chicago vs. portland

i was going to skip writing for the day when i realised i actually have something decent to write about. i never wrote about our trip to portland- mainly because it was very packed with activity. i'm beginning to think it would be wise to try and make the effort to visit more often just to remind myself as to why we left in the first place. it's not that it's a terrible place, just not the place for us. we didn't do much outside of hanging out at stefanie's sister's house and spending time with our nephews. we did all of the fun stuff that we wanted to do in a total of about six or seven hours- basically we went downtown one day and spent several hours walking around and seeing our favourites- powell's, everyday music, stumptown coffee, etc. i found two cds at everday music and then we went and had a couple of beers at the henry weinhard's tavern (which i'd recommend for anyone visiting and wanting to sit down for a few beers) and kvetched for about an hour. it was good fun. ironically enough of a dose of portland to be just enough for a while. honestly if we didn't make it through next year on tour i wouldn't be that broken up about it. i still want to do a west coast tour next year if our pal in bozeman can still hook us up with a show at msu (when one show can pay for two weeks of a rental car it's hard for me not to go ahead and get going) then it will happen again next fall- it seems easy to find people/places to play in portland and even in seattle as well- possibly a few other places might open up in the northwest. it gives us an excuse to visit stefanie's friend sarah in spokane (when else would this occur?). this time if nothing works out in california we can just head back home.
basically all in all this move has been very good to us- it's been easier to find jobs, a place to live that we love, it's a more diverse city, there is no shortage of good food to be found, it's not terribly difficult to get around with a car (of course, this is true in portland as well) and we have tons more friends here than we ever did in portland.
i'd go on in greater detail but i'm not really sure what the point of that would be at this point.