February is shaping up to be a strange detour—one of those necessary wrong turns that somehow ends up telling you more than the main road ever could. The plan is The Grotto, Mount Angel Abbey, Portland streets, old stones and older intentions. Churches, city corners, historic shadows. A sharp left turn from our usual communion with open land and lonely highways.

We got a taste for street photography at the Chinese Garden—just enough to realize there’s a pulse in the city if you stand still long enough to feel it. Faces, gestures, quiet moments wedged between buildings and bus stops. It’s a different kind of hunting. Less patience, more nerve. You don’t wait for the light—you chase it before it disappears into traffic.

And yet… Eastern Oregon is still calling. Howling from the distance like some half-starved Wendigo scratching at the edge of the map. Wide open spaces, high desert silence, places where the ghosts don’t need permission to speak. That land feels familiar. Honest. This February trip? This is a side quest. Something tugging at the sleeve, insisting it needs to happen whether it makes sense or not.

I’ll be honest—churches make me uneasy. Not the buildings. The people. Too much certainty packed into pressed clothes and practiced smiles. I come from deep religious stock, the kind that leaves fingerprints on your bones whether you like it or not. But somewhere along the way I drifted toward older truths—Norse gods, land spirits, the quiet understanding that nature doesn’t judge you, it just responds.

So there’s a weird tension in all this. I’m excited, sure—but I also feel like a pilgrim walking into unholy territory. A pagan with a camera wandering sacred halls built for a god I no longer speak to, trying to listen without pretending. And we’re going on a Sunday, of all days—which feels either ironic or reckless. Possibly both.

Still, there’s something compelling about it. Maybe that’s the point. To stand in places that aren’t yours. To observe without converting. To document without kneeling. To let the lens do the talking while the mind stays open and suspicious.

This trip won’t be about faith.

It’ll be about friction.

And sometimes that’s where the most honest images live.