Sunday, October 30, 2011

PDX to MSP

I mentioned to Jerry that, even though it was #50 for me, Oregon may have entered my list of Five Favorite States -- meaning, I guess, the states that somehow feel right for me in some sort of indescribable way... which of course led to a discussion of what are the other four?  And here, in no particular order is the list:  New Jersey and Minnesota, the two states where I have lived the longest; Vermont, a beautiful quiet getaway place; Hawaii, which almost goes without saying (it's just a shame that it's so far away); and now Oregon.  Oregon just has the right feel to it -- the people, the attitude, the resources, even the granola/aging-hippie stuff.  And then there is Portland, which we are still discovering.  There is a bumper sticker Aunt Myrt was telling us about -- "Keep Portland Weird" -- and, as my son Jon says, "Weird is almost always good."

We visited Occupy Portland yesterday, and it is way different from Occupy Minnesota.  Tents and tarps and people cover two whole downtown blocks here (tents aren't allowed at the Minnesota encampment), and it is a lot grungier than its Minneapolis counterpart... But it feels like it is there to stay indefinitely.

This afternoon we fly home.  We'll come back here sometime, I know.

8 comments:

Jon said...

Minnesota is in your top 5?? Sad. Let's see if it remains there after it becomes a red state!

Howard said...

Food for thought, Jon --

1) If I couldn't squeeze Minnesota into my Top 5, I should have left a long time ago;

2) Consider the good things about Minnesota: Minneapolis, St. Paul, the North Shore, uh, uh, uh.....;

3) Think about the remaining 45 states and how lame most of them are. What would you choose instead?

Jon said...

LOL. Well, I've only been to 18 states so I'm not one to say, but if there aren't at least 5 that are cooler than MN, that's depressing. I'd have to say CA is better, even though that's not a very original one to pick. And if MA isn't better than MN, I'm going to be very disappointed because that's where I'm moving to when MN does turn red.

ruthie said...

Minnesota is in my top 5 for about 5 months of the year and drops down considerably for the other months. California is obviously at the top of my list and totally predictable for me. Rhode Island is a beautiful place though, for what part I saw of it.

Howard said...

Rhode Island, Massachusetts and California would make it into my Top TEN... You guys have just seen the best parts of California -- there are plenty of negatives.

Jon said...

Well, there are tons of negatives about every state. I'm guessing you didn't pick NJ based on Camden, for example. :-)

ruthie said...

Are you kidding? Camden and Newark are the highlights!

Jon said...

Of course!... What was I thinking?