America; a vast expanse, wild and diverse. Auburn; a small city I call home in upstate New York, very much lacking in any of such diversity. Life in Auburn is dominated by its high school sports teams, the bleak concrete walls of the state prison it harbors, and the nightly crawl of its citizens to the various bars lining downtown. Portland Oregon; a thriving and modernizing city practically a continent away from my home in Auburn. It was in the summer before sophomore year when I first visited Portland and the Pacific Northwest, and was the first time I had the chance to really open my eyes and fully appreciate not only America and its beauty, but the opportunity to experience and adventure in life. This was my first time really putting in perspective that the world was larger than Auburn.

Packing a week's worth of luggage, we left out of Syracuse airport with an eight-hour trip ahead of us that included an hour layover at O’Hare international airport in Chicago. The flight from Syracuse to O’Hare was alright, nothing special. However, as our next flight took off from O’Hare to Portland, the experience began. Looking out the window of the plane I was met with new landscapes I had never seen before. There were mountains, I mean real mountains. The Rocky Mountains. Giant ridges jutting from the earth, it was like gazing upon the backbone of the continent itself. And there were rivers below us that seemed to flow forever like veins, even at an altitude of thirty-nine thousand feet I could not find the end of them. There were forests, dark and green and healthy. And countless farm fields, like a hand-sewn quilt laid over the land. It was amazing to me that all of this lied within one country. Finally touching down in Portland, the first thing that struck me was the climate. When we had boarded in Syracuse, it had been hot and humid, the kind of humidity that felt heavy around you. But stepping onto the tarmac in Portland I was met with a stark contrast. The air, rather than hot and heavy, was wet and cool, but wet with fresh rain instead of humidity, every breath felt clean. While driving to our hotel downtown, my first impression of Portland was how modern everything seemed. Every street was lined with trees, many of the buildings incorporated green elements into their design and small parks dotted the city. I’d been to New York City many times, which was certainly bigger, but Portland just seemed better, like it had some sort of modern edge that New York didn’t, it felt alive and growing. Portland has more of its fair share of skyscrapers, thousands of glass windows shimmering in the midday sun. There were countless museums and galleries and quaint cafes. Street performers stood at every corner, such that no matter where you went you could hear the tune of some live music blending in with the regular din of city life. Portland was fun and new and easily one of the coolest places I have ever been to. However, what impressed me even more than the city was the country around it. The Pacific Northwest was a place like no other. The land seemed so healthy, the forests were thick green walls of pine, aspen, and poplar, blanketing the countryside. The trees were the tallest I had ever seen, looming up over the sides of the road and standing firm against the horizon like soldiers on guard, the forests seemed as old as the earth they grew from. The only feature more dominant than the forests were the mountains. The horizon is dotted with peaks of the Cascade Range. Our first morning at the hotel my father and I woke up for the sunrise and walked a few blocks to where we could see the horizon better, what we saw left me in amazement. My eyes were greeted by pinkish hues of the morning sun shining brightly on the snow covered peak of Mount Hood, and the faint silhouette of the infamous Mount St. Helens beside it.

The rest of the week was a vacation like no other. We explored the city, the forests, and visited Cannon Beach to see its popular white sands and peculiar rock outcrops. What strikes me most about that trip to this day was the beauty of it all. I have wanted to go back every day since then. It brings a strange feeling to be in a small simple town like Auburn, and know that across the country those giant trees are still there swaying in the breeze, those street performers in Portland are still playing their songs, and the mountains are still standing as they always have. It puts things in a nice perspective, that the world is very big and full of wonder, and that many of our day-to-day problems are not that big after all.