Every Portlander has felt it. The moment you're in some airport in Dallas or Denver or wherever, checking the departure board, and you see PDX and something shifts. That three-letter code does things.

PDX is Portland International, sure. But it's also shorthand for everything that's waiting on the other side.

Powell's Books, three floors deep. The Blazers at the Moda Center when Rip City is fully unhinged. The Burnside Skatepark under the bridge on a Tuesday night.

PDX is also one of the only airports in the country that's actually worth arriving to early. The carpet has fan clubs. The food situation is so good people miss flights on purpose. It's the first and last thing Portland hands you, and it sets the tone.

Portland has always had its own logic. Food carts in gravel lots on every corner, doing Thai and Ethiopian and Korean fried chicken out of converted trailers.

Stumptown before everyone else had heard of it. McMenamins bars inside old elementary schools. The St. Johns Bridge on a gray morning looking like it got borrowed from a different country.

Strange Allies made this one with the airport code because PDX is a whole identity. It's the Rose City with wings.

The ex-Portlander in whatever city they ended up in, still defending Voodoo Doughnut to people who have never been. The Portland native who left and keeps track of which food carts have closed.

The traveler who connected through PDX once, bought a souvenir on the way out, and has been trying to come back since.

Forest Park running 5,100 acres right inside the city. Multnomah Falls two hours from downtown. Mount Hood sitting on the skyline like it was placed by someone showing off. The Willamette River down the middle of everything, splitting the city without splitting it.

Division Street on a Saturday. Alberta Arts District on First Thursday. The Portland Timbers vs. anyone with the 107ist going absolutely berserk in the south end stands.

PDX is on the boarding pass and on the skyline and now on your chest. Everyone lands at PDX eventually.