Relocating to Oregon

[Major Tom]

For another view on Portland. This is the opening of episode 1 of the IFC cable channel 6 episode series Portlandia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVmq9dq6Nsg

This is great! Thanks for the chuckles. I have friends who relocated from Los Angeles to Portland a couple of years ago and love it.

 

[Brat]

Ontario is nice if you want elbow room. It has an ag economy like SW Idaho. That is a two-edged sword because the employment base necessary to maintain an ag economy is dropping but it isn't subject to the business cycle.

Portland (my home)
Two great things about Portland is the sense of adventure and the ability to laugh at ourselves.

Sometimes it gets a little annoying. For example bike use is encouraged but many cyclists are headless of vehicles and pedestrians. I give them lots of space as they are messy to clean up off the street.

The city leaders provide drama and I expect that a couple of them will not survive the next election if anyone with an ounce of brains and leadership qualities steps up.

City employees do a decent job delivering services, I think they are more effective than their counterparts elsewhere and I haven't encountered 'little emperors' - yet.

The city and surrounding communities have lots of events that require little/no money to attend. Arts & Entertainment Portland Parks’ summer programs in full swing | East PDX News Portland Events Calendar — Travel Portland

Ontario is nice, but too quiet for me.

 

[calmloki]

....
Two great things about Portland is the sense of adventure and the ability to laugh at ourselves.

Sometimes it gets a little annoying. For example bike use is encouraged but many cyclists are headless of vehicles and pedestrians. I give them lots of space as they are messy to clean up off the street.

....

I think many bike riders are headless, tending to ignore stop signs or ride several abreast on winding roads. Mo' bettah they realize that in a collision with a car, they, right or wrong, lose. Oregon bike riders, in this Green state, may feel more entitled than those in other states.

For beer drinkers it may be of interest that Portland has more micro-breweries and brew-pubs than any other city - something like 36?

 

[Brat]

About a week ago I observed the police giving a ticket to a cyclist in NW Portland. Given the location odds are he ran a stop sign. The neighborhood is very pro cyclist but concerned about their compliance with traffic laws.

 

[Corporate ORphan]

One of things that I heard about Portland is you can get by without taking your car out much. You can live where you can walk to most things or take public transportation that is safe and on time.

Is that true?

 

[neihn]

Right. Public transportation in Portland can take you anywhere, even to the airport. If I have to, I could live without car. Everything I want is within walking distance, from gym, super market, movies theater, sport bar, etc...

 

[Brat]

Public transit after 11 PM is infrequent. NYC we are not.

 

[Corporate ORphan]

Is it mostly in the inner city? We hadn't really considered Portland because we didn't want the hassles of a big city but maybe now after hearing from different people one of the burbs might fit what we want?

WE like to walk to places but we would also like to be not so close to our neighbors. WE realize that those are probably two conflicting goals.

 

[Retire Soon]

We relocated to Bend in 2006 to escape the fast pace of San Diego County where we had lived for 35 years. There are no freeways in Central Oregon, which we do not miss at all. The air is clean and the skies are blue. The annual precipitation and number of sunny days is close to what we had in San Diego. We enjoy the four seasons and being close to snow parks.

It's nice not to have to pump your own gas and to no longer pay almost 10 cents on the dollar for sales tax. We enjoy walking our dog along the beautiful Deschutes River and in the numerous well-manicured city parks.

Even though it's high desert, a large part of the city is shaded by Ponderosa Pines. Bend is home to several small theaters, a community college, and an open air amphitheater that features concerts by well-known artists.

The people are friendly and many of the residents are transplants from California and other states. It is a very clean city with a low crime rate. Traffic moves very smoothly with fewer traffic lights because of our ultra efficient roundabouts. Bend is a city with a population of about 76,000, but with a small town feel.

 

[neihn]

People in Portland are so friendly, people wave at you , 'Hi there', 'how are you?', 'it's nice out', are the phases that you may hear walking down the street.

