Our route

Here's where the wagon trains are heading starting Saturday Nov 14, 2008 morning:


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Plane ride east, wagons west

Tomorrow I'm finally heading back to Raleigh and seeing Sarah again. It's been WAY too long. Painfully long. 6 weeks.

Southern Oregon is beautiful. No debating that.

It's also a new world for me in terms of demographics - VERY white and strange. Strange in a way I don't yet understand enough to explain sufficiently. Best way I can is by listing things I've noticed:

1. mansions next to trailers
2. house trailers for sale for $17,000 on the same street as $400,000 homes - wtF?
3. trashy places - from gross(!) grocery stores to houses that I'm surprised can be loaned on
4. not suburbia in the southern sense. I'd gotten used to new places, shiny stores, starbucks, and construction, but not so much here. Most places were built 10 or more years ago and show it
5. VERY Haves and REALLY don't have-nots. Metros and Bugatis sharing the road. It's as if upper middle class does not exist - only lower middle/lower income and upper class
6. a latent "green" spirit - people here from every socio-econommic level care about the enironment and can talk about it. that's incredibly different from east coast
7. love of wine - the layman here knows more about wine than most any southerner
8. lots of outdoorsy people
9. lots of guys with strange beards. Is it the mountains that makes you want to look like you're into building bombs in a shed?
10. Chains! I had not thought of putting chains on tires since I was @8. Here its a way of winter life.
11. hilariously boring news - no surprise, welcome to a small town
12. LOTS AND LOTS of organic food at the grocery, and lots of bulk food items

Anyways, thats enough for now. Will be posting images this week of the drive which starts tomorrow.