“Why did you go to Portland?” people kept asking me. Um, why wouldn’t I go to Portland when:

• I found round trip tickets for $110 each out of LAX thanks to the Hopper app.
• It was my birthday weekend.
• A #PNW search on Instagram turns up the most breathtaking foggy mountain evergreen shots of life (that stands for Pacific Northwest for all you non-Insta-obsessed people.
• Powell’s Books exists there, and only there

So, off Shebz and I went for three nights of authentic PNW living.

We stayed in a glorified boarding house that I found on AirBnB called “1234 House.” Our room had a hammock. The living room had an upright piano, blue walls painted with flowers and an incredible oversized swoopy chair I like to think was salvaged from a garage sale. We learned that the locals used to call this place “Skeleton House” because it used to be totally gutted inside, and bands used to come and play in the open space.

We had no official plans other than Powell’s Books, Voodoo Doughnut, and Sizzle Pie (known for their vegan pizza creations) (Shebz is a vegan, I am not). Bonus: it happened to be PIZZA WEEK in Portland. Who knew that Portland made damn good pizza? Can we get some of that crust down in LA, please? Nah? Didn’t think so.

We also perused the racks at a few record stores (Everyday Music, Exiled Records and pictured-below Jackpot Records), and discovered the band Woo. It’s pretty much the perfect ambient electronic chill music; perfect to write or read or fall asleep to. I’m listening to them right now. You can listen to the album we got here. Apparently these are all unreleased tracks from the 70s and 80s, so we are only a few decades late in discovering these guys. Oh, well. We like you, Woo.

Oh, and Courier Coffee? It’s pretty much the realest coffee shop I’ve ever been to. I had a perfectly-brewed chamomile tea with a squeeze of something that made it taste de-li-cious (now I can’t remember what it was- special lemon? Honey mixture?), while Shebz had some pour-over coffee that was amazing, according to him. I don’t drink coffee so I wouldn’t know.

Anyway, The people watching was A+. We happened to be there during what we’ve dubbed “hardcore hour,” when a bunch of hardcore dudes unofficially meet up and talk about hardcore music and try to impress each other with their hardcore knowledge and play Styxx ironically on the in-shop record player. I was the only female there, and yes I could have eavesdropped all day. Even the baristas were into it.

Shopping the Saturday Market on Sunday was pretty cute. We discovered The Game of Real Life (a parody of Life!), a wool dryer ball infused with essential oils that takes the place of dryer sheets, and my new favorite soap company, Wandering Goods (they have an Etsy!)

Of course, no trip to Portland would be complete without a jaunt to the mountains. We wanted to rent a car, but… my license had just expired three days prior and Shebz lost his (major oops!), so instead we booked a tour on a mini bus with six other Midwesterners and Texans. Heh. We stopped at all the popular waterfalls and lookout points and it was so. gorgeous. Finally, all those Instagram-drool-worthy locations IRL! My favorite was Horsetail Falls (second photo below). If you know me, you know why. Next time, I want to road trip the whole way and bring a tent and stop at some campgrounds.

I like to think of this as our “Farewell Portland” tour, because Portland right now is basically Williamsburg BK in 2011. It’s right on the tipping point of being taken over by people with much deeper pockets than the artists who currently live there (the very ones who made it the raddest place to live in Pacific Standard Time Zone.) Right now, you can still find a room in a hippie flop house for $200 a month. Living room acoustic shows and friendly faces at the local brewery are still a thing. You can still buy an adorable affordable house in a charming neighborhood with a great school system. In a few years, it’ll be all commercialized with condos and bidding wars on falling-apart houses. But right now, Portland is still really rad, and if I had the kind of job I could do there, I might even consider moving there.

For now though, I’ll just start plotting my epic west-coast camping road trip that I swear I will take this summer-ish.