Waking up in a downtown studio apartment near the heart of Portland after a wild night on the city was kind of surreal. Replaying the past night's events in your head deciphering reality from dream is quite fun. The underground part of Portland was exposed. We lived it. And it will not be forgotten.*
      To be honest, Portland was somewhat of a dirty city. I saw more homeless people here than anywhere else. Not to say it was a bad city, just that seeing ragged, dirty and suffering people on almost every street corner is somewhat disturbing. I enjoyed the time we spent there and it was the most excitement I had experienced the entire journey. Lots of things to do, the nightlife was in full swing, and there were young people everywhere. You'd be surprised on how many cities are filled with older aged folks. Some places we passed through had no young people at all, at least none we saw. Eugene brought the most eye-candy to us with San Francisco and Portland trailing close behind.
      We left the Chadillac asleep on the hay in the studio and headed for the open road back to Utah (bleh...).  There was not a downer feeling leaving the big city or knowing that our trip was ending. Instead there was a welcoming feeling prepared for what the road ahead might bring us. We had to make it back to Fairview, Utah (hometown) by that next day. So we are looking at about 858 miles to travel in one day. It was a Saturday and we needed to be ready for a family member's departing speech at noon on Sunday. We had gotten ready and left the city around 10/11am. All in all, we had a long drive ahead. I started the drive heading east on U.S 30 cutting through the middle of Oregon and then was planning on heading to northern Idaho then dropping down into northern Utah. We passed through the Columbia River Gorge, passing waterfalls, thick green forests and following the massive Columbia River inland. The land started to change from thick forest to yellow rolling hills. We crawled over the hills and headed down into farming land, still in Oregon. The land around this area (somewhere near La Grande) was similar to the flat farming land in Idaho. Land that is flat as far as the eye can see, tractors and fields dotting the landscape not too much to look at. It was strange to enter this land that has no mountains so soon after leaving the wet, thick northwest Oregon forest. While driving on this farming land I came across one of the most extraordinary sights in my whole life. It may sound a little anti-climatic but the pictures may just do it justice, a tree farm. It started out with millions of pine trees all lined in perfectly straight rows going on as far as the eye could see. Then it turned to aspens. Driving alongside this wonder I could not believe the sight. It was a beautful, balanced man-made forest. Really a different sight only knowing mother nature's random placement of trees and seeing lines of trees string for miles in all directions. I considered not stopping since we were tryign to get home as soon as we could but this sight was too much to pass up. And I am forever grateful I did not keep on driving. Sheldon missed the wondrous forest as he was too tired. I parked the van off the side of the highway and ventured into this mystical forest. Upon entering I felt as if there were eyes watching my every move. I slowly moved between the aspens picking my every move carefully. I was not sure if I may stumble upon a booby trap at any moment or if some wood-living creature would pounce on me and drag me into the depths of the forest to slowly pick apart my body like a fresh caviar. I was hesitant to say the least. The wind would blow and the trees would move in sync all dancing to the push of the wind. The seasoned stained yellow aspen leaves would fall creating a confetti-like party around me. The trees were alive. It is a simple statement. However the reality of living plants I believe is somewhat overlooked. The trees were breathing, moving, growing. Being surrounded by thousands and thousands of trees all alone, hearing nothing but the wind blowing in the trees made me feel alive. I walked out of the forest slowly contemplating my experience in that place. Words cannot fully describe the energy or life about that place while I was in there. Very humbling to witness.

*Because I will not forget, I am breaking the drive home into two posts. This forest was close to almost halfway. Tomorrow will have the final photographs of a radical barn we stopped at and also more of the sunlight through the clouds shots.