Sunday, June 29, 2014

Portland

Rain, mustaches, anything slightly obscure or off beat, lots and lots of people. This is Portland. We originally planned to stay one night but we were having such a great time staying with my friend Evan and his roommates Elizabeth and Robert, that we ended up staying two extra nights until Saturday morning. While in Portland we walked, used the public transit, and buzzed about on our 90s. To be honest, folks, I was really apprehensive to ride around the city on my bike. I'm not fond of even driving a car. Actually, 'not fond of' is an understatement. Let me put it to you this way; a couple of years ago while checking in to our hostel in downtown San Fransisco, I had to move the car out of the loading zone. By the time I had made it around the block, I had broken down into a full blown panic attack due to the terror I experienced in that single city block. So yeah. Driving in the city is not my thing. Or didn't used to be my thing. But that's just the thing. Travelling in the manner that we are, I've found that I know longer have the luxury of aversions. So I hopped on my 90 like I knew what I was doing and off we went. Truth be told, that day of riding around Portland was the best I experienced in the land of micro brew and epic facial hair. And it reenforced a lesson or theme I'm acquainting myself with. This journey is not just about seeing beautiful countryside and meeting all sorts of people. It's about pushing all of our limits to the point of breaking them, becoming comfortable with them, then moving on to the further most edges of our comfort zone. It's this flavor of existence that will both challenge and free us as we make our way into the unknown.

Now don't get me wrong, Portland and the surrounding areas wasn't just about the rain and riding a tiny motorcycle around like a bad ass. We had a great time. We had the pleasure of a private viewing of the classic Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi in the 5th Street Cinema on the PSU campus, wandered about the different districts in town, and we even got to spend the day shooting with a camera guy while exploring the Columbia river gorge on our way out of town. We found Doug, our camera guy through Craigslist. By the time we got to Portland, we were all getting frustrated with the dichotomy of trying to catch all of the shots we want for the documentary while truly experiencing the trip itself. To remedy this, I decided to throw out a hail Mary of a Craigslist ad and see if we could find a camera person this way. We had some requirements for whomever would be interested in shooting for us; we couldn't pay them or cover their costs. We realized what a request this was and you can imagine our surprise when someone actually volunteered for this position. Like I said, it was an amazing and fun day and I'm kind of proud to say that our first camera crew was a man, his wife, their daughter, and a mini van. The perfect crew for this project! 

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