It's early Sunday morning and I've just returned from a week in Oregon, hanging out with friends and road-tripping in a white Ford Mustang with my younger sister, JP. It seemed that I was always driving towards The Dalles, according to the highway signage, but we never made it that far east. So I started to imagine The Dalles as a place I wanted to head towards, but would never reach. It became beautiful in my mind, for the longing. Road trips are good like that. When I'm driving, out there in America, which is to say, everywhere that is not downtown Manhattan, where I live, my vision is clearer, my awareness of the natural world that much sharper. Last night: "The violet hour, more entrancing for diamond flecks of stars spied dreamily through pincurled clouds from the plane (echoes of Eggleston)." But I get ahead of myself.
The first part of our trip, in Portland, we spent a lot of time with the Bishops, who are the current generation behind Pendleton. We had some fascinating evenings discussing locavores, heritage brands, style, and pretty much everything under the sun. We spent some time under it too, drinking peppermint shakes on the banks of the Willamette River, at dinner on a houseboat near Sauvies Island, at Clyde Common at the Ace Hotel, where I availed myself of the photo booth as I always do.
We also had the opportunity to tour the Pendleton design offices in downtown Portland and the mill in Washougal, Washington. It was thrilling. We saw some of the upcoming collaborations between Pendleton and Opening Ceremony, and also the plaid archives. Pendleton has two distinct styles: traditional American sportswear, which is super-preppy, and Western wear, with its Native American jacquard. I flip over them both in equal measure.
I had a missed connection with my friend Rob Spillman, who edits Tin House; he was rockclimbing when we caught up with his wife Elyssa and newly-blond daughter Izzy, drummer in Care Bears on Fire, while they were vintage shopping. I also had the chance to spend an afternoon with Kristin Kaye, who curates Duff Dinners, "a series that celebrates the living history and the ours-to-shape future of our forests." We made a visit to Publication Studio, where they produce beautiful books. I bought Matthew Stadler's anthology on urban theory, sublime so far.
We also spent a few days on the coast, mostly at Cannon Beach, where we stayed at the delightful McBee Cottages. My friends Laural, a poet and jewelry designer, and Peter, who's with Kalkhoff Bikes, joined us for some R&R. We had breakfast in Astoria at Columbian Cafe, enjoyed the scenery, grilled steaks and s'mores over a fire and watched movies like A Single Man (highly recommended) and knocked around town & country. Late afternoons were for napping and then changing for dinner.
JP and I then headed in a big, beautiful loop out to Hood River, where we had iced coffee and admired the Gorge, and then up, up, up to Timberline Lodge, at 6,000 feet. It was breathtaking, built in 1937 to put people back to work. Like a charm.
One of the things we marveled at most in Oregon was the beguiling natural beauty of a scale not seen on our native East Coast. We wanted to be outside and active all the time. And, then, of course, there is the special relationship between New York and Portland which consists of conversations that begin, "So are you thinking of moving here? [to Portland]" Well, are you, darling?
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