Criteria

Expressionism / Johannes Sveinsson Kjarval/ The sisters of Stapi

Trip to Walla Walla this coming week.  I need to spend a lot more time on the road this summer and this will be the maiden voyage of the summer of exploration.  I am thinking that I need to go back to maps on the walls as principal decorations.  I am thinking a big relief map of both Washington and Oregon and perhaps Idaho would be useful.  The map is not the territory.  But the map can give one clues concerning where to look for things you are wishing to find.  

One of the big issues in the sorta cowardly new world we are getting ready to enter is the availability of water.  Here in Portland, water is a bit of an afterthought.  The Willamette, Columbia, and the general sogginess of the area make water almost a problem to be solved.  As I move east, this surfeit vanishes pretty quickly.  I will need to find a sweet spot with: 

1. Adequate water, either medium sized rivers or non-abused aquifers

2. Decent, but not great roads.  I don’t think being too close to an interstate will be that great an idea.

3. Reasonable agricultural land, I do not think that the high-quality grain producing areas (e.g. the Paloose) would be a good idea, but a smallish specialty area might work.

4. Maybe a small college, while I think that the education system may well undergo a pretty significant compression.

5. A decent public library.

6. Radio station.

Walla Walla meets a lot of these criteria.  We’ll see.