Eugene - Pictures and Thoughts (Medford, Springfield: crimes, neighborhood, buying)

[JohnnyDrako]

Keystone Cafe on 5th Street is my favorite for hearty and healthy breakfast.

[ima]

Nice pictures. The winding road looks like the one that leads to the Fox Hollow area. Is the Market of Choice you mentioned the one on Franklin Blvd near campus or the one out near N. Eugene High School?

[sarahmhall74]

I am a 97 UO grad. I remember the Glenwood...wishing for a bowl of tomato cheese soup...it was the best-they always had dirty silverware though! Is Cafe Xenon still there?-I will never forget the linguisa pasta I always ordered.

Ice block sledding at midnight at the golf course near hendricks park was fun.

My mom attended UO in the early 60's.She would park her car along 18th street unlocked with her keys inside-never had a problem. I parked my car in the student dorm parking lot and got broken in twice. Had credit cards( what was I thinking keeping those the glovebox?) and stereo stolen.

I live back in Cali now. It's a nice place to visit but don't know if I could live there again.

[JohnnyDrako]

Market of Choice is at 29th Avenue & Willamette. I haven't been in Eugene in four years, so hopefully it's still there!

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by sberdrow

Quite agree. I lived there for years. First time I saw chicks with arm pit hair, and proud of it. Still, Always felt like I was visiting another country. But disagree a little bit with ya. Nothing can prepare you for Eugene. It has fantastic bike trails, one of the most beautiful College campus in the country. They Love Football Ducks like you boys in the south. Its close to the Ocean. The Girls are hot (except for the ones with arm pit hair). Im a liberal, so I fit in.

Heh. I'm an OSU alum. We have a mostly good natured rivalry going with U of O. The famous lyrics to Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever", AKA "Be Kind to Your Web Footed Friends" were composed at OSU.

"Be kind to your web-footed friends
For a duck may be somebody's mother
Be kind to your friends in the swamp
Where the weather is very, very damp [pronounced to rhyme with "swamp"]
Now, you may think that this is the end...
WELL, IT IS! "

Here's another one:

Q. How do you tell the bride from the groom at a Eugene wedding?

A. The bride is the one with the braided armpits.

[ellelasvegas]

How is eugene for an interracial couple? are people pretty racist up there as it is mostly white?

[haggardhouseelf]

Eugene itself seems to be a very tolerant town. We experienced racial tension in Texas and the Seattle area, but have never experienced anything negative with regards to race in Eugene.

Supposedly there are skinhead groups around... I've heard that they are mostly in the rural areas as well as in Southern Oregon. I see kids in downtown Eugene that dress like skinheads but who knows how serious they are? Downtown Eugene has been having problems with the homeless, misguided youth, and druggies. In our experience, though, Eugene has always been a very tolerant and compassionate town which seems to pride itself on it's acceptance of all types of people. I see a lot of diversity-themed bumper stickers. There's also a lot of Obama stickers!

[haggardhouseelf]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Here's another one:

Q. How do you tell the bride from the groom at a Eugene wedding?

A. The bride is the one with the braided armpits.

Funny! lol I'm sending this to my husband. He is so grossed out by the large number of women here who don't shave! I constantly have to reassure him that personal hygiene habits are not contagious... and even if they are, I'm naturally immune to this one!

[haggardhouseelf]

Originally Posted by MaryVic

Anyone care to comment on quality of life, jobs and healthcare in these areas? Also, what about "collective mindset" as far as both wisely, and pragmatically considering evironment and development in order to sustain the communities in question in the future?

Portland will be more expensive all around, but will also of course offer more as far as jobs, housing options, lifestyle, running amuck fun, etc being that it's a much larger town. Eugene... well Eugene is my chosen home. I love it here. I could have lived and settled down several other places as my husband has moved us around quite a bit for his job... we could have stayed anywhere... but Eugene is home. We lived here, then left, and knew we had made a huge mistake in leaving... so it took a year but we came back. We plan to stay put. Eugene is wonderful... and if you and your husband are planning to set up a book shop - this would be a perfect place for it. We have a few book shops, one Border's and one Barnes and Noble... but i think for the number of avid readers, author's, and book lover's in this town - the ratio is currently unfairly unbalanced. We could totally use another locally-owned small book shop with soul and character. There are only about 4 or 5 currently that I know of. Tsunami Books probably being everyone's favorite with Smith Family Bookstores being a close second and third... Portland, however, has a ton of book shops, some of them quite famous!

Corvallis, too, might be worth considering... it's about 45 min. north of Eugene and there's OSU there as well... so it's still a college town. Not sure what the book shop situation is like there though.

[Lorr97]

My family and I are traveling down from Medford on the 26th heading toward Eugene. We're staying in Eugene on November 26th. 27th (Thanksgiving Day) and leaving on the 28th. Can anybody suggest any sites a family should check out on our way up to Eugene and in the city and a great restaurant for a Thanksgiving Dinner. On the 28th we'll be heading back to Medford by evening. We're flying back on the 29th. Any suggestions for Medford/Ashland since we'll be there on the evening of the 24th, all day 25th, and part of the 28th and 29th ( we fly back home).