Matt, just this evening I am back from...

You guessed it.

Salem. Okay, so you have missed the awesome art museum at Willamette University (which announced another cool million to its endowment today); the sweet children's museum and stroll along the riverfront to the greatest indoor carousel - literally constructed from scratch as a community partnership project; the capitol grounds and tour with nearby Bush Park and lovely outdoor art and garden shows throughout the summer; the magnanimous public spirit shown by the greatest number of skate parks anywhere; and did I mention the tax-free shopping at the Nordstrom and Meyer & Frank downtown? The new conference center is going to position them well for the small and mid-size regional association meetings of every organization under the cloudy northwest skies. And it will bolster the confidence of downtown retailers, and particularly the about-to-be entrepeneurs taking a chance on a comfortably-sized small town. Meanwhile, I had an awesome Lange Pinot Gris up in Dundee today at this very sophisticated Bistro - also visited the very nice Lange Winery up in the Red Hills above Dundee. But if I were wagering, I'd say watch the little town of Dayton (where the pioneer era blockhouse sits in a perfect public square). If we were smart, we would relocate down there and buy it all up - that town may look like Appalachia now - but watch it blossom into Sonoma-North in the next decade...

Thanks for the tips Scott, all sounds quite nice. Maybe I'll manage to spend a few hours there next time I'm passing by. I think maybe part of my aversion to Salem is the scale of the place. It's not REAL big of course...but in a smaller place, like say, Corvallis, it's easier to zero in on the pleasant outdoor public spaces, which is always a priority with a few young kids. And the downtown has its own local flavor.

In Oregon, I'd rather be in Portland, where the urban experience is full-blown; or on the coast, in the mountains, or somewhere with really distinct small town flavor, like Ashland. I suppose the corrolary to Salem in Washington is Olympia, our own state capitol. Pleasant place to muck about for a few hours. But would you recommend it as a destination?

The other thing to Salem's disadvantage is the often molasses-like traffic on I-5 betweeen it and Portland. If you're coming from the north, the congestion only clears up just after Salem, and my inclination is to break on through to the other side, the less-tramelled spaces, where "the west is the best," truly,

I live in Salem. It is indeed lame.

And I forgot to mention the incredible heavy metal scene in the Salem-Albany-Corvallis area on down to Eugene. Those kids can play! My favorite is a Christian band called 'Falling Up'
http://www.fallingupcrashings.com/
But I heard some fourteen year olds at a guitar shop in Salem over the weekend that were making Dimebag Darrell smile up in heaven, to be sure...

Suckiness is completely an internal state of mind, not influenced by one's location. If Salem sucks, then every 'big town' that's not quite a 'small city' sucks as well.

Nadda gunnna happen. Fuggedaboudit! ;-)

Having spent a significant amount of time in the Salem-Albany-Corvallis area, I can vouch that Salem does indeed suck. It's not so much that there's anything wrong with it really, it's just so very, very generic. I mean, Corvallis has more personality than Oregon's state capitol, and it's a fraction of the size.