PNW meet up

This past Saturday I got the immense pleasure of going the PNW blogger meet up in Portland Oregon.
I drove down with Carina from Lovely Little Whimsy and Erika from Rouge and Whimsy.

I loved sharing the road trip time with these "whimsical" ladies who are amazing, talented, smart, beautiful, and amazing.
Yes, I meant to mention their amazing-ness twice.  See that's me hoping, wishing, praying that their amazing-ness rubbed off on me in the back seat of Carina's car, on the car ride down.

The road trip from Seattle to Portland this time of year was beautiful. I have made this trip from Seattle to Portland countless times, but it never ceases to amaze me the beauty that is right outside my front door.  There was a point in our trip when a train was coming down the tracks, and the backdrop was a breath taking, beautiful Fall foliage, and I am pretty sure my heart skipped a beat.

When we arrived in Portland, even though I had packed us all snack bags, our bellies were rumbling so laid before us was the difficult task of choosing a place to eat in a town that has a plethora  of "Foodie" food LOVER options. 

We chose to eat( pretty unanimously, and without even a doubt)  at a McMenamins.

Sidenote- If you have never been to a McMenamins in Oregon do yourself a favor and hop on that train.

It's a good one.

This was my view from the table where we sat outside and soaked up the good conversation, great food, and even better... 

A Ruby.

Beer lovers take note-

McMenamins+ Ruby= Good Times.

The description of this wonderful delight can be seen below.

Ruby

"One of our most popular standards, we still make Ruby with the same aims we had when brewing the first batch back in March 1986:  To create an ale light, crisp and refreshingly fruity. Great Western Premium 2-row and 42 pounds of Oregon-grown and processed raspberry puree is used to craft every colorful batch. Simple but delicious.  Taste the original!"

And that was just the pre-blog meet up events, Now moving on to where the event itself was held. It was held in a store called West Elm. Honestly, I had never heard of this store before this event, and in my silly- over -crowded- with- information- brain, I thought West Elm sounded kinda like a  Best "West"ern, and I assumed it was at a hotel.

Just in case you haven't heard of West Elm either, it is NOT a hotel, and SO NOT a Best Western ;) 

West Elm was a beautiful venue to have this really beautiful event. It is packed full of gorgeous 
furniture, and owl mugs.  Yes, I was eye balling these beauties  for only 8.00 all night long.
Did I mention they gave away a $50 gift card to go shopping that night? I didn't get it, but if I had, I think I would have bought one of these cuties in every color.

Yes to me, West Elm was like a land flowing with "Milk and Honey" or at least it was flowing with  Wine and Cute Little Pumpkin cakes with carmel sauce drizzled on top provided all free of charge by Whole Foods.Thank you West Elm and Whole Foods.

Now onto the nitty gritty, the actual Meet Up. As I stood in line to get my swag bag and name tag I started to realize what an awesome, but uniquely strange event this meet up really was.

Meeting people that you feel you already know because you have read about their lives online is weird.

There I said it.

It really is weird.

It's weird in a good way.

But none the less weird.

It's weird because you talk about life from an angle that is very contrived.

I'm not saying that blogs or bloggers are contrived. Not at all, it's just that until you really stand face to face in front of a person, and ask questions and get answers that you don't have time to think about and then respond to, your relationship is fragmented at best.

Does that make sense?

You can't really know whether you would really be great face to face friends until... you are face to face.

Online persona plays a huge part.

The courage that one might feel behind a computer screen is very different than what you feel when you are actually in a room full of virtual strangers. And I use the term virtual strangers quite literally.

But, here's where the weird part occurs, you realize you are all in the same boat.

The Life boat, 

AND

The blogger boat.

It's a boat I like.

Going to this meet up was me stepping out of the boat of "just" blogger friends, into the waters of face to face friends. These are friends indeed, and I'm extremely grateful for each and every new friend I made that night.

I had so much fun meeting these incredible women and ONE man.

Yes there was ONE male blogger there.

I like this world. 

I like these amazing people who have taken blogging to a whole new level.

And I'm ready for some more "meetin' up!"

When's the next one?