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There are many stereotypes around life in small-town America. Some of them are pleasant, some not so much. But there is something to be said for spending an afternoon sitting on the grass watching a kids soccer game while parents and friends of all ages cheer on their girls from blankets and picnic baskets and folding chairs on the sidelines.

One of my favourite parts of visiting Grants Pass is sharing everyday life events with the people who have become so important to me. On April 28, Zoey's soccer game was exactly what I needed.

Her team didn't win that day. 

But the smiles on their faces, the sound of the parents calling out encouragement to their daughters, the smell of the freshly cut field, and the feel of the grass between my bare toes, made for a small town American afternoon that definitely scored high in my books.

Four Days In Oregon

Seventeen hours and thirty-seven minutes.

That's how long it takes to drive from Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Grants Pass, Oregon, United States. 

It's a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Less than one day, and you can still include a couple hours sleep to boot. But when you have only a hundred and forty-four hours in the span of a month to use at your leisure, giving seventeen and a half of them over to one project requires that project to have a certain level of significance. To give double that time in order to make it back home, and thus leaving yourself only four days out of sixty-five to do with as you please, well, that makes the project a flat-out priority.

And so it was that I spent four days in Oregon in April of 2019.

I checked off my 'to-do' list within the first twelve hours. Only two people knew I was coming at all, and with social media as it is, it is difficult to keep your presence a secret in a place the size of Grants Pass so I needed to get things done before word got out that I was in town. With that covered and a huge weight off my shoulders, I set out to visit and relax and explore, and to enjoy my brief time in the place I've grown to feel I belong.

 And on the way home, a Stop The Car moment in a little place called Sandpoint, Idaho.

  

And finally, the British Columbia/Alberta border, making just enough time to stop in at home for a suitcase switchover and continue on my way north and back to real life.