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Salem and Portland are similar in that the metropolitan city has a west-side county that's still greatly rural that the main coastal route runs through but that's about it, really.Polk County is no Washington County. It's more like Yamhill County but it doesn't take itself as seriously as Yamhill sometimes does. And there's certainly no sprawling western suburbs, no Silicon Farmland.
Here's one of the farms we saw off OR 22 that day:
And here is the collection of buildings ... including no less than three grain elevators ... near Rickreall:
Hwy 22 is increasingly becoming a freeway as you pass through the farmland east of Salem but we don't sprawl here in Oregon. Development has not shot rhizomic tendrils out into that area, and it still produces the crops. And the fields all but abut the western city limits of Salem, which is a city of nearly 170,000 (the second ... or third ... no, second ... check back later ... city in the state).
It's timeless and sweet, not everyone's can of beer but for those who love the country, you don't have to go very far out of town to find it, here in the Willamette Valley.
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