The Best of the May Walkabout

Now that we are back home, we thought we'd capture the 'bests' from our trip. Here they are, in no particular order...

The best place we didn't stop, and would like to return to see: Lake Coeur D'Alene, in Idaho. We drove by it on the way home, and thought it was one of the most beautiful places we had seen:

Best souvenirs: Deb's charm bracelet from Carmel, and Steve's Mount Rushmore mug, which matches his favorite Lake Powell mug.

Food...

Best home cooked meal: ham cooked in Coke at Sally's. Best brew pub: Bend Brewing Company in Oregon, where we had a beer sampler, calamari for an appetizer and salmon pizza. Best pizza at Campisi's, in Dallas:

We had pizza with Sally and Art at the original Campisi, known as the Egyptian Lounge when Jack Ruby ate there the night before shooting Lee Harvey Oswald:

In a typical Internet "walkabout", I ended up reading 50 pages of the deposition Joe Campisi gave about his association with Ruby - and all I was trying to do was get a picture of the restaurant back in 1963, when Ruby ate there. So easy to go off on a tangent, on the Internet....

Best hotel: The Driskill, in Austin.

Best chain hotel: Fairfield Inn. After saying in an earlier post that our plan to stay at Marriott hotels wasn't working for us, we stayed at Fairfields in Bend, Seattle, Bozeman, Rapid City and Rockford IL - basically, the whole end of the trip with the exception of Portland, where we stayed at the Mark Spencer. We found the Fairfields to be a good value, plus their consistency was a welcome comfort on the long trip home.

We received our best insight on the final day of the trip, from a nice man working breakfast at the Rockford hotel. It had opened only weeks before, and was lightly booked. They had upgraded us to a suite, and were taking good care of their relatively sparse clientele. When I was getting breakfast, I told one exceptionally helpful gentleman that I was well acquainted with their breakfast setup, since we had stayed at so many Fairfields in the last month. He asked about our trip and why we were traveling so long. I explained that we were investigating possible places to relocate to and he asked me what we had learned from our walkabout. I said 'that no place is perfect', and he replied 'yes -- not until you make it so'.

It was an insight worth driving 7500 miles for.

Portland to Seattle

When we left Portland for our drive to Seattle, we decided to go via the Oregon coast. We drove west, and in about one and a half hours we were in Cannon Beach. It was chilly and windy, but sunny. The Oregon beaches are really spectacular, with fine white sand, whitewater, and dramatic rock formations. This one, at Cannon Beach, is called Haystack Rock:


Even the 'plain' stretches of beach are beautiful:

We didn't have much time, so we settled for having lunch (salmon sandwiches) and vowing to return if we move to Portland.

Then we headed north into Washington and stopped by to visit an old school friend of Steve's, Tom, who lives in Longview. Tom lives in a pretty little valley where he's created his own small tree farm. This is the kind of view he sees every day:

With our side trips, it took us most of the day to reach Seattle, a trip that with good weather and traffic can take only two to three hours.

Japanese Garden - Portland

The Japanese Garden is just one of the many beautiful gardens and parks in Portland, City of Roses. This garden is located in Washington Park, as is the Rose Test Garden. There is a small fee to enter the Japanese Garden, but it is well worth it. It is a work of art, in every detail. This, combined with its setting amid giant fir trees, makes it a welcome oasis close-in to an urban area.

The hardest thing to capture in these pictures is the quality of the light. Since it is filtering through the large trees above, even on a sunny day everything is bathed in a green glow.

There is a path through the garden, and every bend has another pond, a waterfall, a pathway made of carefully laid stone, a bridge. There are also many places to sit and rest, or meditate on the beauty.

There are traditional Japanese gardens, such as this flat garden, or the rock and sand garden. A brochure provided at the entry explains each major section of the garden, or you can take one of several guided tours conducted each day.

If we move to Portland, and there is a house we've found that we are seriously considering, I plan on buying an annual pass to the Japanese Garden. I could see spending many hours here.