Even driving, you will see people yeild for your changing lane, you don't really need to speed up to change lane, just flick the blinker and people will yeild. Talk about civility

I lived in Beaverton (Portland metro), it is 12 miles from the city center. You can park you car in park and ride and hop on the light rail - that would take you to most places that you want to go in Portland.
TriMet: MAX Light Rail Service

 

[Brat]

Is it mostly in the inner city? We hadn't really considered Portland because we didn't want the hassles of a big city but maybe now after hearing from different people one of the burbs might fit what we want?

WE like to walk to places but we would also like to be not so close to our neighbors. WE realize that those are probably two conflicting goals.

Yes, I can't think of a place where you can have both.

We were in Hillsboro (Portland suburb with Intel as its anchor) Saturday. My has that town grown up! You might be able to find a larger lot with an older home there.

There are homes in Portland metro that abut Forest Park but walkable to NW 23rd.

 

[neihn]

Okay, now the weather. People should know about the rain and grey sky in Portland. It could rain/drizzle for couple weeks straight, however, only a few days of snow if you are lucky . Spring and smmer are fantastic, we have a few days of 90+ in the summer and totally bearable, I know people live here for years yet never installed air conditioner. Very mild weather.

Oh one more thing for ski lover. Mt Hood is the only place that opens year round, just 1.5 hour from Portland. Yes, you can ski, snowboard in the summer with your shirt off and get tan at the same time.

http://www.timberlinelodge.com/

If you love wind surfing - just one hour away from Portland the best place in the world for this sport

Windsurfing in Oregon | Oregon

Welcome to Oregon folks

 

[Corporate ORphan]

Thanks for the additional ideas. We have friends in Bend and agree, it was a nice place but we don't like the idea of living in the desert. We want to be able to garden, either have our own or join a community one.

 

[Corporate ORphan]

I checked out Hillsboro on the internet and it sounded good until I saw the air quality rating isn't very good! What's going on there? It's worst than Portland and not much better than here.

 

[Brat]

Beats me. I noticed a forest of cranes on our drive out there, maybe the construction of the new Intel plant is stirring up a lot of dust. A chip fab plant needs clean air so that shouldn't last long.

We had a couple days of hot weather (ok, ok - two days of sun ) so that may have been a factor.

Last night Portland had an electrical storm that seemed to hang out to the east (where the air currents start to raise to go over the Cascades). We doubtless had a few showers with that too. That would have improved our air quality today. Hillsboro is in the Tualitan Valley, to the west of Portland. The may not have experienced those showers.

That DEQ website is great. Notice that the link to Eugene's air quality data is at the bottom of the page. In typical U of O Green Beanie fashion they want to do their own thing.

 

[Corporate ORphan]

Based on 2010, it looks like its the Winter months. Maybe fireplaces?

 

[Brat]

This is about the time when DEQ will put in place a burn ban, perhaps folks are burning trimmings to get ahead of the ban. I know my husband is thinking about that out at or son's marina property.

The purpose of the burn ban is to prevent fires from getting out of control and to a certain extent to maintain air quality.

When I was a child forest fires terrified me. I would hide under a blanket in the car when my parents took me to the beach because they drove through the Tillamook burn. To this day I remember seeing the glow of a forest fire just over the crest of the hill from our home - and I am 70.

 

[Corporate ORphan]

We have been looking at real estate on the internet and it looks like most of the houses in the Eugene, Portland, etc. area don't have basements. Is that true? Where we are currently, most houses have basements. Basements are wonderful! I would definitely miss having one.

 

[Life_is_Good]

We have been looking at real estate on the internet and it looks like most of the houses in the Eugene, Portland, etc. area don't have basements. Is that true? Where we are currently, most houses have basements. Basements are wonderful! I would definitely miss having one.

Most houses in my area (Eugene/Springfield) don't have basements. We don't have tornados, hurricanes or other natural disasters that knock down buildings... so I'm not sure they are needed.

