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happy valentine’s and oregon’s 150th birthday! woo-hoo!
February 14, 2009 - 3:16 pm
Since I live in the capitol city of the beautiful state of Oregon, where I was born, then transplanted to WA for 12 years and back again… I feel the need to blog about Oregon’s 150th birthday. Yes, Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14th in 1859. 109 years before I was born in the Oregon City hospital on February 6th, so of course me and my “hippie-liberal-tree-hugging-owl-loving” state are both Aquareie (sp? Aquarius plural?) anyways… at least Portland and it’s burbs are, and after all isn’t the northern San Fran pretty much Oregon??? Nope, thats for sure, this state is definitely a mix. Lots of rural wild west.
It wasn’t until I lived in Eastern WA, in Walla Walla–just min.s from the OR border-that I discovered a whole other side of the beaver state. My mom moved to Joseph from Astoria in ‘00. And let me tell you, my friends, Joseph is as “cowpoke town” as you can get. And mighty beautiful at that with the Wallowas burstin’ at the seams as they greet you with their snow capped “Howdy y’all!”. Oregon has much to offer, awesome beaches albeit with cold ocean water, great skiing at Hood and Bachelor, beautiful rich NW Pacific rain forests, wonderfully dry eastern OR deserts. And one of my favorites: the smell of Sun River, just outside of Bend, OR. When I went there 33 years or so ago for the first time, I fell in love with that sweet ponderosa pine smell. There’s also lots of fascinating flora and fauna in this state, why in our own suburban backyard, there came a-crawling a rough skinned (and toxic) newt that we kept a couple of days. So there’s seals, owls, spiders, “big-ass” beetles, blue jays, cougars, bears, and much much more, there is a lot to offer for the outdoors and naturalist lovers alike.
It’s also cupid heart day today too! I’m a stay at home dad with my son, 12 and her two girls, 5 & 6 1/2. Ever since they tried a bite of one of my sandwiches almost 2 years ago, they refer to these as “Stevan Sandwiches”. Just a ham, am. cheese, pickle and lettuce sandwich, with mayo and usu. mustard (we’re out) on oat grain bread. We have a heart shape sandwich cutter. And I chopped the fruit & veggies. The kids were thrilled.
Topics: 2cute, art/design, flora and fauna, just plain cool | No Comments »