Oregon comes to life twice each year – once during spring and once in the fall. Those are the two seasons I like the most, and yes, the rain is nice. Most of all because rain brings lushness – the beautiful green fur covering the back of our Northwestern state. In addition, the thick cumulus in the sky soften the light and bring out the dark pewter blues and subdued minty teals that lend a wild contrast to the fiery orange yellows of fall.

Droplets of fresh morning fog dance and swirl before your eyes like a billion tiny mosquitos that form pearl strings on the smallest hairs and give away spider webs in the rhododendron bushes. A low sun sets cedars on fire and paints the bellies of clouds with luminescent pinks and oranges during the afternoon. I, too, enhjoy the gentle, cool embrace of fall in Oregon.

It makes the world less boring.

I am so glad other people can admit to enjoying the rain. Other than from the folk who’ve posted here, I’ve only heard complaints about the impending winter. My love of the rain is what brought me to this region, so it is reassuring that at least some people who have lived here through a winter or several can still appreciate such beautiful weather.

I am in Seattle but the rain and cold just arrived here, too, last week. Never have I greeted their arrival (this time, after an unusually hot, dry summer) with such GLEE!! It SMELLS so fresh and clean—I step outside my house and it smells like a forest—the parks are returning to their proper green color, and I can wear jeans and sweaters again, and pile up the blankets on my bed and snuggle under them, only the tip of my nose feeling the cold. Delightful. “Oh, THIS is what it’s SUPPOSED to be like,” I think. If you don’t like it, honey, there’s always California!

Schmeeattle even has MUCH MORE rain than Portland.