Recently I became “Carl from Portland” with a move from living in downtown Chicago to the West Coast. It has taken me a while to get settled but I wanted to say hello to my friends at Chicago Boyz.
Originally I started taking pictures of all the weird people I saw in Portland – guys wearing kilts or fishnets, girls dressed up like bumblebees with ukuleles, and all manner of tattoos, nose rings and piercings. But then I realized – hey – that’s like taking a picture of a drunk, fat guy at a Bears game. Unless you can go beyond the obvious, don’t do it at all. Or maybe that is grist for a future post.
First the highlights – Portland has an incredible location. Not only does the city offer everything you’d expect in a big city (restaurants, concerts, cool stores, ability to walk around, nightlife) – they have little to no crime (when compared to ChiRaq) – but you can go about an hour and a half and be on the Pacific Ocean, or about an hour and a half the other way and be hiking in real mountains. Here is a photo I took at Cannon Beach when I went there early in April for an unseasonably warm and beautiful day (I’m told). Below is a photo of Mount Hood from a recent hike we took last weekend.
