For those who live in Pacific Northwest--Favorite things about living there?

Hi J A B! I have to say Lane County, Oregon. ;)

An hour either east or west gets you the cascade mountains or the pacific ocean!

Ok..yea it rains 340 days a year here and the other 25 everything catches fire and burns to the ground...and yea you can't actually go INTO the ocean cause you'll DIE....and you can't go into the woods during hunting season cause you'll be shot....:) But other than that...

The best points are that it's CLEAN. Everything is always fresh and alive smelling. Lane county also has some of the very best drinking water in the country(you can drink it right from the tap!)because it comes from a volcanic rock aquifier.

All kinds of glacier fed rivers to raft and fish(just never fall in em or you'll die)...mountains of all skill levels to climb(you can see Mt. Shasta from the top of 10,280ft South Sister peak in the sisters wilderness area)

In general the place is diverse and often eccentric.....You can buy an AK-47 and a six pack of beer but you CANNOT possess a firecracker(you might burn your fingers!)

The faint sweet smell of dope smoke in the air on Sunday mornings as an older couple, out on their walk, stop and pick up a tiny candy wrapper that's blowing down the street.....;)

I live in Yakima, a town of roughly 90,000 people in central Washington.

Yakima is an hour-ish drive to many places for hiking, backpacking, camping, fishing, skiing (in the winter) or whatever else you are wanting to do in the Cascades and the Plateau. There is very little traffic; you'll never get stuck in a traffic jam like in Seattle. There are loads of community groups for all sorts of different interests from religious to outdoorsy to flying planes. Housing costs are very low compared to the West Side of the mountains.

Live long and prosper.