I live in Portland but spend most weekends at my gf's house in the country, near Chehalem, about a 15 minute drive from where the airplane is. It's a weird mix out there, because it's also wine country, so you have a lot of very wealthy landowners - some of whom aren't quite "locals" and are more socially liberal. The locals can really get into your business, though. Among other things, in our situation, some of the neighbors don't believe in Covid and during the lockdowns they went out of their way to have parties, and show up and try to spook us by getting close up in our faces. Ironically, once they found out we were vaccinated they stopped showing up, because they think the vaxed can spread proteins that will sterilize them.

I've seen and heard them practicing with paint ball guns in the woods on nights prior to when Trump caravans rolled into Portland and shot BLM protesters with ball bearings.

During the fires last summer, when it went out that the Bureau of Land Management was starting back-fires, they misinterpreted "BLM" to mean "Black Lives Matter", and set up illegal armed checkpoints on the roads, stopping cars at gunpoint to "check for antifa". Law enforcement did nothing about it.

The Newberg school district is currently in hot water for banning all "political clothing" - defined as LGBTQ colors and BLM shirts, but, of course, not MAGA or Jesus stuff.

At a bar there recently, someone told me that California had just legalized child abuse.

A woman I know says the best sushi in Newberg is from the Fred Myer. Her son won't drink bottled water because it's heavier than normal water and designed to make you thirsty.

I tried going to an accountant out there and when I walked into her office for the first meeting, she was wearing a large gold swastika necklace. I don't know if she knew I was Jewish or she just wears that all the time.

That being said, there are all kinds of people out there - horse trainers, winemakers and others in the industry, five-star chefs, doctors, weirdo hippies, and the wealthy landed class, who are just like anyone you'd meet in Portland. There was even an unheard-of, pretty well-attended LGBTQ rally in downtown Newberg a couple months ago. Of the lower class there are only about 1/3rd I'd say who are actively hostile, as opposed to just curious. It's manageable as long as you never get into conversations about politics and treat everyone with respect. The only black person I know of who lives out there says he prefers it because he knows where he stands (as a curiosity) and he has no trouble with anyone. That's pretty much the attitude you have to adopt.