Random Grand Prix thoughts, and the Pacific NW.

[Robert Hall]

I was up in Oregon and Washington for about a week visiting friends, sight seeing, etc...interesting place...hadn't been there before.... the coastline is beautiful, the mountains great, waterfalls, gorges, etc... I really like what I've seen of Portland..I stayed in Portland, did a day trip to Seattle, so I saw more of Portland..loved Powell's City of Books (huge bookstore), Thai restuarants, went to a couple jazz clubs, a number of brewpubs, a U2 concert, and got stuck on I-5 in an ice storm...I'll have to go back in the spring or summer to tour wineries in the Willamette valley. Had an '06 GP as a rental from Avis...pretty nice, overall.. I liked the interior layout quite a bit (nice steering wheel, the gauges, HVAC, radio, etc all well-placed...some of the plastics were hard and cheap-looking, though...I liked the faux aluminum trim. It handled pretty well on twisty backroads, maybe the best driving Dubya I've sampled.. great traction in the ice storm as well (it took me 5 hours to go 35 miles on a freeway of terror). Well, I'm off to the Valley of the Sun for Xmas and then on to San Diego for New Years..

[CaddyXLR-V]

I was up in Oregon and Washington for about a week visiting friends, sight seeing, etc...interesting place...hadn't been there before....  the coastline is beautiful, the mountains great, waterfalls, gorges, etc...    I really like what I've seen of Portland..I stayed in Portland, did a day trip to Seattle, so I saw more of Portland..loved Powell's City of Books (huge bookstore), Thai restuarants, went to a couple jazz clubs, a number of brewpubs, a U2 concert, and got stuck on I-5 in an ice storm...I'll have to go back in the spring or summer to tour wineries in the Willamette valley.

Had an '06 GP as a rental from Avis...pretty nice, overall.. I liked the interior layout quite a bit (nice steering wheel, the gauges, HVAC, radio, etc all well-placed...some of the plastics were hard and cheap-looking, though...I liked the faux aluminum trim.

It handled pretty well on twisty backroads, maybe the best driving Dubya I've sampled.. great traction in the ice storm as well (it took me 5 hours to go 35 miles on a freeway of terror).

Well, I'm off to the Valley of the Sun for Xmas and then on to San Diego for New Years..

[post="63077"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

So you will be here in Phoenix for the holidays? Its really nice weather this week, mid 70s. And of course, sunny all week.

[Robert Hall]

Yep..visiting family in Phoenix from Xmas eve through Wed then heading to LA to visit friends there and then down to San Diego for New Years..back to Denver on the 2nd. I always enjoy visits to Phoenix...I'm going to turn on the pool heater and go for a swim later...

[trinacriabob]

Yep..visiting family in Phoenix from Xmas eve through Wed then heading to LA to visit friends there and then down to San Diego for New Years..back to Denver on the 2nd.     I always enjoy visits to Phoenix...I'm going to turn on the pool heater and go for a swim later...

[post="63385"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

You must have been in Portland BEFORE Christmas. I missed the ice storm. I hadn't been to my Mom's since Labor Day.

Yes, all of your NW observations are true. However, Portland has an incredibly shitty job market for SOME professions and it is a tad inbred. (Seattle has more to offer in this regard). Being that you are from sun-drenched Denver (300 days of sunshine), you had best think about what living in the NW is like. That vegetation requires a constantly dripping faucet. Nice outdoor weather lasts 2 months (7/15 through 9/15). You must love to curl up with a good book and good coffee if you want to live there. I think that this does something to the people. Did you notice all the morose people at Powell's Books (I tell my Mom I want to slit my wrists every time I go in there)? If you are prone to political correctness, then you can hang with it. I'm not... I love irreverence (to a degree). I have inside jokes where I currently work with about 5 people that would offend co-workers in Seattle. People who transplant to Seattle from the Northeast population corridor and So Cal don't like it much. They feel that their personalities are being suffocated. (On that same note, northern Europe makes me cringe. I may change planes in a Frankfurt or a Copenhagen but make a bee line for the coastal cities of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece where I feel as though someone has handed me an oxygen mask).

I took my cousin from Italy all up and down the West Coast in 2002 and 2004. She is 5'8, thin and attractive. She said you can cut through the NW and California differences with a knife. She said people in CA (we went all over SF, westside of LA, OC and SD) are a lot more free-wheeling, informal and friendly. She still laughs about some bizarre interactions on BART on the way to Berkeley and at a shopping mall in SD whereas people in the NW would have never been that nervy and colorful. Edited December 28, 2005 by trinacriabob