Oregonian Overview

TRAVEL THERE: AN OVERVIEW OF OREGON

I’m back. We had an exciting twelve days in beautiful Oregon. I kept all the material I gathered when I was planning the trip and picked up more as we traveled along. We took an amazing amount of pictures and I kept a diary of all our experiences. Now I’m ready to share them all with you, so you can go to Oregon and enjoy the things we did  and perhaps avoid some of our mistakes.  Today all I want to do is share a few general observations, but starting next week we’ll explore the best and worst of Oregonian attractions, accommodations and food.

What I Learned

Tevas and Gore-Tex:  Everything I read about Oregon led me to believe it was a very casual state, but nothing prepared me for just how casual.  I saw exactly one person who had on a dress and high heels, but no one wearing a suit and tie.  I’m not kidding you when I tell you that the only way to tell a homeless person from someone on their way to a professional job was to smell them.  Perhaps if I had wandered into an office building I would have run across people who were more formally attired, but on the street it was all weather-repellent and built for comfort.  It also appeared the entire state was having a bad hair day.  The people who did not actually have something covering their head, seemed to have hair so dirty that they didn’t need further protection from the elements.  Well with one exception – there was an inordinate amount of people who had dyed their hair extreme colors.  Chartreuse, puce and violet were popular, as well as scarlet, purple and teal.

Small Bites:  OK, I admit it.  I seriously over-planned this vacation.  Even though it was supposed to be a highlights trip of the western half of the state, it was still too much and it was too far in-between the places I wanted to see.  I knew the gorgeous landscapes and seascapes were going to be the number one attraction, so I thought nothing of having us in the car for most of the day, but it was entirely too much to comprehend in twelve days.  It would take at least three vacations to really enjoy everything we zoomed through.

Nightlife:  What nightlife?  With the long days of summer keeping us on the road until eight or nine o’clock, we ended up eating a lot of fast food.  If we had not eaten before eight, we usually found there was nothing beyond fast food to eat.  I’m sure there were bars open somewhere, but Bill and I are not exactly lounge lizards, and we were looking for food, not drink.  When you’re in Oregon, plan on having your main meal at lunch or eating an early dinner, or you’ll be eating a whole lot of hamburgers.

So, with those three big picture parameters in place, I’ll see you back here next week and tell you about Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden.