Some cultural observations from rural Northeastern Oregon this past weekend: 1) There is a real venom in many parts of Oregon directed at Governor Kate Brown (and not just for her leadership during this current health crisis).
We drove past a roadside table in Enterprise collecting petitions for her removal from office, and the Motel/RV park owner that we stayed with almost immediately asked us to sign the petition when we checked in (I politely declined). He repeated words like "she's got to go" etc.
2) Similarly, lots of current president flags + signs (this is not unique at all to rural America). We did see a Biden sign on a house as well as a Ruth Bader Ginsburg poster in a cafe. It was a reminder that even most rural counties in the country vote ~25% of the time for Dems.
3) The mask situation at businesses: I am happy to report that 100% of the restaurants we visited on the trip were fully compliant, with 100% of visible staff wearing masks, both indoors and outdoors and great social distancing, and sanitizing touched surfaces.
Most of our meals were intentionally outdoors, and restaurants did a great job of creating a ton of space between tables. There was one breakfast indoors, where stuffed animals were seated at tables to create space and we were seated at least 15 feet away from anyone else.
4) The mask situation in public: we were definite rarities for adhering to masks on in public at almost all times. I would guess about 5-10% of people we saw had masks on.
Wallowa County is the 4th least populated in the state and has only had 8 cases of COVID-19 confirmed, which I am sure was part of the rationale. But I did see a few handshakes, high fives, hugs, etc, that were clearly not among households.
5) This hardly is a surprise, but my goodness, rural Oregon is incredibly White. The 2010 census had Wallowa County at over 95% White. There were definitely some markers and memorials alluding to Native presence in Joseph (named after Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce).
I saw one couple of color. That was about it. Super not representative of the country as a whole. #wallowawanderings #exploregon
