Okay, Portland.  I can’t even describe how much I fell in love with Portland.  It was by far the luckiest few days we’ve ever had of meeting amazing people, seeing the breath-taking views of the Pacific Northwest, and having new adventures.  The community here was so welcoming and whole-hearted.  The big city had a small town feel and the unique design of cityscape and build perked my love for creativity.  I am going to try to sum up the best parts of the trip, here we go!

1. Buying comforters and sleeping bags from the thrift store because we found out there were no blankets on our overnight train ride!  We did not have time to wash them.

2. Sitting on a train for 17 hours.  You thought trains go fast?  They don’t, they start and you wonder when it’ll speed up, but then it doesn’t, and then it stops again and again.  Of course we were nervous for the long ride, and no, we did not sleep much, but my goodness it was more than worth it.  Watching California float away from us and Oregon’s deep green forests float closer was an unbelievable way to spend our Saturday.

3. Realizing that we were very wrong about having ANY place to stay for the next three days, and not having internet connection or service to research.

4. Then having the best group of friends to save our butts and find friends of friends to host us.

5. Renting a car from Relay Rides (use it – BEST car rental company) and upon getting the car, received an invite from the renal agent to join him and his friends at the beer festival in town.  We found a parking spot front and center at the end of this massive street festival, and he bought us all beers (honestly, the NICEST people!), and we ate a wonderful food-cart dinner.

6. Hiking Multnomah Falls and making PB&J’s sheltered in our car under the rain.

7. Some drunk guy throwing a $100 bill at us for guessing the number 7 out of 10 (what…)

8. Taking the soundest of naps on the side of a park street with Enya playing on our speakers and cuddled with our cozy, used blankets.

9. Pigging out on dinner and ice cream because we had a free $100!

10. Staying at a friends, friends, freshman year roommate’s studio apartment – it was seriously fun!

10. Lolligagging around the farmers market only to realize at 2pm that our train to Seattle was leaving at 2:45…not 4.  We ran through the city, finally found our car, and amazingly got it returned (with gas), got offered a ride by our new nice Relay Ride friend, then realized we had not gotten VooDoo Donuts! (Big no no)…swung the car around, bought donuts, sped to the train station, and missed our train by probably a minute.  

11. But then we had an extra four hours in Portland.  Seriously, it was fate.  

{Portland Film Photography ~ Portland Portrait Film Photography ~ Meigan Canfield Photography}

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