The Native Oregonian's Guide to Avoiding Portland - A Preface

This blog, if I'm being totally truthful, was born out of envy.

You see, I'm a native Oregonian. I've lived nowhere else for the last 40 years of my life. I met my wife here, bought my first house here, and am currently raising three little boys here. 

I'm not the type of Oregonian you see in Portlandia -- those are exaggerations of the peope who live in Portland, and I'm not close enough to Portland to be considered that "weird." I enjoy Powell's books, sure, but I'm more on the fringe of the metro area, closer to the country and St. Paul, the rodeo capital of Marion county, than the mess of downtown. And unfortunately, it turns out that most of what people know about Oregon involves Portland, which is only a fraction of the state, and honestly a poor representation of everything we offer.

Sure, there's the City of Books, a must see part of Powell's Booksellers. And Voodoo Donuts, if you're into phallic shaped donuts that, honestly, aren't even the best donuts Portland has to offer (Blue Star is one of my favorite in Portland, though honestly if I'm looking for bang for my buck I'd just hit Sesame Donuts, the closest thing Oregon has to Dunkin'.)

The envy I experienced, as it happens, is on account of all of the non-natives who, inexplicably, keep moving here. My next door neighbor moved to Oregon from New England, friends from church have come here from places spanning from Indiana to California, and with their living here I find them going to places in the state that I, a native, have never been before. Watching these friends posting pictures of places like Lake Billy Chinook or Crater Lake, hearing about their exploits at certain areas of the coast that I've never gotten to experience, and I found myself jealous.

"How DARE these out of towners keep moving into MY state, going around looking at all of these random places that I've somehow never gotten to in the last 40 years of living here. Don't they realize how offensive that is to those of us who have lived here all our lives?!"

I know how ridiculous that sounds, I really do. I honestly don't have anything against my friends exploring their new home state. But it got me thinking how exactly ridiculous it is that I live in this state, surrounded by all of this beauty, and it takes out of towners to make me realize how little of my own state I've actually experienced.

My exploration motivations came in two forms. First, in 2021 my wife and I plunked down for our first travel trailer (more on that later), and second, I got ten weeks of paid family leave to spend time with our third child. Some of my travels have come from taking the family camping, others have come from me trying to find something fun to do while spending time with the baby (One can only sit at home streaming Hulu so much, so getting out of the house and seeing some places seemed like a good idea).

I hope that you get as much amusement out of this blog as I got from writing it. 

-Andrew