Oregon Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Moving to Oregon in a few months!!!
My hubby and I are moving to Oregon hopefully in the next 6-8 months. He wants to move to Eugene, I've never lived anywhere besides San Diego. We are going to take a trip out to Eugene in August and feel it out. Do you have any preferences or opinions on what areas we should look at? Or areas to avoid? We have 2 dogs and no kids. Thanks for any input!
-Chrissy
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Re: Moving to Oregon in a few months!!!
I would definitely recommend that you come up during the November-April timeframe too for a visit. San Diego and Eugene are VERY different in terms of weather. I had friends in college (I went to U of O in Eugene) who were from southern CA and ended up leaving and moving back because they couldn't handle the grey. July will be a beautiful time to visit (I'm fairly certain you'll fall in love with how beautiful it is) but it's important that you also know what you're getting yourself into during the winter months.
I would definitely suggest that you also find jobs prior to moving up. The job market in Oregon is not the greatest so having jobs secured prior to a move would reduce stress.
Eugene is 2 hours south of Portland (Oregon's largest city), 1+ hour from the beach, 1+ hour from the mountains and about 3+ hours to Ashland (southern Oregon border). It's a college town and liberal but with an interesting dynamic of being uber liberal while having a pretty substantial blue-collar population. There are tons of great outdoor activities in the area (hiking, rafting, running, etc). It's also known for being terrible for people with allergies (mine have never been as bad as when I lived there).
That's all I can think of for now. Enjoy your visit!
We just moved from Orange County this month to Eugene and have loved everything so far. Like you, I would not mind some gray days. The sun in So CA was so hot and gave me headaches all the time...I much preferred the cold days where I can snuggle up with some tea and a good book.
So far Eugene has been pretty warm and humid, 95 degrees in the miday. The sun gets up at 5 am and goes down after 9 pm so long days. I still have to see a gray day here. Our apt has no AC! only individual heaters and lamps in every room so right now I do not understand the concept. My DH is dying with no AC!!!!
There is a lot of new development, new shopping centers, and lots of californians here. The locals do not like it and I can see why. The nature and river are so beautiful that it's hard to see it change. I hope it doesn't. DH bought me a new moutain bike so we have explored the entire city in our bikes. There is a bike path that goes along the river with cute trendy restaurants you can stop and have a drink and lunch.
We move here because we wanted a different lifestyle for future babies. We hated the materialistic life style of Orange County. If we have daughters we want them to learn values, customs, traditions, natural life and grow professionally and metally before they learned about beamers, implants, surgeries and money - with all respect. We want an organic lifestyle.
We also moved becaus in OC we could only afford a 3 bd, 2 bth condo with no yard and associations as high as $800 a month. We would have lived pay check to pay check with two incomes. If we do have babies there was no option of one of us staying home at least part time to see all the milestones. I like to work but I would also like the option of being home with babies if they needed me. I saw a friend at work suffering because she had run out of sick days to care for her baby and she had no option to stay at home, she was too much wrapped up in the lifestyle It was sad to me see her actually cry at work because she had ben denied time off to take her lil boy to the MD. This totally made me see into the future and want more options.
Homeownership ops are endeless here if you have a degree/career. with my husbands income and my stay at home part time job we can afford a 'factory home' which is in the outskirts from downtown going for $230,000. or and older home that go anywhere from $300,000 to 650,000 depending on the size. or you can even by an acer on the south hills and buid your home for under $400,000.
There is tons to do...dining, hiking (waterfalls just out side our door), shopping, mt biking, boating, skiing, etc...
Shopping: there are lots of boutiques in downtown. Oakway center and Valley River Center (5 miles apart from each other) have stores like, Macys, pottery barn, crate & barrel, banana republic etc... so it is not much of a drastic cultural change from OC.
The bad: there are more older areas where people do not take care of their homes/lawns than there are nice areas. So far we have found 3 nice communities (one includes the new development with factory homes).
There are lots of bums/homeless in downtown...normal to a city I guess...remains me of a mini LA.
Not much diversity. I loved having mexican restaurants everywhere in OC. We have not seen many interacial couples or black people even with UO here.
New development....can be good and bad. there are lots of shopping centers and home development happening everywhere. We can see sign that new home of blah blah development. So it's growing and definetly the place to buy. eugene is trying to clean downtown. but all this will affect Eugene's natural beauty and character.
It is definetly a lot different than So CA...but it's very beautiful, calm, organic, and peaceful. You have to like a natural lifestyle to live here and not move just because you can afford a home. You can buy a house anywhere but you cannot chage its geography.
Good luck!
I know my e-mail was long....but I forgot.... Florence beach is about 1 hour away from here and Porland is about 2 hours to see concerts, more restaurants, etc...there is really tons to do here.
traffic to the locals is bad but to me a breeze. I use to drive from newport to dana point, 22 miles everyday to work approx an 1 hour from and to. Eugene is not more than 30 min circumference.
Unemployement is bad here, that's why my comment about a degree/career. You can find a job easily in retail but the pay scale is much lower than in CA. If you do have a degree/career it seems to me that it is easier to find employment and a good community to live in without breakng the bank.
WOW...Longest post ever! But so helpful. My DH is trying to get an IT job there. He is from Nor Cal and I grew up in San Diego. I'm ready to move, not just because we can afford it, but that's a plus. We are planning on babies in a couple of years and I want to stay home too. We just made the decision to really pursue this dream a couple of weeks ago and it has been very exciting. I almost put an offer on a house yesterday because I really liked the paint and vintage feel of it...DH said vintage means it's old. He's the voice of reason. Thanks again for all of your help, I'll check in often.
-Chrissy
Just a follow-up comment on the weather...born and raised in Oregon (35 yrs)
CA's can have a really hard time adjusting to the weather...when we say gray we mean months of gray with little to NO sum. This year was really bad and depressing for native oregonians...it even got to me. mid-June through Sept can be beautiful but deceptive since we can go 3-6 weeks with no sun in the fall and winter.
OR is great if you can handle the weather. you really have to learn to take advantage of the summer here.
I just moved here last week, so I am by no means an expert, but...
I'm not sure if you're asking about areas around Eugene, or Oregon in general... I really like the Beaverton area. It is so close to other cities: Portland, Hillsborough (sp), Vancouver, WA, etc, which is good for jobs/shopping/outdoor activities. They also have a great farmers market and if I could figure it out--the public transportation seems good, too.
Also, I'm from California, too-- I'm not sure if Euguene has an airport-- but I sure like being close to PDX so traveling to see my family and friends is a bit easier!