fautrever.com

What can we say it’s summer time in Corvallis; rivers are flowing, trees are bright green, blackberries are everywhere, people are friendly, and there are bike paths all over town. We think Corvallis lives up to its claim of “The Pacific Northwest’s most beautiful college town.” But as good friend Brendan likes to remind us, that’s the summer. The rest of the year isn’t always so wonderful and he should know he attended grad school here at OSU.

The city of 53,000 plays up its natural heritage with paths, trails and parks along its rivers and through the woods. Corvallis began as Marysville in 1846 at the confluence of two rivers, the Willamette and the Marys. By 1851 the fertile valley town was chosen as the seat of Benton County and even though it no longer retains that honor the old courthouse is still standing and administering law.

In 1853, because of confusion with the larger Marysville in California, the city was renamed Corvallis (a Latin corruption meaning heart of the valley). The city saw the importance of the Applegate Trail come and go, the gold rush come and go, the county seat also came and went but the mainstay has been Oregon State University . Established in 1858 as Corvallis College the University is one of only two universities in the nation to hold land, sea, space and sun grants (the other being Cornell University).

Corvallis is also home to one of Hewlett Packard’s largest facilities but OSU clearly has the most influence on the town. With a student body 19,000 strong the OSU mascot, the Beaver, is proudly displayed everywhere, on cars, in stores, etc. The University also provides Corvallis with some interesting statistics:

• Corvallis is fourth in the nation for the number of patents issued
• Corvallis has the highest education rate per capita of any city in Oregon
• Benton County, of which Corvallis makes up the majority of the population, has the lowest church attendance per capita of any county in the nation (25% attendance)

Our beautiful days were spent riding our bikes along the many miles of bike paths, walking along the Riverfront Commemorative Park, playing frisbee, and picking the ever present blackberries. Of course, Lance still had to squeeze in some work every day. On one of his super busy days I rode out west through campus, to the Irish Bend Bridge. Built in 1954 the covered bridge was slated for destruction but the community rallied around the bridge raising money to relocate and refurbish it. The grand bridge is now open to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only.

I don’t think things just randomly happen, I may not be able to see all the connections at first but it seems like later I always discover them. Our meeting up with Brian and Carrie in Corvallis was one of those rare occasions when all the connections made sense right away.

And here’s how it all connects: Our good friends in Tucson, Aaron and Jenny used to live in the Cincinnati, Ohio area where they met Brian and Carrie at a rock climbing gym. Later Aaron and Jenny moved to Tucson and Aaron started working at Summit Hut with Lance. Lance and Aaron have many of the same computer and outdoor related interests and Aaron suggested that Lance should attend SXSW Interactive, a conference for web entrepreneurs. Lance and Aaron attended the past two SXSW conferences where Aaron introduced Lance to Brian, his friend from Ohio. Brian and Lance hit it off and Brian said if you’re ever up in Oregon give me a call.

So, Lance called and Brian and Carrie invited us over to their place for dinner. I was nervous at first, I’d never met either one of them and Lance only knew Brian but with minutes of parking our bicycles in their front yard we felt completely at ease. They made us a fantastic dinner of the Pacific Northwest’s best salmon. I’ve never liked the stuff but this salmon was fantastic, the only time I’ve ever cleared my plate of it! We would’ve talked all night but it was a week night and we all had to work in the morning, so we tore ourselves away, agreeing to meet up on Friday.

Friday night Brian and Carrie showed us a great little place called Squirrels (talk about connections, on the wall in Squirrels was a picture of another good friend, Dave, who also was once a grad student at OSU) where we shared a pitcher of some of Oregon’s finest micro-brew. Hungry, we wandered over to the Big River Restaurant near the Willamette River for dinner. Talk about kindred spirits, after a while we stopped being amazed by all things we had in common, almost took it for granted! Since we were leaving the next day we had to say goodbye and it was actually hard to say.

Saturday morning we rode over to the Farmers Market, picking up some comestibles for our picnic lunch later. Then we left Corvallis and headed toward the coast. On Carrie and Brian’s recommendation we stopped off at Tyee Winery and sampled some of the wines Oregon is famous for, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Delicious wine in a beautiful setting. Though we were tempted to stay and imbibe, the coast was calling.

Photos: See our Corvallis album in our photos section.

Dates: We stayed in Corvallis from 08/22/06 to 08/26/06.

Notes: Lance played 18 holes at the Willamette Park disc golf course. The course was challenging but set in a beautiful location with lots of grass and trees.