Right Off Main Street

In the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley is a time capsule located along the 45th parallel, half way between the North Pole and the equator. The bustling three and half square mile City of Silverton was built around the banks of Silver Creek and was incorporated in 1854. Although the area has been inhabited for 6,000 years, it seems as though Silverton came into its own during the 1950s and has never let go. When you are here, you are sure you are still there.

Our favorite coffee house in town.

Steve and I happened into Silverton in May on our way to Silver Falls State Park for an afternoon hike. After a magnificent lunch at Gather, we walked around and were captivated by its innocence and charm. There was something very special about Silverton; it was a small town that did not seem small-minded. 

Overlooking Silver Creek

Three months later almost to the day, Steve and I returned to Silverton to stay, permanently. We bought a house––site unseen with the help of a trusted realtor and friend––and saw it in person for the first time on the afternoon of 6 August. It was a risk well worth taking. I was overwhelmed with emotion the moment we walked inside. It was better and more impressive than we had expected. The photographs online were stunning to be sure, but they could not convey the sheer openness, the positive vibes or magnificent surroundings in which we had landed. I was speechless. This is ours? I thought. How is this even possible? It was like a dream. Every day since has been like a dream that I cannot wake up from, cannot fully absorb or understand, and yet I feel awake. It is as though I have lived a lifetime during the past three weeks as every moment of every day has been so intense that I collapse with exhaustion at the end of it.

Home

Steve and I both are restless spirits so it may seem a bit strange that we have made such an enormous commitment to a place that we know virtually nothing about. But then, maybe it doesn't seem that strange at all. We understood that something was missing from our lives––that there was a disconnect between us and the people and things that were the most important. We needed to reconnect with ourselves, our families, our community, and Mother Earth if we were going to be happy. Living in an ultra urbanized environment felt like we had been forgotten and that we were forgetting what it meant to be one with the earth, our community, and our fellow man.

Hood

We sold most of our things and arrived with little. Our new home was a blank canvas for us to create and reinvent how we do life; a place that we could share with those who we love, an experience we could give to others who want to explore Oregon, and an opportunity to be a part of community with a tenderness almost as soft as the tip of a dog's ear. It is here, right off Main Street, that we've found a place called Home.

Here's to new beginnings, hopes and dreams, love and peace.

Chasing the Sun

The only regrets in life are the risks we don’t take. 

The rain this morning was different somehow. Perhaps because I knew it was temporary. Not that it was going to pass, but that I was sure to escape from it. The sky over Hagerstown was filled with intense energy; white clouds billowed like steam plumes from a locomotive against a backdrop of steel blue-grey. Pockets of rain doused the wildflowers and cleansed the earth as we drove west, through Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Eventually, we found the sun beating down on Ohio's farmland. Indiana and Illinois were a blur. We zipped passed fields and prairies and watched the the blood orange sun melt into rolling hills of corn. We made it to Iowa. A 1,000 miles down, 2,000 more or less to go. 

Sunset in Ohio

We rose with the sun in Iowa City on Saturday. A little orange tabby sat next to the pet washing station and watched over us as we filled our gas tank and dislodged the insects that were slathered all over the windshield. We climbed into Subie Doo and headed west on I-80 in search for good coffee. We pulled off in middle-of-nowhere-Williamsburg, Iowa and purchased coffee and doughnuts to go—a forgivable sin on a 3,000 mile road trip—at Casey’s General Store. Half the town had the same idea because they all seemed to be there. Or maybe it was because it was the only thing open. At any rate, I snapped a few pics to send to my three-year-old nephew, Casey. 

Bath Anyone?

Steve at Casey's General Store in Williamsburg, Iowa

We turned right at Des Moines and headed north to Minnesota. I couldn’t wait to see Minnesota—state number 49 of 50 (only Wisconsin left to see). As soon as we crossed the border, we were nearly run off the road by an old woman who pulled into our lane at 80 miles an hour. Steve swerved, slammed on the horn, and crushed the breaks. She proceeded as though we were invisible, passed the truck on our right, and returned to her lane as though nothing had happened. She didn’t even look at us when we passed her. Not long after that incident, it started pouring, and we passed a dude on his motorcycle donned in full rain gear, goggles, and no helmet going 70 miles an hour. Wicked. That guy was either the most brutally hard core person I had ever seen in my life or the stupidest one. (Those two things may not be mutually exclusive.) Alas, he wasn’t the only motorcyclist slogging it out in the rain. The entire stretch of I-90 was peppered with motorcycle riders battling the relentless precipitation, though most wore enclosed brain buckets. We passed by Blue Earth and found blue sky again.

Wind Turbines in Minnesota

Apparently there is a huge pirate convention this week in Sturgis, South Dakota, where mateys dress up, posture, and assert false jocularity amongst like-minded road warriors. I’m amused by the costumes and decorations they flaunt with pride, but find myself embarrassed for them, much like I do today’s teens who have revived high-wasted shorts and crop tops that were best left in the 80's. They travel in packs—all of these pirates on motorcycles—it’s the weirdest thing. What exactly do they do at Sturgis? I think many must be trained professional DickyDo contestants. You know, the contest where they measure men’s bellies to see whose sticks out further than their dicky do. Seems like that contest would be overflowing with participants. Beyond that, I imagine a lot grunting, beer drinking, and saggy boob flashing similar to that of Mardi Gras but with much less class. I digress … South Dakota seemed to have a lot of other things to offer. 

This image is a little fuzzy because I took it surreptitiously out the back window, which is tented, just in case this guy was a real Hells Angel. 
Bad ass or pirate clown?

Steve has kindly shared with me that he thinks I’m a dooms-dayer, that I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, that I need to learn to let things go and do my part to make the world a better place in my own little way and leave it at that. So I will work on that and refrain from talking about how the white man stole all this land in South Dakota and beyond (the entire US) from the natives, nearly wiped them out in their quest for greed, and then "gave them reservations" and named areas after tribes to make themselves feel better about the horrors they inflicted upon these peoples, so that these pirates could one day invade it as if they own the place. Oops, sorry. There I go again, thinking about injustice.

Sunset in Wyoming