The Northwest Trip

We're back. Yipee. We got back last night, and while we had a great trip, it's just nice to be back home in your own bed. But, let me jump right into the trip details. Here's our trip:
Last week, Wednesday, we flew into Portland Oregon. We stayed at a hotel, and then headed out towards Washington the next morning. As mentioned, we stopped in this tiny town on the way to Olympia to check out a practice, and got hi-jacked by the optometrist and his wife (more his wife) for several hours. It was kind of fun, but I don't think Winlock is for us. So, after hours there, and a free lunch on the optometrist, we drove up to Olympia. We stayed the night in Olympia, and enjoyed a beautiful drive the next morning around Olympia's little bay, and we enjoyed their farmer's market. It was pretty cool - all that fresh, yummy food. We loved it. Unfortunately we had to move on, and so we left driving out to Seattle. Seattle was cool, but we didn't like the surrounding towns we were checking out as much. However, we did go to Pike Place Market in Seattle, which was cool, saw lots of odd people, and had 3 crepes at this creperie Voila. Very tasty, too expensive, but still worth every penny. We stayed that night in Seattle, and then drove out to La Grande on Saturday. That was our longest drive, taking about 5-6 hours. We were glad we did it as it took us through all of central and some of eastern Washington to Eastern Oregon. It wasn't very pretty, but La Grande was actually a surprise and looked pretty green and foresty. Not what we expected. We stayed with friends who had just finished up at OSU Optometry and bought a practice out there. Henry was really eager to find out what the 'after life' could look like, and I think it gave us some good ideas. On Sunday we headed over to Portland. On the way, we stopped in Hood River for some food, and were suprised at how cool that little town seemed. We chatted a little with some guy we met in the Restaurant, who happens to be a science teacher across the river, and he totally sold the town to us. We'll definitely be looking onto Hood River. Portland was very beautiful, too. We stayed with friends of my sister-in-law, and they toured us around as well, fed us etc. Very nice. Monday we drove through Corvallis to Eugene. We were excited to see those cities, but actually didn't like them as much. Corvallis seemed really hippy, and we already knew Eugene was very...liberal. They just didn't look as impressive to us. Again, we stayed the night at one of my sis-in-laws friends house, which again was really nice. Tuesday was our last day, and we decided to head to Bend. Bend has been one of America's fastest growing cities in the last years, and supposedly has tons of great outdoors etc. It was a beautiful drive over there, through some beautiful forests and mountains, and lava country. Bend was really cool, too, but is a very touristy and 'hip' place. If we set up practice there (or bought rather) we'd probably do fine, but it was a little too 'cool' for us, and a little too remote from the bigger city and airport. We'll see. Again, we spent one more night with friends of my sis, which was great fun again. They told us more about the area of Portland they live in, and other nice areas to consider, and they fed us delicious home-made bread and jam. Awesome. We also walked around the Portland temple with Sophia, which was nice. Blablabla...so, there is our travel log.

Now here's the important part...what did we love and what did we not love:

The Pros of Oregon and Washington:
- beautiful scenery
- lots of great local produce
- great for gardening
- ocean, rivers, mountains
- cool major cities
- proximity from smaller towns to bigger towns
- very environmentally aware
- pretty bike-friendly
- major airports
- sufficient diversity
- lots of tasty foods (especially a lot of Thai and Indian cuisine)

The cons of Oregon and Washington:
- kind of far away from family
- SPEED LIMITS in Oregon (aweful!!!!)
- possibly a little too environmentally aware
- not that cheap for living
- traffic, especially around Seattle
- could be a tad warmer and sunnier in the Western part - but it's not a biggie
- Church possibly still too big for my taste

Result from our trip: We really really liked it out there, and it seems like it may just be the perfect place for us. Henry's sister in AZ really wants us out in AZ and we'd like to be closer to family, which is the major draw back about the Northwest, but we liked it sooo much and find so little things we like about AZ that there is a very good chance we'll end up in the Northwest instead of AZ. We will definitely be looking into places out there that are selling practices etc. We are also still checking out Austing TX in the winter. But, really, it's hard for me to still consider AZ. I really don't like it out there when I started thinking about it. It's a desert, very conservative, not that cheap to live in, and it doesn't have a lot of cultural things to offer (at least not where Henry's sister is), no major airport close by, not very diverse, and then still very Mormon-saturated. Basically, it has nothing of what we're looking for other than family...tough choices that we'll have to make. However, I think our inclination is to find the spot that's right for us, and not make it dependent on family because we don't want to move somewhere just for family and then end up hating the place.

Anyway, I was pretty camera-lazy during the trip, but here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.