Being in Burbank was familiar. We lived in Southern California for twelve years, adding three children to our circus. That was the era of homeschooling, beach bumming, and day trips to Disneyland. The pile of Legos was spread across the floor and the local parks were ours to explore.

When Lukas and Amy picked me up at LAX I had flashbacks to when I sent Chara across the country to boarding school at fifteen, and handed Micah over to an attendant at age seven to visit his grandparents in Philly. He ended up in New Jersey.

The freeways were a known entity. The mountains were old friends, except that now they were on fire. We went to the Hollywood Bowl to hear John Williams conduct and to wave light sabers, and recalled the time Lukas stood on stage with his Boy Scout troop.

But Portland was an enigma. Any preconceptions I had were spotty and quickly repapered by three days of being there.

Did you know that dogs are welcome almost universally? There are silver bowls on the sidewalks for passing pups, and menus for canine companions. In one store they offered my son's dog a handful of treats, no doubt in part to loosen his wallet, but not exclusively.

The fabric store we visited was stocked with yardage I could never find at my local store back home. Organic cotton, linen, dye ready bolts, hand carved wooden blocks for printing, wool felting supplies.

The artisan ice cream parlor offered flavors like Lavender Honey and Oregon Rocky Road. The sampling spoons were not disposable.

But the neighborhoods were what caught my fancy. There is a book I used to read to my kids called The Big Orange Splot in which a passing bird drops a can of paint on someone's roof. Up until then the houses were neat and all the same. But this unprecedented deviation sparked one man to step into uniqueness. To let his home reflect his hidden dreams. At first the neighbors were miffed. But gradually they too repurposed their yards with bong trees and alligators. Reconstructed their second stories into sailing ships or Greek temples.