It’s Monday morning. I’m sitting by the window of our hotel room, looking over the rain-slick parking lot at a train passing by across the street. I’ve got my hotel coffee. A map. Our notes from yesterday about all the homes we saw.
Dinner at Suzy’s house was lovely. She made this amazing Indian stew (oh please, Suzy, the recipe; Drew can’t stop talking about it) and showed us around. Her home is backed up to a park, studded with pine trees and laced with tiny white flowers over a carpet of soft grass. What a place. We sat outside and ate and talked about books and writers and Portland, and the evening flew by. I hope she’ll come for dinner at our place the next time we get together. 
And the hunt for ‘our place’ is on. We spent yesterday in the car, working our way from Cornelius inward to Hillsboro, Beaverton, Bethany, Tigard, and several points between. My favorite house was, of course, the untenable one. Four bedrooms, brand new, perched at the top of a winding road, surrounded by orchards and a postcard view. It’s no place for a ten-year-old, but I made Drew promise we’d live out there in Bumfuck once the nest empties out.
Of the towns, I loved Tigard best so far (which is like saying I like the caramels best of a box of chocolates). We saw some wonderful houses in hilly old neighborhoods with thick trees and pockets of forest, the lawns so neat, every flowerbed an orgy of color. No one was answering the phone yesterday, but hopefully we can get inside some houses today and see if we can find one that feels like home.
What’s the best part of your town?
