A few weeks ago, our family decided to take a road trip to the Pacific Northwest. We have been looking at cities nationwide in order to try to make sense of our options with jobs, finances, and childcare. Portland has become one of our many focuses. It is attractive not only due to it's low cost of living, but also because of the recreational lifestyle, environmental focus, and down to Earth people. Our mission was to explore the area and decide whether or not it was deemed "liveable" by our standards.
Early on a Friday morning, we threw our tots into the car armed with plenty of well loved dvds, and then we drove off into the unknown. We spent the first night in a Motel 6 near Sacramento (we are trying to save money these days). The next five nights were spent in a Portland hostel where we had a private room for our whole family. It was a fun opportunity to meet people from all over the nation as well as beyond. Extra perks were free pizza and bakery goodies that were donated daily by nearby businesses to the hostel. We explored the Portland Zoo (very nice) as well as the Forestry Center where Mama was excited to discover a chocolate festival in full swing! Other adventures included many playgrounds, a cupcake cafe, the best lattes at World Coffee that I have ever sipped in my life, and expeditions into Portland suburbs. After we could see that we loved the city, we wanted to check out neighborhoods. Our two particular places of interest included Camas, WA and Sherwood, OR. Although Camas was very picturesque on the website, they failed to mention the gigantic stinky paper mill in the center of town. We were not particularly charmed by Camas. Sherwood was another story entirely. It is a quaint little town recently booming with new community interest. There is an old town covered in craftsman bungalows, a new library with pizza shop, and other stores and businesses. The rest of the area is newer construction and very nice. One of the highlights is an amazing YMCA center complete with indoor heated pool with waterslides, a very eleborate and free teen program, and attractive daycare option for working out parents. House prices generally are around $350,000 for brand new and fairly large places. We were very impressed. The community has great schools and is predominantly young families which explains the many recreational programs and parks all over. They are currently working on a plan to build community tennis courts on top of their town water tower! I spoke to about 5 different women with their kids at various playgrounds and they all had nothing except amazing things to say about Sherwood. Incidently, they all also immediately offered up their phone numbers and email addresses to me in case I had any other questions about the area! Three of the five woman originally moved from Southern California. We were all set to move there until a trip to Salem to look further into teaching requirements put a damper on our plans. The Oregon department of education requires that I need to have taught in the last three years OR I have to substitute teach for a year or take 6 semester credits of college classes in education before applying. This is a fairly major setback since three years is basically the exact time I have taken off with the girls. Eventhough we are unsure whether we can move there soon, we are hopeful that perhaps in a few years if the opportunity shows itself, we may consider Sherwood at that time. On another day, we took a side trip to Astoria, Oregon. I have always wanted to visit Astoria since it is the site of many famous films including Goonies and Kindergarten Cop. We got some great pictures at a historic column on a hill above the town. The weather was very cooperative.. in fact, it didn't rain until we were leaving Oregon on the final day of our trip! On the way home, we stopped in Redding at the Turtle Bay Discovery Center where the girls viewed a Gecko exhibit in addition to many other interesting educational activities. We walked across the funky Sun Dial Bridge they had there as well. The next day, we went to Sacramento to visit Fairy Tale Town and the Sacramento Zoo since it was "Free Museum Day." It was very crowded but fun anyway. The last day of the trip was spent with family near Los Angeles. It was good to see "Mimi and Poppa," Aunt Renee and Uncle Gordon, and the girls' cousins, Addie and Gavin. We also explored options regarding living in the LA area with regard to teaching opportunities and living expenses. All in all, it was a great trip. We didn't really have any problems with the girls acting up in the car and we really benefitted from the change of scenery and new information. While we still weren't able to come to any decisions regarding where we will be in a few months, we are better educated on some of the options and will continue our path to find out where we should go from here.
