My month in Oregon

My take on Oregon

where I went

That yellow marker doesn't show up very well at a distance, as you can see here.  But what this map says is that I missed about a third of the state, down in the southeast corner.  Oregon's the 9th largest state, and I just didn't have enough time to get around it. 

Oregon's land

A friend of mine did some college work in eastern Oregon and told me there was a lot of desert over there.  So that's what I expected to see and didn't.  And looking at this map, I think the reason I didn't was because I missed such a huge chunk of that section of the state.  The part of eastern Oregon I visited showed signs of desert land, but it was still close enough to the mountains and to the Columbia River that it still had riparian features.  I think if I'd gone down into that southeastern corner, I'd likely have found land more like the land in Nevada, which is immediately south of there.  Obviously something for another trip here.

The two-thirds of the state that I did see was beautiful.  Oregon certainly has its share of scenic wonders and many reasons for people to come enjoy a visit here.  It was unfortunate that I was here during several unexpected and unusual weather patterns, and they made my visit less pleasant than I'd expected.  

For instance, I guess snow in the Crater Lake area in mid-May isn't that unusual, but I got it in southern Oregon, right next to Nevada, in early May when it is unusual.  And the deluge of rain we kept getting in western Oregon throughout the month wasn't the usual west-of-the-rain-shadow rain but instead an unusual atmospheric river that doused the whole Pacific Northwest.  And though the usual amount of rain keeps the state its lovely green color, this unusual amount threatened flooding and landslides.  But at least it delayed the summer wildfire season, so there's a silver lining to every cloud.  (To coin a phrase.)

Oregon's people

I had 2 widely different experiences of the people here.  When I had face-to-face conversations with folks, I found them fairly friendly and interesting and forthcoming.  But any interactions I had that weren't face-to-face were unpleasant.  

I especially noticed this when I was driving, of course, which can often bring out the worst in people.  But this is the first state I have had horns blared at me for being a courteous driver.  It still makes no sense to me; if I'd refused to pull over after many miles of opportunities, I could maybe see the reason for honking, but not when I did pull over voluntarily.  As rude as the drivers are in some other states, no one has done this to me before.  Twice.  (And a third time on June 1st as I was heading out of the state for Washington.)

I've had friends who've lived here happily in the past, and I had positive expectations going into this month.  I'm sorry to say I now have such negative experiences to draw on that those pleasant exchanges I did have just aren't enough to counteract.

Driving in Oregon

Oregon has one standard license plate, which is what I saw on maybe half the vehicles.

But the other half - or at least 40% - had one of the specialty plates, though that has a slightly different meaning here than in other states.  Sure they have special plates for the universities and for veterans and so forth, but the ones I saw most of were specialty plates for Crater Lake and for Oregon's Wine Country (both with one-time fees of $30).  And I saw a surprising number of these:

The reason it's surprising is that these carried a one-time fee of $100, which seems a lot just for a license plate.  But I saw a lot of them.

Oregon's roads were in fairly good condition, even on some of the smaller back roads.  And in general the highway department does a good job of posting enough signs that I didn't get lost too often.  

A lot of the main roads were only 2-lane, and were essentially mountain roads so they were filled with s-curves and so forth.  I appreciated that there were a reasonable number of pull-outs on these roads, but I wished there were more signs telling me when to expect them so I wasn't trying to find a way to move over for faster traffic, only to find an official pull-out a mile or 2 farther down the road.

What I didn't see that I wanted to see

Lots of things, many of which I mentioned in my daily posts, but a lot more besides, including of course the entire southeastern part of the state.  In addition, the following is a sample of the variety of other things I missed.

I'd wanted to visit Herbert Hoover's boyhood home in Newberg.  I knew where it was and when it was open but just ran out of time to get there.  In McMinnville, a town I also missed, is the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum which includes the Spruce Goose.  And not far from there is the Erratic Rock State Natural Site.  In a smaller state I'd've been able to visit, but with Oregon's size I just couldn't get there.  It's a huge rock - with a weight from various sources of between 36 tons and 90 tons - that was floated to its present location inside an iceberg during an Ice Age flood.

Of course I wanted to see Multnomah Falls, but I also wanted to see Willamette Falls near Oregon City.  And oh no! I find I missed a carousel in Salem.  That was clearly a mistake.

There were lots of places along the coast I'd like to see - even just the aquarium in Newport, let alone some of the natural wonders I mentioned in my posts.  I didn't get as far south as Gold Beach, where the Cape Blanco Lighthouse still operates.  It's now 152 years old and holds 4 records for the lighthouses in the state: the oldest continuously operating light, the most westerly, the highest focal plane above the sea, and the first to have a female keeper (in 1903).

My conclusion

Oregon is a land of far greater contrasts than I'd expected.  Of course, there's the physical contrast - and here I'm assuming my friend is correct about there being desert in the eastern part of the state (which I missed).  But I did drive enough in the eastern and central sections of Oregon to see that the west is dominated by mountains and the east reminds me of western Wyoming and northern Utah, both of which I've visited.  I haven't yet had my month in Idaho, which forms the entire eastern border of Oregon, but since it also borders Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, I'm guessing it's those influences I'd find in eastern OR.

Those physical influences are entirely missing west of the mountains.  There it's the wet side of the rain shadow and the nearby Pacific Ocean and the altitude of the Cascades themselves that form the very different environment.  

There's a similar contrast in people's belief systems.  Oregon is viewed by much of the country as a liberal state, because it consistently sends Democrats to national offices and because it's adopted liberal positions on issues such as the environment and assisted suicide.  But as far as I can tell, it's very nearly a swing state, with a 10-year-old Gallup poll showing an almost even split between moderate, conservative and liberal views.  Instead, it seems Oregon has a fairly typical dichotomy between rural and urban interests.  The vast majority of the state is rural/small town, but the population growth between 2010 and 2020 was greater in the urban areas than in the country (also fairly typical).  (I mean, let's face it, people in general aren't itching to become farmers these days.)

And that situation has resulted in the current governor, a Democrat, winning in 2018 despite carrying only 7 of the 36 counties in the state.  She and the supermajority that Democrats currently hold in the legislature passed a number of liberal bills and policies - such as allowing undocumented immigrants to hold driver's licenses.  But despite the apparent dominance of liberals vote-wise, it still looks to me like moderate positions by any candidate would still be winners in elections here.  Despite the number of Trump signs and Confederate flags (what part of the South do these folks think they're from?) I've seen here.

I was surprised by the extent of right-wing support here, and I was disappointed in the somewhat winter weather I encountered for much of the month, and I was dismayed by the rudeness I met with at times, but my biggest problem here was the almost complete lack of internet connection I kept finding.  I had this problem everywhere - rural, urban, near mountains and ocean and plains and everywhere.  I found it only in a very few campgrounds with their own healthy internet service.  It made my month here extremely uncomfortable.

I couldn't make advance reservations, I couldn't find driving instructions, I couldn't locate sights I wanted to see, I couldn't even find out what the weather forecast was.  I couldn't keep current on my blog, I couldn't check my email, I couldn't do anything useful - sometimes for days on end.  I can't even begin to explain the level of frustration this caused me, and the sense of isolation.  It made my month in Oregon a far more negative experience than anything else that happened - more than the weather or the drivers or the politics or anything.  Except for a few very specific campgrounds (not towns - campgrounds), I don't want to set foot in Oregon again because of this.  It may sound weird, but I spent a whole month with this problem and I got really tired of it.  

So that's my conclusion about Oregon.