2004-10-29 - 8:12 a.m.
spending labor day weekend at mount hood
there was something that lost me after we past mount hood in oregon. it was five o'clock in the evening, leaving seven hours and the time change to get home. i had already seen my first dead deer, bought stale candy corn from one of those damned safeways, and retrieved my heart from the man i had left it with. i had the most fascinating and memorable trip of my life.
ever since we had arrived in boring that friday night, or perhaps when we stopped at a burger king in pendleton on our way there, i hadn't even thought of home once.
it didn't strike me that i had a family and life of my own.
i remembered the rose bushes outside of huo's house as i softly thought to myself, "the city of roses" while sitting on the stone steps of the porch alone.
i remembered the girl i met at zumiez in the mall, how we had immediatly became friends once she learned i lived next to the town she had been born in,
and i remembered the huge smile on troy's lips after he asked me if "i convinced my family to come" and i said yes.
i decided i would transfer to portland after my first few years, with no other motive than not having any reason not to.
this is the family my mom, brother, and i stayed with in portland. hua in the blue dress and her son danielle in the white shirt to the right.