Some Notes on the Flat (aka Things I'll Miss About Oregon: Volume 11 [Geological Formations])

Mt Hood standing sentry over Portland, protecting it from that dangerous early morning sun.

Before we moved out here, everyone told us that The Middle was flat. 'It will take some time getting used to it,' they said. Based on these statements, I pictured Iowa looking like the other flat places I've been: Kansas and West Texas, which are devoid of trees and where you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon (if you can see past the oil derricks or world's largest cross (made of vinyl siding) in Texas).

In actuality, our part of the middle is much more 'rolling hills' than 'flat.' When riding my bike, there are definitely times when I need to work a little to get up the hills (most of the time, it's for train overpasses, but not always). And in our small city (I prefer medium-sized town, but people here insist it's a city), there's a good amount of trees and assorted foliage. Still, the region feels flatter, so I know what everyone was talking about.

It just feels much flatter here for some reason.

Then, one Sunday, as I was driving to Des Moines, I had a revelation: 'It is really really flat here! But you know what, this isn't any flatter than the drive from Portland to Salem.'

On that drive you are in the middle of the Willamette Valley, which is about as flat as flat can be. Here, you're on the Great Plains in America's Breadbasket (or something). There are differences, of course. Some small, like the crops being grown (corn/soy/pigs vs grass/hazelnuts/apples/christmas trees), the number of cars (less vs more), and the quality of the drivers (example deleted).

But it wasn't until I was driving home in the evening that I had the 'light bulb moment' and realized the major difference: As I was driving, the sun was setting and shining directly into my eyes.

Now you're probably thinking 'well, it rains every day in Portland so you don't have to worry about the sun there.' I would retort 'hahahahahahahahahahaha' real sarcastically and then explain that you know nothing about the weather in the NW.

In Portland, the sun does in fact come out. More than you think. The reason the sun isn't a problem is that everything is surrounded by mountains. The Cascades and Mount Hood are to the east, blocking the rising sun until it's high enough not to be a nuisance. When you're in Portland, you have the West Hills blocking the sun most of the late afternoon. On the west side (The Tron and Hillsboro), the Coast Range is in the way (apparently, its official name is the Pacific Cordilleria). As you head south in the Valley, you have the Cascades and the Coast Range as your geologic sun visor.

Here in the middle, you have the Appalachians and the Rockies, both of which are like a thousand miles away. They don't block much of the sun.

In fact, there's only one place I can think of in Portland where the sun in your eyes is ever a problem, and it's so unique they gave the road a special name. When you drive west over the Sunset Highway at rush hour, you will be staring directly into the sun. And the only reason this happens is because in order to go over the West Hills, the angle of the road points you directly into the sun. It's like you're marching to war with Helios.

So anyways, this is all a roundabout way of me saying that there's not much in topological variation here in the middle. While it's not as flat as a pancake (like Kansas was scientifically proven to be), there's not much in the way of hills, not to mention mountains. Don't get me wrong, driving through miles and miles, and miles, and then more miles, of rolling corn and soy fields, with the sky open above you, can be very pretty. And some of the sunsets, especially when the thunderstorms are rolling, are amazing. I've also heard some of the river valleys (the Mississippi and the Missouri buffer the state) are beautiful [a friend in Portland once called Iowa City, on the eastern portion of the state in the Mississippi River valley, the 'Paris of the Midwest.' I can't wait to verify/debunk that claim.]

But in the end, I miss my friends St Helens, with its occasional outpouring of smoke and soot, and even occasionally Jefferson, Adams, Rainier, or the Sisters, depending on where you were in Oregon.

But mostly, I miss Mt Hood. That mountain just looks like a mountain . I would see it every day driving to and from work (or at least on days when it wasn't raining, which wasn't often, hahahahahahahaha). And sometimes at night, with the sun setting over the West Hills, Mt Hood turns purple or orange and sits there glowing on the horizon.