Shaun took me brisket shopping.

Such a large mass of meat is worthy of its own blog post.

END!

Day 2 began with Tim cooking the most epic breakfast from whatever he could find in Shaun’s kitchen and/or potted herb garden. Tim is known for his epic breakfast making, but this one really took the cake. I think we’ve earned our keep at Shaun’s house.

We spent the afternoon exploring the downtown Portland area with Shaun & Margaret, eating ice cream, touring giant bookstores, and enjoying gourmet happy hour treats (fried kalamata olives for one dollar? yes please).

We eventually head over to Porque No taco shack to meet Megafaun and the Hometapes crew. We are in the land of Hometapes, and we finally meet the staff of the label, including Sarah’s husband and label co-owner, Adam. I had a shrimp-chile-pineapple taco. I’m fairly sure it was the best taco I’ve ever had. Quite sure actually.

We swung on a tire for a bit, then headed to the venue.

Run-On Sentence:

Megafaun:

Bowerbirds:

The show was at Mississippi Studios. This was a big show, as it’s Hometapes territory, and the turnout was huge. Both bands played one of their best sets I had ever heard them play. The crowd was incredible. I tried to hover near the front and shoot as much as I could.

After the show, we did a quick visit to a neighborhood bar, then headed back to Shaun’s to make obscene amounts of iced coffee and make ridiculously detailed brunch plans until 4 in the morning. Totally normal.

Bed. Epic day of cooking begins in five hours.

END!

Driving out of Utah, we were faced with the decision to drive to Seattle, Anacortes, or Portland. All routes led us through Boise, so we just went to Boise.

I would have liked to see this city, as I’ve only been there for a day before this visit, but we arrived at 3 in the morning and just wanted to get a hotel and pass out. And that we did. We spent a couple of hours in the morning doing some work at an Idaho bookstore-coffeeshop, then headed onward to our destination of choice: Portland.

We chose Portland for a number of reasons.
- The drive was several hours shorter.
- There was no chance of being late to the show, because we’d be an entire day early.
- I had noticed a Portland-based design blog had mentioned our coverage of Megafaun. I sent him a message thanking him and informed him that we happened to be on our way to his city. He asked us if we had plans upon our arrival (we did not) and invited us to a BBQ he was hosting. Of course we said yes. Who doesn’t love BBQ-ing with strangers in Oregon? It sounded like an adventure in the making to me.

Nine hours later, we’re driving along the Gorge, surrounded by water and mountains and Christmas trees and windmills that resemble giant bladed alien probes. We arrived at Shaun’s house soon after.

Facts about Shaun:
- He is a Portland-based designer who spent years working with Wieden+Kennedy.
- He is moving to Raleigh-Durham (our hometown) in 10 days to work as art director for Travelocity.
- He was recently in Raleigh staying with my friend Grayson. Hanging out with my friends.
- He is best friends with the owners of Hometapes, Megafaun’s record label, who we’ve been touring with already.
- Basically, we were destined to meet him anyway.

I don’t think I can say enough how freaking small this world is.

So we dove right in. Lots of tasty drinks and grub waiting for us. It was a proper west-coast BBQ, a foodie’s haven. We quickly got acclimated to our new environment and finished up the night crashing our new temporary Portland abode with our new best friends, Shaun and Margaret.

We would end up living here for the next three days.

END!