Truckin' Cousins: Goodbye Portland

After days of turbo shopping (which I hate) & packing…T-2days had come. I had my last vegan-Portland-supper @ Portabello with family, complete with some hilarious advice for the road…my family be crazy!!!

Sunday a.m. after too little sleep for days, I clawed my way out of bed to squeeze air out of those space bags, add the last toiletries to my already overstuffed toiletry bag (“,), and toss in the last pieces of drying laundry into my huge-mongous duffel the size of two 5 yr. olds! Finally I was ready and lying on the couch, exhausted, then it finally started to set in…

I was leaving on a really different crazy adventure…

I loaded up my bags and my farewell posse…

took one last look around my home then closed the door…

1 hr. left….

Off to “&” we went. As we drove there and I fantasized about the delectable vanilla soy latte that I knew they would make…it was then that I realized…no more soy milk for my coffee…no more good coffee…at least not like this. Inside I desperately ordered and consumed what would probably be my last quality food…and seriously felt crazed desperation to get real live whole foods since my dietary fate would be unknown for the next 5 wks. I had the Kale salad, It was LIT-RA-LY AMAZING…and I stole ¼ a wildblackberry waffle from my Manders and ordered my last amazingly delicious soy vanilla latte, savored a few sips and then packed it to go with me to soften the blow of withdrawls (“,) As we drove to Union Station I remembered water doesn’t taste good or even decent in other cities… Apparently I would be missing many things from our sweet land of Portland…things were changing!

I made it onto the train, after:

doing the shuffle with my 75lb. duffel which was supposed to only be 50lbs. ( I have done this on so many trips before, probably most of them, so I am a pro at moving things out of my bag into my carry-on to get in right under the allowed weight, and then have to carry-on even more weight)...

Hugging my farewell posse...

...and then my bro James just walked in with me to the track past the point where only ticket holders were supposed to go (“,) I was sure we were gonna get accosted but no one noticed or cared….he escorted me to the train car, and gave me one last hug (“,) a proper send off!

I was ready to sleep the whole way up because I was exhausted and feeling sick… I found my seat and a friendly seat mate, and of course I was friendly so chatting began. I quickly learned he was military which to me is extended family…(I wouldn’t end up getting any sleep we would talk the whole way)….

Before the train pulled out and we were chatting I started getting texts to look over my shoulder….which I kept doing and there was no one….apparently someone was watching me…I looked like a crazy person to my seat mate and after repeated nervous looking over my shoulder I finally called my farewell posse and they said they were on the bridge… what bridge??? They had been waving at some other lady and couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t wave (“,) I found them in the caboose out the back window…waving and loving me!!!! I LOVE MY FAREWELL POSSE!

Good bye sweet Portland and all those that I love until we meet again!!!