Oregon

I just returned from a week in Oregon. My husband and I flew in to Portland and spent a couple of days with my brother and his family. They drove us over the Cascades to Central Oregon where we spent 4 days with my husband's brother and sister and their families. Oregon is the most diversified state!! It has mountains, ocean, rainforest, high desert, skiing and white water rafting all within 6 hours of each other. I love the Portland weather. My sister-in-law, who lives in Seattle, thinks I'm crazy because she gets so tired of the gray weather and rain, but the vegetation it creates is incredible. It was like going through the looking glass when we crossed over the Cascades: Blue skies, warm air, scruffy trees and bushes.
We were amazed at what Oregonians call warm. When the temperature shot up to a whopping 70 degrees, everybody jumped in the pool....in Mississippi in June, the temperature might dip down to 70 at night and we sure won't be caught swimming until it hits 80!!
I am so blessed to have family all over the place. It's wonderful to be toured around a new part of the country by locals...who let you shack up with them for a few days!! I seem to be rambling so I'm going to put the rest of this entry in bullet form:
Thursday, June 10 - Portland via Memphis and Dallas. The time change and layover in Dallas put us at 14 hours in the airport system. My brother picked us up at the airport.
Friday, June 11 - We had brunch in a lovely Cafe called the Tin Shed in downtown Portland. Great Food!! We visited the Portland Rose Garden and saw more varieties of roses than I could imagine. We visited several POI's in Portland ending up at the Bipartisan Cafe for coffee.
Saturday, June 12 - Brother, husband, 8 month pregnant sister-in-law, niece, big dog, me and luggage load up in a SAAB station-wagon to make the 4 hour trek across the Cascades. Stop at Multnomah Falls - it was really awesome to hear all the languages being spoken at both the falls and the rose garden - it seems we are all awed by basically the same things!!
Sunday - Wednesday, June 13-16 - I'm going to lump these together because Central Oregon is the land of the everlasting day and I can't separate what happened when now. The sun wakes you up at about 5:30 and then it might go down by 9:30 at night. It it absolutely exhausting. Our summer days in MS are equally long but somehow these days stretch out forever. I think the dry, cool air is the difference - you can golf or swim or hike or bike or whatever at anytime of the day so the possibilities are literally endless - you can really pack a day full whereas, in MS, you have to get your outdoor activities over by about 10:30 am and resume them at 4 pm unless you want to risk heat stroke. Our two condo's were 2 miles apart and we had only one vehicle, so we rented bikes to go visiting. We saw mountains and rivers and wildlife. We went golfing and swimming (burr) and walking. It was fantastic.
Things I loved: the roses, the mountain views, the cool and dry air, the AWESOMENESS of the countryside, seeing my precious family, the uniqueness of Portland.
Things I missed: The heat (seriously), friendliness, rhinestone sandals, women with make-up and fixed hair (LOL), Bubba's, people who don't think I talk funny.
We had an awesome vacation and I'm already looking forward to the next one!!