Columbia County Fair

7 Comments

We said goodbye to Grammy today, after almost a month. We always seem to stay a month with her. Part of it is because we love her, and part of it is because we love Portland. Portland summers anyway. And while we all love Grammy, it wasn’t her name we … Read More

Date with Strangers

11 Comments

We had a little get-together at the pub the other day. We do these every now and again—inviting Bum friends to drop in and say hi face-to-face instead of through our usual virtual reality. People always ask us, “Isn’t it kind of weird meeting a bunch of people you don’t … Read More

Mississippi Street

6 Comments

Note: If you’re in the Portland area, we’re having a little get together/bus open house at 2:00 Sunday. Hopworks on SE Powell. This is nothing new, just a re-split of an old scar. There’s something natural about a boy and a bloody cut—you know that each cut is just one of … Read More

ABCDEFGHJI…

20 Comments

Peanut-butter cookies this time. I thought this was pretty funny. Ali bought this LeapFrog alphabet pad thing at Target. Just a cheapo little item for Ouest to practice her letters on. She had finished it in the car, and when she got home she brought it over to show me. … Read More

Hangin’

10 Comments

Been taking a bit of a break around here this week. We’ve been doing a little bus work, taking a lot of neighborhood walks, and hanging out with friends quite a bit. I realized that every friend we have in Portland came to us through our website. Kind of weird, … Read More

Travco Time Machine

18 Comments

Remember a while back I mentioned that we had tracked down the original owners of the bus? Well today we got a little gift in the mail—a bunch of pictures from back in the day. Pretty amazing to me just how little has changed. Apparently the original owner added the … Read More

Fairies

10 Comments

Yesterday morning I joked with Ouest, “Do you want me to pull that tooth out for you.” “Shore,” she said, because apparently there really is nothing in this world that scares the girl. “Okay, go get me a piece of toilet paper.” She runs back in—apparently she only had one square … Read More

Miracles

13 Comments

Our kids haven’t stopped asking about Mango, our fish, since Ali gave it away back in Mexico before we left last time. Six months and somehow their little heads have retained the memory of a one-inch beta fish named after a fruit. Ali secretly loved the fish too, so recently … Read More

Poopy Hands

25 Comments

The other day we were at an RV park and I watched a man—for the hundredth time, at least—pull on an elbow length pair of rubber gloves before disconnecting his RV’s toilet hose. As I watched him all I could think about was what my grandpa would have thought if … Read More

Portland

39 Comments

Once we hit Oregon there was no stopping us. Ever since we headed west out of New Orleans the kids have been hearing that we’re going to visit Grammy. And since Texas it’s been, “How many more days until we see Grammy?” So when we hit Oregon and the nights … Read More

Horseshoe

20 Comments

From the hot springs we made our way up and over the mountains to Austin, a tiny crossroads town that was inexplicably settled halfway down the steep mountain instead of two miles further down in the valley. We lumbered into town the same way the rest of the trucks did, … Read More

Spencer Hot Springs

2 Comments

We drove out to Spencer Hot Springs on the recommendation of our friend in Eureka, who had stumbled upon the place just a couple weeks earlier. The springs are down an unmarked dirt road, five miles off The Loneliest Road (Hwy 50). The Eureka Museum. Pretty cool that these hundred year … Read More