Days before the trip began, one of my housemates, Jessi-Ann, and I had begun to pack. We were constantly running into each others rooms asking "Are you bringing this? What about this? Do you thing we'll need this? I don't know how this is all going to fit...." I was constantly down-sizing myself. I tend to over-pack and that was not something I wanted to do if I was going to carry all my stuff for three weeks (plus whatever I bought while I was there). I was amazed to see all of this this:
fit into this:
The morning that we were leaving, my wonderful boyfriend called me to wake me up. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not a morning person. There was no way I was going to wake up at 6 and actually get up on my own, even for the trip that I had been looking forward to for over a year. Josh repeatedly asked if I was actually up and out of bed. (Since he's in Illinois, the two hour time difference makes it convenient for this kind of thing to work.)
Jessi-Ann had already been up for quite some time and had gotten us coffee, bless her. Four of us drove to the Portland train station where we waited for everyone else to get there. That's when the adventure began - on the way there. Downtown Portland is a maze of one and two way streets. We made a left turn from a one-way street onto what the driver thought was another one-way street. It wasn't. Thankfully the on-coming traffic was far coming and shouts of "TWO-WAY! TWO-WAY!" from all parts of the car saved us. Everyone got to the station (Mandy just barely in time) and we got on the train to Seattle.