On the other hand, I've seen houses advertised as having a bonus rooms. Usually it's something upstairs similar to a loft. People turn them into offices, or game rooms. I saw one which was hidden behind a bookcase. It was cool.. they had made it into a game room with a pool table.

 

[braumeister]

Not trying to hijack the thread, but another part of Oregon I have heard has a good quality of life is Medford.
Anyone know that area?

 

[Brat]

Humm, the homes I frequented in Eugene when I was a kid had basements, as do most homes in NW Portland. I think it is primarily a factor of the age of the house. If it was built before WWII they would be much more common. This is because in those days to have central heating you needed a furnace with octopus in the basement. When I was a child our home was heated by sawdust which required a room for it's storage.

Basements take extra money to excavate and with the advent of smaller heating systems and buried oil tanks there wasn't a demand for basements. I found a pretty one for sale at 1718 LINCOLN ST. A local realtor should be able to generate a list.

I don't know Medford well. It is popular with California retirees and it has a VA medical center. Homes, as compared to Portland and Eugene are less expensive. Ashland, home of a small state college and the Oregon Shakespearean theater, is not far south (commutable).

 

[kyounge1956]

We have been looking at real estate on the internet and it looks like most of the houses in the Eugene, Portland, etc. area don't have basements. Is that true? Where we are currently, most houses have basements. Basements are wonderful! I would definitely miss having one.

Most houses in my area (Eugene/Springfield) don't have basements. We don't have tornados, hurricanes or other natural disasters that knock down buildings... so I'm not sure they are needed. (snip)

Another thing they don't have in western OR is winter soil-freezing to great depths. Lots of the country, by the time you've gone deep enough to get your footing below the frost line, you've dug half or two-thirds of a basement, so you might as well keep going. But in the maritime NW, the ground doesn't freeze as far down as elsewhere. The deepest I can recall it ever freezing here in Seattle in the almost 30 years I've lived here is a foot or so. Oregon is south of here. I'd guess they have an even shallower frost line than we do.

 

[Helen]

I grew up in Michigan, then moved to Boston for eight years after college, then moved to Oregon twenty years ago. I love it here, especially now that I am in the NE neighborhood of Portland instead of 30 miles west of the city (just moved in January). I would never want to move back to the midwest or the east coast.

Today, I drove 1/2 hour to Multnomah Falls and hiked 14 miles with a 4,000 ft. elevation gain. Tomorrow I will drive 1.5 hours and be at Cannon Beach, OR - our beaches are owned by the public and they are beautiful.

Next month I am going on a five day backpacking trip to the Wallowa Mountains in Eastern Oregon - it is breathtakingly beautiful there and about a six hour drive.

In Sept., I have a permit to climb Mt. St. Helens, which is probably about a 2.5 hour drive from here.

Once the snow melts, I will be doing a lot of hiking and backpacking on Mt. Hood, which is about a 2 hour drive.

I love this part of the country. I can not wait to retire so I have more time to try new things like salmon fishing and kayaking. If you are into the outdoors, you will never have enough time to explore and enjoy.

And, both houses I have owned here have had basements.

Best of luck on your decision.

-helen

 

[Helen]

When I was a child forest fires terrified me. I would hide under a blanket in the car when my parents took me to the beach because they drove through the Tillamook burn. To this day I remember seeing the glow of a forest fire just over the crest of the hill from our home - and I am 70.

Very interesting:

The Tillamook County, Oregon, forest fire of 1933 is remembered as one of the fiercest timber fires in U.S. history. It was the first of four forest fires which, together, came to be known as the “Tillamook Burn”. Every six years after that first fire — in 1939, 1945 and 1951— another huge fire would break out in what is now the Tillamook Forest.

Tillamook 1952 by George Wright

 

[Brat]

My father said that men and boys were literally conscripted off the street to fight that fire.

I must remember the fires of 45 and 51. During my grade school years one of the ways to get out of school for a day was to plant trees in the Tillamook burn. A classmate of mine produced a photo of the both of us eating lunch during those forays. We both laughed at my saddle shoes which my Dad thought were the only suitable footwear.