Oregon coast, tried it for 3 years. Sun and nice breeze 10 days a year. Rain or 40 mile per hour winds. 50 degrees, jacket every day. One season. No, three seasons: rainy or blustery or rainy and blustery.
In those three years in Oregon I found that I enjoyed John Day fossil beds (a 7 1/2 hour drive from where I lived), Smith Rock (a 5 1/2 hour drive), some nice Pacific dunes hikes (1 1/2 hour drive), Blacklock Point mountain biking (a one hour drive), Cape Blanco (with a nice lighthouse, a 1 hour drive). a nice area north of Brookings (Samuel Boardman Park, 2 hour drive). Not much for an avid biker and hiker, Fernandes ravelle and usually too nasty outside to go anywhere. I lived on the nice southern coast! Blah. Depressing. Too much green. Green all of the time. Firs don't turn. Grey clouds, grey skies, sand and salt air. Oh, to be fair, Newport has a nice Old Town. It's windier there. Disclaimer: I do not work for Oregon's tourism council.
Southern Utah. Sun and a nice breeze 300 days a year. No jacket in the summer. Four seasons.
In one week I've found more to do here than in Oregon! And haven't driven more than 5 minutes. The recreational opportunities are innumerable and couldn't possibly be listed here. Reds, yellows, blues, and yes greens. Aspens turn in the fall. White pillow clouds in blue skies. Sand in the hair.
Both Utah and Oregon have beautiful mountain vistas. The Pacific Ocean is way too cold to swim in and usually too cold to look at. Utah has wonderful desertscapes (with great ancient Puebloan rock art and ruins) as well as mountains. Oregon's desert is drab with drab rock art and no ruins (the wind and salt and rain just ate that stuff up).
10 best things about Oregon: the southern coast, Bandon golf (but unplayable), tidepools, Crater Lake, mushrooms, ocean sunsets, wildlife, can and bottle refund money, rural road auto touring, casinos (nothing else to do usually but gamble).
10 best things about the southwest desert: hiking, biking (mountain and road), archaeology resources, sunsets and sunrises, desert golf (incredible vistas), geologic marvels, wildlife, transition zones, auto touring, a multitude of National Parks.
Seems about even but it's not. The Utah desert has 100 best things.
Cancer, angiogenesis, mets., pain, death.
There but for the grace of Dr. David Servan-Schreiber and my wife go I.
It is possible to live with cancer but not with angiogenesis.
Now I'm getting the exercise again as I can go outside, just waiting on the stress management to follow. Utah's going to help. The physical and neural pain's gonna be there. I got filleted like a fish. For sure Oregon was going to kill me.
Ok, sing along: When you're down right disgusted and life ain't worth a damn get a girl with faraway eyes. And get your lazy butt to southern Utah.
By golly, even my warts are going away. Apparently they thrive on overcast skies.
Jim William is an avid outdoorsman at heart. This desert rat, which is better than a dirty rat, is back where he belongs.
Southwest hiking: http://swhikes-maven.blogspot.com/
Visit his website at http://themaven.synthasite.com
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