ROAD TRIP! Exploring Life in the Northland...

The coast by Heceta Head, Florence, OR

 It was a road trip for fun; it was a research trip for the future. My daughter and her husband lived in Portland for a year a while back, and I’ve had many friends who were nostalgically familiar with Portland, Eugene and southern Oregon. To experience a real Autumn, with deciduous trees in a Trix bowl of colors, a mild winter (maybe even snow!), a cooler summer – it all had appeal, not only as a place to visit, but for a possible migration north. The water situation in northern California is not a good one. Snow in the Sierras seems to get thinner-to-non-existent every year, and our water supply largely stems from snowmelt (we won’t mention here about how LA and points in between are bleeding off what water we have – see the movie Chinatown for that story). California is experiencing its most severe drought in recent history. Lake Shasta is currently at 53% total capacity (more about the current water conditions in California and the Bureau of Reclamation's webpage).

Traffic has reached critical levels; the expense of living in the Bay Area surrounding San Francisco has crept up like a starving tiger thanks to the dotcom super-salary boom, and California is burning.
 It’s a concern for the future. Leaving this gorgeous place for good would require at least a lateral move (same quality of life and beauty, less traffic and expense). The image of wet and green Oregon was more than tempting – so Ms. Nikki (my daughter) and I decided to test the water, so to speak. It was illuminating.