When I was kid in Bend, my family would drive to Portland just before school started to get supplies and clothes. This may not sound like a big deal, but it was a different time. I remember a teacher asking a class how many kids had even been to Portland, and there was a large number who hadn't been, or hadn't been out of state.

Bend was maybe 13K people.

I remember the quickening sensation as we neared the metropolis, the traffic, the sense of entering a larger, busier world.

Weirdly enough, I'm getting flashbacks when I drive from Redmond to Bend. Going to the "big city." Who'd have thunk it?

When Linda and I say, "Going into town," we mean Bend. Weird.