Magical Oregon Trip September 2019 - Day 1

 

A year ago this month, I returned to Oregon for the first time in thirteen years, both so that I could go on a spiritual retreat after a year and a half of hell in my personal life, and also so that I could discover whether my love of Oregon from my teens and early twenties was still alive. I discovered quite quickly it was.

This year's journey only further solidified to me that not only do I love Oregon, but it is, as in all true healthy relationships, a love that is fully reciprocated. As Shveta and I planned our trip, the number of beautiful synchronicities, the details that slid smoothly into place, were inarguable.


It started with our travel plans. Finally after planning to do this trip together for months, we sat down on chat with our two Southwest low fare calendars (hers out of Philadelphia and mine out of Columbus) to figure out exactly when would be the best time for us to go. One set of days after another were Xed off our list; either she'd be getting to Portland hours and hours before me, the trip had too many layovers for one or the other of us, or was too expensive. Finally, we knew we had the right trip when we discovered that if we went from Labor Day through Friday the 6th, not only could we both have low fares and short plane rides, but we'd both be flying into Chicago, and then traveling together on the long leg of the trip. And then coming back, we'd be doing the same. We would arrive and depart together.


The flight was in the early hours of the morning: my plane departed at 6am, but this meant that with time changes, we'd arrive in Portland by 11 in the morning, and have almost a full first day.

The magic continued as we searched AirBnB for a place to stay on our trip. I immediately told Shveta that though I loved the place I stayed last year (where she had stayed a week and a half before me, and recommended to me), I just couldn't do a place again that had shared bathrooms (there was one morning I had to wait over an hour to go to the bathroom because the other guests took consecutive showers that lasted foooreeeeeeeever). We started hunting for places in the Hawthorne area near the Fernie Brae, which of course is home central for any magical fey-person's trip to Portland, and I saw a sweet and lovely basement apartment with its own bathroom, living room, and full sized kitchen. Not only that, but the back yard had a sauna! I sent it to Shveta and she agreed it was perfect. It wasn't until we were looking closer at the reviews before booking that we noticed: it was the same house we stayed in last trip! We found out that our hostess, Ruby, decided to take back the main part of her house and renovated the basement to create this apartment shortly after our trips last year. Well, we certainly knew where we were staying.

It was wonderful to see Shveta at the Chicago airport. As the magical, fairy tale aspect of our trip continued, we went to get breakfast at the terminal, and the first restaurant was too blah, the second was too meaty, and the third was juuuuust right.

Shveta was first on the plane at boarding, and managed to get us seats in the roomy exit row. We either napped or watched episodes of Age of Resistance (me) or worked on our novel (Shveta) the whole way, until we knew we were about to land when we saw this view:

This is the most beautiful view of Mt Hood I've ever had flying into Portland.

I had a little burst of shocked laughter when Oregon's love affair with me continued at the airport. We were making our way to the baggage claim when we heard gorgeous live music playing. I do adore it when airports have live musicians. Walking by, I saw it was Adam Hurst, who plays at almost every Faeriecon event. Yes, Oregon, I am paying attention. 💚

After we dropped off our bags at the AirBnB, (it was early enough that our hostess was still cleaning between guests) we walked to Hawthorne to get some bottles of water and explore.

In case I had not yet received the message, Oregon left me this straightforward response on the curb right across from our AirBnB at Ruby's house.

Walking down the gorgeous streets from our temporary home to Hawthorne was always like a miniature story. On any given day, we could see fearless groups of crows parading magically in the streets, moss and feather debris scattered on the sidewalks, squirrels darting and dancing around lovely-barked trees along the sidewalk, and of course charming houses and gardens in various states of late summer/early autumn overgrowth.

We only had time to stop by the charming New Seasons Market across from Fernie Brae to get some bottled water and a brownie before Ruby texted us to let us know the room was ready. I always feel better about exploring on a vacation once I've been able to unpack and settle in my space, so we returned to the room.

There was a lovely little bedroom, including plenty of hangers for all our dresses and skirts:

A full kitchen, which we utilized somewhat, mostly for leftovers.

A cute and cozy bathroom:

And the living room, which I apparently forgot to photograph, but you can see on her AirBnB listing linked above.

We stopped by the branch of Powells on Hawthorne, where both of us bought a tourism postcard that made us giggle (see my last day post with souvenirs to see it), and returned to the room to get changed and refreshed for an evening at Bryonie's house with her husband and son, and Toby and Baz.

Much merriment ensued. I was able to give Bryonie and Toby their personalized Gelfling Essence bottles I made them, and the two extras I made for Bryonie to give away as trivia prizes at the Fernie Brae. We talked about Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Shveta and I spirited Toby away at one point to ask him spoilerific questions, since Bryonie hadn't finished the series yet), had a lovely supper and fun conversation.

I also got to not only meet, but try puppeteering Toby's friend, the goblin pirate Sid, or Sydious Rynholm.

This led to a fascinating discussion about what we think might have been alternate career paths for us if we could choose multiple things. I've always loved puppeteering, and would have loved to have tried it as a career.

I mean, that's a pretty happy face I'm sporting there.

After supper, Bryonie's son brought Sid to Toby, and we were all given an impromptu show, discovering how a goblin pirate would respond to an air pump for balloons wielded by a young boy. A hint: a tin posterior was involved.

The evening had to come to an end eventually, and we had Bryonie's son take a few photos for us to remember the night. The creative little art director had us go through a series of expressions, which resulted in some pretty fun photos.

By then, it was after 9:00 Portland time, after midnight back home where we were from, and we had been up since around 3am, so we stumbled back to our AirBnB, full of happiness and ready for the next day's adventures.