Oregon is my home state and the "rolling hillsides" were my natural habitat. (The peaked, snowcapped mountains of Alaska have drawn me away)

Oregon is a land of extremes, politically speaking. The Oregon I love is innovative and imaginative, open and embracing, tolerant and farseeing. But there is also the repressive, intolerant, narrow and judgmental side.

A lot of how one feels depends on where one lives. Oregon has such diverse geography-from coast to fertile valley to mountains to high desert to plains - that just saying one is from the state doesn't say a whole lot.