You have always been my safe home

My most recent round of travels has brought me back to the Pacific Northwest.  I flew into Portland on Wednesday and spent a couple days out there with Jon and Rachel.  Jon had to work so I was out exploring with Rachel with their two girls in tow.  Due to this, everybody who saw us assumed we were a family and occasionally, we'd interact with strangers and whenever a question came up, I'd defer to Rachel about the girls since they're not my kids.  After a little while, it struck me that I look like a fairly aloof dad.  Portland's a good city but I'm not sure if its somewhere I would ever truly fit in.  Jon and Rachel aren't hipsters, but Portland is their kind of city.

Saturday afternoon, I hopped on the BoltBus from Portland up to Bellingham because a trip isn't complete until your butt is sore from sitting on a bus for six hours.  About 20 miles south of Bellingham, I first saw the exit for Chuckanut Drive and the nostalgia started to seep in.  The rest of the way in consisted of remembering landmarks and reviving memories.  The few days I've had here have been wonderful.  I got to see how the city has expanded into a beer city (but not Beer City, which is still GR's title), followed by a hike in the forest the next afternoon and hanging out with a couple from grad school that I hadn't seen in two+ years who had just recently moved out there.  Last night, Luke brought me around to some of the sentimental places in Lynden.  The one that hit me the most was driving by our old house.  The garden is gone, the basketball hoop is gone, the evergreens are taller and the fireplace looks like its been updated, but other than that, it looked exactly the same.  I was tempted to have Luke stop and see if I could go inside for a little bit and even more tempted just to climb up onto the roof, but discretion ruled out.  The west coast is definitely a place I could see myself coming back to, with the biggest drawback obviously being my family still being in the Midwest.  Tonight I'll be going out to Bob's for a burger and a brew with several of the guys from high school.  This trip has been good and its a shame it's been ten years since I was last here.