Seriously i live in Vancouver and work in Portland. I have yet to see a problem other than on TV. I don't really go downtown at night and i do most of my business during the daylight hours. This whole "It's a bad time to go to Portland" is way over blown. There were some large peaceful protests a week ago during the day. There are still a few small gatherings during the day now. As far as at night Portland has not seen real problems most of this week per the evening news.
I don't think in terms of just protests, I think in terms of pandemic risk in Oregon...it's the highest risk population that just had massive crowd exposure...April Oregon had 100 total cases....June 7 they had 147 in a day...the virus isn't visible..I wouldn't go to Portland for any reason right now myself but I don't have to so it's easy...from Lane County south it's safer
Roseburg has a major VA hospital and some of the best fishing in the world. The hospital has a mental wing which my brother was confined to on two occasions. Not the best mental care. It's also the home town of probably the brightest graduate who graduated in my Electrical and Computer engineering class at OSU.
Shame on you for not visiting there. One bit of warning, if you are like me and have a fear of heights, you might not want to take the road the goes all around the rim. The drop offs are frightening should your car even slightly veers too far to that side of the road. I've been around it once and was white knuckled the whole trip, The lodge is very nice. We stayed at our niece's vacation home in Sun River and took a day jaunt down there. Crater Lake is fabulous to look at at. If you plan on going, take a few peanuts for all the very friendly squirrels. I think I've been there three times if you want to count the one night trip where we drove by on our way back to Portland from S.F.
My parents never took us camping as a kid. They weren't outdoors type people. No road trips ever. We would go to the beach for the weekend, but that was the extent. They were both coaches. Before I went into the Army, the farthest east I'd been was Boise once......farthest north Vancouver BC and my family lived in LA, so that was the extent of our travels. I can bet I've FLOWN over Crater Lake more than anybody here though, HA! I've never been to a Walmart either if that means anything.
If you ever make the effort to visit Crater Lake, tack on extra time and visit the Oregon Caves also. Very, very worthwhile.
I drive my wife downtown to work every morning and pick her up in the evening. On Broadway. The most I've seen is peaceniks with signs about war and a handful of peaceful protesters in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Sure, at night it might get crazy, but I personally know a dozen people that have marched in the marches without incident. It's almost the opposite of the perception: downtown is a ghost town.
