The Pros and Cons of Oregon

As some of you know, Isaac and I went to Oregon for about 10 days to visit family and friends. Overall, we very much enjoyed our stay. Here is a list of my favorite and least favorite things about Oregon:

Cons:

• The way they handled road construction. Many long stretches of one lane only traffic (instead of splitting it into a couple of one lane only areas) including a "need" for escort vehicles.
• Not being able to pump your own gas (but we went to several restaurants where we were expected to bus our own tables?)
• The number of spiders! To my fortune, they were not bigger than the spiders here, just much more abundant.
• Aside from the bookstore, food, and coffee, Portland. Yes, I didn't much care for Portland. I am sorry to those that will be disappointed by this. Here it is broken down:
• Confusing roads and many one way streets for NO ease of access anywhere.
• Way too many homeless people approaching us. And some of them were very persistent.
• Generally overwhelming.

Pros:

• The fairy-tale scenery.
• Including the flowers. Hydrangeas grew like mad! 

•  Eugene. Loved it there! I could live in Eugene.
• The beaches. This is the view from our room in Newport. 

 

• The lighthouses! Here are some pictures from our visit to the Newport lighthouse, which excited me greatly.

• Signs like this:

• The food. Amazing food everywhere we went, especially in Eugene. Granary, Morning Glory, Cafe Yumm, etc.
• The coffee--even the plain old brewed coffee was great. I drank more of that than anything else.

• Powell's Books in Portland! Enormous, wonderful bookstore!
• Voodoo Doughnuts. Certainly an experience! The double-bubble gum doughnut actually tasted like bubble gum! Weirdly delicious. And I had one with chocolate icing, oreo bits, and peanut butter drizzle. And there must have been PB in the dough, as well. Awesome.