Portland: Model Evaluation

It's time to get back to the real reason for this trip, and that is to find a new place to live (and to develop the software that helps people evaluate good places to live). We've seen lots of good scenery, but it's been a long time since we were in a truly viable location for us. Now we have one to consider - Portland.

The model for Portland has some missing data. First let's start with what we know: accessibility is great -- good airport, good hospitals; quality of life is great -- walkable neighborhoods, affordable housing, great views and scenery; climate is good -- mild winters, nice summers, and only 1% less sunshine than Hudson, despite the rumors to the contrary. Work opportunities is a mixed picture: high unemployment and not many fulltime work opportunities, but a great Microsoft network here and good freelance opportunities, so that works for us. The unresolved issue is affordability.

We've looked at housing and we know that now, with the reduction in prices taking place, that we can afford a nice place to live within our budget. The published COL numbers say Portland is 2% higher than Hudson, but that is largely driven by the (old) housing prices. Back those out, and it is no more expensive than Hudson. There is no sales tax here, and property taxes, while high, are not as high as Hudson (which is unfortunately almost in a class by itself - 2% of appraised value). The unknown is availability and cost of health insurance. Oregon is a complicated state on health insurance and you can't get quotes over the internet. I have calls out to people to get some answers, but they've all gone for Memorial Day weekend, I guess.

So, the current model looks like this:

Portland OR (Decision)

• ○This town is a good choice for our next home.
• ●AND [1 of 5] : This town has a good climate.
• ●AND [1 of 2] : This town has moderate winters.
• ○OR [1 of 2] : The number of days each year at or below freezing should be 10 or less.
• ●OR [2 of 2] : The average winter temperature should be at least 10 degrees warmer than Hudson OH.
• ●True
• ●AND [2 of 2] : This town has a good balance of sunshine and summer heat.
• ●OR [1 of 2] : This town has moderate summers in exchange for lots of sunshine.
• ●True
• ○OR [2 of 2] : This town has lots of sunshine but hot summers.
• ○AND [2 of 5] : This town has an affordable cost of living.
• ○AND [1 of 4] : This town has health insurance available for less than $1500 a month.
• ●AND [2 of 4] : This town has lower taxes than my current home town.
• ●True
• ○AND [3 of 4] : This town has a lower cost of living index than my current home town.
• ○Undecided
• ●AND [4 of 4] : This town has good housing for less than my maximum house budget.
• ●True
• ●AND [3 of 5] : This town has good work opportunities.
• ●OR [1 of 2] : This town has good fulltime work opportunities.
• ●False
• ●OR [2 of 2] : This town has good freelance work opportunities.
• ●True
• ●AND [4 of 5] : This town provides a good quality of life.
• ●AND [1 of 2] : This town can provide a healthy lifestyle.
• ●OR [1 of 2] : This town has neighborhoods that provide a walkable urban lifestyle.
• ●AND [1 of 2] : This town has at least one neighborhood with a walkscore greater than 90.
• ●True
• ●AND [2 of 2] : The neighborhood with a walkscore greater than 90 has a crime rate no greater than 125% of the national average.
• ●True
• ●OR [2 of 2] : This town has areas with affordable nature 'compounds'.
• ●True
• ●AND [2 of 2] : This town can provide an inspirational lifestyle.
• ○OR [1 of 3] : This town has a high quality university.
• ●OR [2 of 3] : This town has cultural diversity.
• ●True
• ●OR [3 of 3] : This town has beautiful scenery and views.
• ●True
• ●AND [5 of 5] : This town has good accessibility.
• ●AND [1 of 2] : This town is within 2 hours of a major airport.
• ●True
• ●AND [2 of 2] : This town is within 30 minutes of high quality hospitals.
• ●True

Hopefully, I will learn that health insurance is available and affordable. If so, Portland will be our strongest candidate so far.