It finally happened.  Yesterday the new Barnes & Noble in the Clackamas Town Center opened and my wife and I were there to take it all in.  

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For the record, our favorite book store in Portland, hands down, is the downtown Powell’s; they have everything and the kitchen sink.  Unfortunately though, we live out in the suburbs and can’t always trek into town to go to Powell’s.  This is why the new Barnes & Noble opening is so great, it’s right in our backyard and it takes us just minutes to get to.

The Clackamas Town Center is currently going thru and extensive remodel with Barnes & Noble being the first of many new additions.  Like Washington Square Mall, it’s increasing in size and introducing an outdoor/indoor shopping experience.  The artist’s representations they have plastered about the mall of the new look tease us to no end.  One of these additions is going to be a new movie theater which my wife and I are also looking forward to opening and will no doubt be there opening day as well.
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But I digress.  Barnes & Noble was everything we had hoped for and better.  The Starbucks inside, which is a short jaunt to the malls Starbucks –always odd how that works, was very nice and offered cheesecake from the Cheese Cake Factory.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  So we got a piece along with our coffee (iced tea for me).  The store itself was a bit overwhelming for the both of us because we didn’t know the layout.  We basically wandered around going into almost every section saving (rather finding) the fiction section for last.  There we each found a new book:

“Paris Hangover” by Kirsten Lobe for my wife



and

“Running with Scissors: A Memoir” by Augusten Burroughs for myself.  



After our find and sitting down to read a few pages we decided to leave knowing full well that we’ll not only be back but that it may just turn into our “home” away from home.