I’m in Portland right now, the first stop on my five-week adventure. I came here for the first time a year ago and was able to see just about everything I wanted. This trip has been more about wandering around, figuring out if I really would want to live here some day.

I walked around so much my first day here that my feet hurt, especially my stress fracture. I decided to take it easy on Thursday and buy a day-long public transit pass instead of walking everywhere. Because my body is still on East Coast time, I’m out the door by 8 a.m., when not much is open.

For my morning entertainment, I hopped on the nearest light-rail and took it until I felt like getting off. Then I took it back into Portland and got off at a park overlooking the water. Once I made it back to the city, I switched to a bus, picking a route that would go past a massive forest. I’d visited the other side of the forest when I came last year, and this ride would offer a different perspective.

I told myself that for this trip, I would have no guilt about what I didn’t get around to doing. That I would be happy with whatever happened. But I couldn’t help but question if I could fend off guilt as I rode on the bus back into Portland — it was almost lunchtime and nothing noteworthy had happened.

The only thing mildly worth remembering was that this bus driver was religious about announcing the bus was moving and we needed to hold on, which we pretty much caught on to without his warning. One time he yelled to the bus as a passenger stepped on, when we were not even moving and the passenger hadn’t even had time to show his bus pass. You never realize how many stops a bus makes until the driver announces every time the bus is moving again. And at one point, he mumbled something and got off the bus, while it was still running. Then he came back a little later. We were in the middle of an industrial nowhere at this point, so I’m not sure what that was all about. It wouldn’t take much exaggeration to turn the situation into a “Saturday Night Live” skit.

I glanced around the bus at the other passengers — because who doesn’t like people watching — and that’s when I noticed the grandma across the aisle had a pant leg rolled up and was dabbing a bloody knee with a Kleenax. When I looked back again, her pant leg was down but then I saw bloody knuckles too. I’m not sure if my imagination got the better of me, but I started to wonder if the reason the bus driver was obsessively reminding everyone to hold on was because this woman had fallen on the bus.

I wondered if I should ask her if she was OK, even though there was nothing I could do. She looked like she was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. But after she kept glancing down at her hands and knee, I rummaged through my purse and pulled out half my band-aids. In packing for a month, I included everything I might possibly need. Neosporin, anti-itch cream, medicine, deep conditioner for my hair and two bottles of sunscreen. When I made the long trek on public transportation from my apartment to JFK airport, I cursed myself for packing so much. But as I reached across aisle on the bus and asked the woman if she’d would like some band-aids, I realized that overpacking can come in handy, and uneventful days can serve their own purpose too. I’m hoping I won’t need to pass out any more band-aids to strangers on my journey, but I’m prepared for it just the same.

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