Oh what an amazing weekend I just had! With enormous help from Phoebe Wahl and Demetria Provatas, we managed a booth at the Albany, Oregon Mother Earth News Fair. It was a weekend full of meeting some seriously amazing people whom I've only known as email addresses and blog comment names for years and years (faces are so much lovelier to imagine!), many Taproot contributors (old, current, and future!) and generally reveling in all that is this modern movement towards more human connection, sustainability, and embracing a slowness to life. As different as it may have been from the fairs I am used to (Common Ground Fair, you have my heart), it was such a treat to meet folks on this other coast for the very first time.
There was only one thing missing so far on this trip to that other coast. And that was the actual coast! I arrived in Portland, Oregon in the middle of the night one day last week, and then proceeded to shuttle to the car rental place, followed by a drive to the hotel and conference center at which the fair was held. My view of Oregon for the first four days of this journey involved a lot of amazing people, to be sure. But not a whole lot besides that. And every single one of those amazing people urged me "get to the coast!!" Which is precisely why, when we packed up the booth (in record time, to make it to the ocean before sunset), we decided to take a (major) detour on our next destination to hit the coast. We went from 95 degree weather to 60 degree weather in just two hours. And drove, yes, four hours out of the way. But oh, was it worth it! To put my feet in this ocean. To breathe in the salty air. And to know that I survived driving the gorgeous, stunning, windy, foggy, bendy roads of coastal Oregon (seriously, how do y'all drive on those roads? I thought I was on a roller coaster!). Beauty everywhere. I'm so happy to be here.
And now, Portland. If you're local, don't forget we'll be at Mt. Tabor Park today from 4-6pm for a little meet and greet picnic in the park. I'd love to see you there!
