kids while I visited with the adults, then we headed to a hotel nearby. The change in his disposition was palpable, and I was glad that we’d decided to come back.