01 / THE STORIES THAT STAY
People, places and stories worth lingering over.
Funny, tender, useful and strange. No race against the calendar.
Portland
I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to shrink into spaces that weren’t built for women like me — not just physically, but emotionally. I’ve stood in dressing rooms avoiding mirrors. I’ve untagged photos. I’ve chosen the towel instead of the pool. And I’ve told myself, silently and constantly, maybe when I lose the weight, I’ll deserve it.
But something changed the day I walked into Cascada, Portland’s subterranean thermal spa tucked under the Alberta Arts District. I didn’t come there loo
3 min read
Stories
I thought I was reporting grocery prices. Then Bryan Vance answered my email and accidentally made himself the story. Inside the 12–14-hour weekly system behind Stumptown Savings—and the rules that can actually lower your grocery bill.
5 min read
Portland
By a new Portlander discovering the city’s rhythm for the first time --- Waterfront Blues Festival 2025 When I moved to Portland this spring, I didn’t realize the city had a pulse. Not just noise or busyness, but a rhythm—something living beneath the bridges, behind the trees, under the streets. Everyone kept saying, Wait till summer.I didn’t know what that meant. I assumed it had to do with sunshine and bike lanes. And then July 4th came. I found myself on a riverbank, barefoot in the grass,...
6 min read
Stories
There’s a 90-ton rock sitting quietly in Oregon that came here from more than 500 miles away inside an iceberg. I love facts that make the landscape feel temporary.
3 min read
Stories
Portland taught me to look down. Those metal rings in the curb were once horse parking. Then one artist added a tiny plastic horse and the city did the rest.
3 min read
Stories
Longview saw squirrels getting killed crossing a road in 1963 and responded with a suspension bridge. Then the city kept building them until ‘squirrel infrastructure’ became an identity.
3 min read
Stories
I went looking for the story about Portlanders getting turkey sandwiches by rowboat during the 1894 flood. I found something better: a family still carrying the same restaurant forward four generations later.
3 min read
Stories
Oregon spent more than a decade building what is basically a giant electrical outlet for the Pacific Ocean. The strange part? When it opened, nothing was plugged into it yet.
3 min read
Portland
Portland left my recycling bin full while every other bin on the street got emptied. I was offended for eleven minutes. Then I read the rules and discovered I had been freelancing.
3 min read
Portland
We recently moved to Portland from New York, and though we occasionally crave the kind of attentive dining that city does so well, we’ve outgrown the white-tablecloth hush and performative service. What we want now — and rarely find — is that golden middle: a place that makes you feel cared for without asking you to pretend you’re not still a person in shoes.
Terra Mae is that place.
5 min read
Stories
TEMPORARY · THROUGH JAN 24, 2027At some point, 18 giant wooden trolls stop being public art and become a logistics problem. So I mapped the whole ridiculous thing: all 18, what’s free, what needs a tram, where the ferries ruin your confidence, and how I’d actually do it.
5 min read
Stories
OCT 10, 2026 · EVENT RECAPI had one question about Portland's nine-foot shark date night: nobody killed a shark for a party, right? Inside the real science and the people it supports.
3 min read
Stories
OCTOBER 2026 EVENT · PASSEDPort Orford needed an off-season idea and chose a sea monster. Then the whole town started painting tentacles on windows, handing out Kraken coins and turning local businesses into a treasure hunt.
3 min read
Stories
OCTOBER 2026 EVENT · PASSEDIn Portland, tiny houses came with asking prices, negotiations and volunteer agents. Behind the joke was a community that builds home one tiny detail at a time.
3 min read
Stories
2026 OYSTERFEST · PASSEDI already thought opening one oyster without stabbing myself was impressive. Then Shelton showed me people who can do 24 in 78 seconds—and still get judged on whether the oysters look pretty.
3 min read
Stories
SEPTEMBER 2026 MIGRATION REPORTFor decades, Portland knew where to look for the Vaux’s Swifts. Then the birds changed the plan. The best part of this story is what Bird Alliance asked us not to tell you.
3 min read
Washington
AUGUST 2026 FESTIVAL · PASSEDThere is a point where a kite stops being a kite and becomes weather. Long Beach reaches that point every August—and somehow turns wind, sand and human obsession into a seven-day sky show.
3 min read
Portland
2026 DERBY · PASSEDI came for the homemade cars flying down an extinct volcano. I stayed for the part where one kid who arrived in Portland after foster care found his people on that hill.
3 min read
Stories
2026 EVENT RECAPA pilot described strange objects near Mount Rainier in 1947. Newspapers turned one comparison into ‘flying saucers.’ Chehalis did the only reasonable thing with that history: built a party around it.
3 min read