So what do Millers do for fun? Glad you asked.
http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/
It's not really on the way to Bend except in a very loose usage of the term 'on the way' but well worth the extra miles. I hope we can visit again soon. There are so many things that are worth an extra long stare, so many that if you indulged yourself, you'd be there for days. We had time for a leisurely peruse through the museum itself, then moved on to the replica of Stonehenge, where we enjoyed wild winds, the straight-edged shadows and the brilliance of a blue and gold view of the Columbia river gorge through white-edged frames formed by the stones.
Once in Bend, after a good meal and a typical hotel snooze, we dashed out to
Moving on, we went to East Lake and walked along the shore through thousands of butterflies to where hot springs bubble up into the water. No one felt like swimming (the smell and the goopy mud combined with rotted vegetation on the shore may have had something to do with this) so we drove onward to the lava cast forest. The mile long trail took us through acres of lava flow. The tree molds themselves are holes in the ground, although some of them are horizontal tubes where the tree fell over and then burned out on the inside while the lava cooled.
I'm so glad I can get out of the way of lava, or at least have a chance to.
We got back to the hotel in time to clean up for the wedding. The bride was gorgeous, we had perfect weather, and not a single fly buzzed around. Live music, dancing, a charming ceremony, and a whole lot of people in a backyard bbq-style shindig that lasted late into the night. The dogs were exhausted by the end of it, and I'm sure they whined when guests arrived yet again for breakfast. We didn't stay long, though. It was time to go home and take care of our own dogs.
We were swarmed, of course, when we came in, nearly drowning in a sea of unconditional love. I'm so, so tired, and glad to be back, but it was one of those weekends where everything worked out right. I'll sleep deep tonight. Hopefully I won't have that weird bus crash dream again where I helped save the bus driver who'd suffered a massive heart attack. Weird dreams with defined stories--a sign that I haven't written in a while.
5 comments:
Despite its increasingly plastic, neon, pseudo-Californian touristy appearance, Bend doesn't disappoint. There's just too much to see and do around that area!
And you went there via the Gorge? That's putting in a full day! No wonder you're tired!
I would totally live in that area, except, well, cost of living, cost of property, plus evil Oregon taxes. I mean super-evil taxes. After he retires, if Rory lives in any state except Oregon he gets his retirement 'normally'. If he lives in the state, though, he has to pay income tax. As if he didn't pay income tax the entire time he was earning his retirement! It just makes me sick.
I guess we'll have to find someplace equally beautiful in Washington, or maybe Idaho, although it would have to be very special for us to want to move from where we are now. I love our land.
The house, not so much.
But I love love love our land.
After he retires, if Rory lives in any state except Oregon he gets his retirement 'normally'. If he lives in the state, though, he has to pay income tax.
Blame the Californians and the property tax limitation they imported. 80% loss of revenue across the board, which had to be recovered somewhere else just to keeps some basic services going. Meanwhile, the Californian real estate investors are laughing all the way to the bank because they don't live in Oregon, they just buy up the cheap(er than California) land.
In other words, the predictions all came true, despite certain nameless friends of mine INSISTING that it was all "just scare tactics".
Well 80% loss of revenue *has* to be scare tactics because an 80% recovery of revenue would make Oregon's the highest taxes in the nation. I'd like to know who came up with the 80% number.
I don't see a lot of California real estaters laughing around here. We bought our property from a Californian bank. It hadn't sold for two years and I doubt they made much money on it, though I could be wrong. It sold for a paltry $189,000 for a house with five acres, well below all the other acreage with house that we looked at. I think there's something deeper going on than 'Californians are screwing us' and 'there isn't enough money to go around.' For example, a search and rescue team found out they were eligible for thousands of dollars of federal grant money. As they'd been living on out-of-pocket funds and state funds in the hundreds of dollars range (imagine trying to get the team simple backpacks just for that! they survived on donations) they applied. Well, someone already had, on their behalf, and that money was getting dumped in the slush fund instead of going to them.
I call that corruption.
It becomes laughable when things happen like the zoo closes a small exhibit due to 'lack of tax dollars' and *in the same year* builds a huge new exhibit. Maybe they got private donations. Great! So don't blame frickin' tax dollars for something when you have enough $$ to spend millions on construction.
Sigh.
There's a serious lack of leadership around here. It's a national problem, though, definitely not just Oregon. The people who become career politicians, by and large, don't serve the public as far as I can tell. It's not a matter of 'what have you ever done for me.' More of a case of, 'what have you done at all?'
I'd like to know who came up with the 80% number.
I'm actually surprised that you said that. "80% loss of revenue" was what everyone was saying after the property tax limitation measure was passed. I remember the newspapers plastering that number left and right. It was also spat down from above as a warning to public school teachers (i.e. my dad) together with a notice that there would be some considerable downsizing as a result.
The reason for the "80% loss" was that the measure set the property tax limit at 2% assessed value (i.e. imported verbatim from California). The 2% limit wasn't such a big drop for California because their property taxes weren't all that high to begin with; their sales tax more than made up for the difference. In sales tax-less Oregon, however, property tax rates were quite high, partly because property values were relatively low. The drop to a 2% limit amounted to an 80% loss of property tax revenue compared to the original level. To ease the crunch, the limitation measure allowed the limit to be imposed gradually over a five-year span, but it still amounted to an 80% cut overall compared to pre-measure property tax levels. Assuming state income taxes weren't jacked up to make up for the difference (which is technically illegal...all services paid for via property taxes had to be voter-approved as individual levies), that still amounts to quite a cut.
I know that good old North Clackamas school district really got hit hard, at least in the beginning. I don't know how it is right now (other than the fact that Mike Jarmer is now a teacher at Putnam), but a lot of teachers and counselors got axed, mainly on the basis of seniority (which in some cases meant promising teachers getting dumped in favor of some blithering idiots. Some subjects wound up being taught by only one or two teachers for the whole district, meaning they had to rotate between the schools. (For one thing, the music program for the entire district wound up in the [in]capable hands of [choke] Mr. Smiley, formerly of Rowe Jr. High. Needless to say, no more trophies were won at any contests after that.)
I don't know anything beyond that because I've lived out of country, let alone out of state, for 17 years now. Some of the stories you've told me are disgusting but hardly surprising. Politicians are, by nature, opportunists who won't hesitate to grab a passing buck. Yes, it's possible that new exhibit at the zoo was built using either a donation or a grant earmarked for specifically that reason, but still...and that search and rescue thing is infuriating.
Whatever. I still blame the Californians for a great many things. If they didn't make any money in the end, I call it poetic justice.
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