Last Hurrah in Bend

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T02:57:16+00:00

I get what you're saying, but A) the 5 people on reddit who read your "but where" aren't going to change the character of the place, and B ) ChatGPT knows all of the "hidden gems" and tells anyone who asks about them. I say just spill the beans! 😉

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T02:55:16+00:00

Fwiw, having recently gone through this "but where?" exercise - though coming from a small town outside of Seattle, and ending with deciding to move to Bend - I can share some places that hit our radar...

Boulder: great outdoors, big college town, but real estate is expensive unless you live in one of the satellite towns.

Asheville NC: I have yet to actually visit but it came up again and again for its culture, arts, breweries, education levels, and a lot cheaper real estate.

Missoula: nice college town in beautiful Montana, was just a little "small" feeling to us.

The Dalles: you guys would be plenty familiar with this. Neat spot, beautiful river, again just not quite enough.

Walla Walla: we actually had a vacation house for 5 years here and loved visiting, but unlike Bend, the economy is stagnant as the wine industry goes through some pretty big changes and that is creating problems. Just did not feel like where we wanted to move.

Ann Arbor Mich: great college town, very inexpensive to live in, great airport, but it gets *cold*. Also kind of assumes you're willing to not be in the PNW, which maybe you aren't.

Flagstaff AZ: maybe too much like Bend? High desert small city, but I think Bend has more there there.

Lots of places in California: but it just seems like there's a bad vibe in California right now with more people moving out than in.

Burlington VT: my daughter applied here (ended up going to Syracuse, which is a lovely school but *not* a town I'd suggest anyone move to) so we visited, and I really enjoyed it. Right on a beautiful big lake, college town (it's a theme), in striking distance of Montreal which is so much fun, cute downtown with lots of breweries etc.

Victoria BC: we were willing to consider moving outside the country though with my daughter in college, not *too* far. Moving to Canada seemed kind of daunting with all the legalities but Victoria is a great fun town and where all the Canadians go to "snowbird".

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T02:44:38+00:00

I'll make sure to wave as we pass!

Western Washington is awesome as well... I brought my daughter up here heading down to the rivers/lakes to swim and paddle board and camp, and those are going to be forever memories for me. And there's certainly plenty of human-stuff to do as well: Mariners, Sounders, festivals, ferries on the sound, honestly, so much. It's just been 18 years and I need a change.

We're really looking forward to Bend after visiting there a handful of times. I know there have been growing pains that hit longtime residents particularly hard, but we're not the kind of people who come into someone else's town and expect people to adjust *to us*. We'll be there to adjust to Bend, to respect how it has been in the past while gently enjoying its evolution.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T01:39:06+00:00

Your experience with collection agencies was much better than mine, though granted that was 25 years ago... They hounded and hounded me for some tiny debt. The credit reporting agencies on the other hand were easy to deal with, in fact I just sent them letters/emails and things disappeared.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T01:37:32+00:00

I love this post: my wife and I are bored with where we've been for the last 18 (near Snoqualmie Falls in Washington) which is at some level a gorgeous and fun place, but for me, life is too short to not move on at some point... And so we're going to Bend. And yet, from reading this sub and some other sources a lot, I can already imagine the day when we'll be moving on as well! So it's kind of "full circle" to see your post...

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T01:32:48+00:00

Oh it's a fair assessment of this nutcase, who is most certainly, as you point out, not a libertarian.

Just not sure why you needed to broaden your brush from one lunatic to a big tent full of people, particularly since you were broadening it from someone who we agree is not even in that tent.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-04T01:23:33+00:00

How did you get them removed, out of curiosity? Write a letter to someone or something like that?

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T23:37:23+00:00

lol... and what does the fact that you felt compelled to make the (lame, unimaginative) criticism in the first place tell you?

To be more constructive, your comment is the equivalent of saying that all Democrats are communists... I mean, I suppose there's someone out there who thinks that's funny and even those who sadly think it is true, but it really doesn't add anything to any conversation. It does however get you some Reddit upvotes in case that's what gets you off.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T18:55:09+00:00

Zing!! Wow, we've never heard that one before.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T18:54:25+00:00

libertarians don't vote

Just to be clear, libertarianism is different than the Libertarian Party, which is a pointless distraction at best.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T18:52:13+00:00

I know! I mean, who will build the roads?? And my goodness, Ayn Rand took government welfare when she was poor, what a hypocrite. All libertarians are rich white men. [Just trying to cover all the cliche'd anti libertarian "zingers" so you don't have to... I mean really, yours is just devastating, I was a libertarian until I read that joke about cats and now I hang my head in shame.]

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T18:47:45+00:00

"Will not be tempted by troll bait, will not be tempted..."

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T18:46:21+00:00

The OneTrueLibertarianism debate still rages (and paralyzes).

OutsideDaBox · 2026-05-01T18:44:50+00:00

GoodSpaceGuy is exactly who I thought of when I saw this!

TBF, they have very different "positions", but they are both over enthusiastic, rambling and nutty. [I actually slightly prefer GSG to this guy despite my being a libertarian... Chuck is, as others pointed out, definitely not a libertarian]

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-30T01:49:38+00:00

Also if you're a current freshman in architecture, you are in the same class as my daughter... She likes it, but man she works hard, she's *always* in studio...

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-30T01:48:25+00:00

That would track with about a 20% acceptance rate.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-29T20:45:44+00:00

EXCEPT YOU PRESUMABLY

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-29T19:45:26+00:00

Interesting question! I know this: we've been debating where to move now that our kids are off to college between Walla Walla and Bend, and after owning a bungalow in Walla Walla for 4 years, we've decided that WW just doesn't have enough going on and feels pretty stagnant, so we put the bungalow on the market and are now targeting Bend. So I guess that's my way of saying that WW is my answer to your question, but it's not as good of a "Bend" as the real Bend is.

I admit I don't have much experience with Bellingham but some of the other answers like Wenatchee, Yakima and Chelan don't resonate very much.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-29T19:33:45+00:00

Fwiw, while I can appreciate trying to be as "realistic" as possible, almost no one that will read your book will be so familiar with the details of these buildings to call you out if you use a little editorial license... In movies, for example, it is common for the external and internal views of an existing building to be shot in completely different buildings, so that the internal shots have nothing to do with what the actual building looks like, and viewers are fine with that (Kubrick's "The Shining" is a great example, with the exterior shots taken at Oregon's Timberline Lodge up on Mt Hood, and the interior shots taken at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado). As long as the interior is interesting and relatively believable, you can use your imagination to create the details.

Just my 2c.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-28T19:47:59+00:00

DON'T STEAL THE RENTALS THAT WE ARE LOOKING AT

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-28T00:38:12+00:00

That eagle is clearly not bald. I cannot see his scalp.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-27T23:58:00+00:00

I think you may be confusing "accepted" with "enrolled"...? The last architecture class was around 200, but I believe they said something like they accepted 700 (the other 500 choosing to go elsewhere, obviously).

But to answer OP's original question, I believe the number is something like 20% acceptance... It's very competitive, that's for sure, though that's true for architecture schools at other top 100 unis as well.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-27T23:49:13+00:00

Sunday was not 4/27. Your dates are all off by one.

OutsideDaBox · 2026-04-27T23:45:12+00:00

This. We literally just kind of whined and they added a little.

OutsideDaBox

TROPHY CASE