Hello all! I’m writing in from a coffee shop here in Portland, Oregon. It seems pretty appropriate since coffee shops and book stores are at every corner of the city. I’ve been in the area for 2 months so far, working during the week, and exploring areas around the coast on weekends.

Gwyn and I have spent some time at Haystack Rock, as well as in Astoria, and we hiked around Ecola State Park (it’s a coniferous rainforest here in the states). It’s been fun here, almost everyone is the outdoorsy type, and one of their phrases is to, “Keep Portland Weird”. Portland definitely has it’s own flare, and I’m loving every minute of it. The weather has been nice. It’s not nearly as hot and humid as what I’ve experienced on the east coast, as well as more temperate weather has been the rule and not the exception.

We did arrive in August where there were about 2 weeks of 90+* weather, and thankfully we had a few friends in the city that let us hangout at their place for the incredibly hot days. Gwyn and I would have made it, but the pups wouldn’t have been able to stay in the van once the temps started rising. Thankfully we managed with our friend’s hospitality.

Otherwise Vanlife has been nice here in Northern OR. We’ve been to a few pop up events like fabric swapping, queer karaoke (Portland is very LGBTQ+ friendly), an early morning fly fishing class, and a free class on investing for examples. While here, we’ve met some friends, made some acquaintances and enjoyed the general vibes of the area.

All in all we’ve enjoyed the thrift stores, all the bookstores we’ve gotten to visit so far, and we even hit up the Oregon Zoo. It’s very well organized and whoever setup the layout did an awesome job with the limited space in the city.

We’ll be working on finishing up our contracts in the next month, and hopefully headed more south to finish out the fall and winter months, then possibly later head back up to the PNW. It’s definitely a lovely place to explore and I can see myself sticking around here for a while.

Over and out,

Whit