Escape

In 22 years of living on the Pacific West Coast, I had never been to Portland, which is completely outrageous because it's not that far from the valley. 

Madalen and I decided that there was no time like the present for tax-less Christmas present shopping and hipster book stores, so we packed our weekend bags and hit the road. Five hours later we were checking into a hostel and exploring the boutiques of 23rd street. 

I fell in love with the city almost immediately. It's clean and interesting, everybody dresses well, and the local brewery list is impressive. We carried around our auto focus film cameras (my Canon and Madalen's Minolta) and snapped lots of diptychs of each other. I know we look unhappy, but we were really just trying to embrace our natural "bitch-face" looks. In actuality, it was the most fantastic forty-eight hours.

All in all, not a bad way to celebrate completing my education at Trinity Western University.