My entire life, I've always been a City Girl. The smallest town I've ever lived in was Midland, Texas, which had a population of 95,000 in the year 2000. Hood River, Oregon, currently has a population of 7,476 and sometimes feels like an alien planet with its isolation.
Living in this small town has taught me many lessons: to be grateful for the amenities that cities provide, to revel in the power of nature, to have a greater level of empathy for people with different needs and ability levels, and to check my privilege.
Through living with Ben and assisting him with his injury, I have become aware of how having an able body is a privilege that not everyone is granted. And how, living in the isolated countryside, an injury is can be completely debilitating and life-ending without assistance. Cities provide that assistance. For example, the city of Portland has multiple programs that offer free short-term wheelchair rentals to people who are in need. The city of Portland has sidewalks and public transit that are made to accommodate differently able people. The city of Portland also has a fleet of accredited taxis and Lyft drivers that can get you around town in a punctual and safe manner.
Ben cannot walk down our street because it is unstable mud. Ben could not walk up the stairs to our house without assistance for two months. Ben can not exercise Ollie because there is no fenced dog park in the city of Hood River and the only commonly-accepted offleash area is the sandy beach along the Columbia River and that is not handicapped-accessible. There are no buses in Hood River, and Ben cannot drive his car because he needs two working legs to drive a standard transmission vehicle. The fire department can help carry Ben from the driveway, up the stairs, and to the front door, but they cannot drive him to work. There are no car rental services in Hood River, no Lyft, and only one taxi driver who according to google reviews, is an unreliable and dangerous driver who will be, at best, 20 minutes late to pick up up.
Ben also does not have access to the best medical care in Hood River. Several times a month, he has to take unpaid days off of work so that I can drive him into Portland to speak with orthopedic surgeons who have actually preformed ACL reconstruction surgeries in the past year. There are no public gyms in Hood River that have the exercise equipment Ben needs to use to do his PT, so the only place he can rehab is leg is the PT center which is not open outside of work hours. Ben must decide between taking unpaid leave and doing his PT or not doing his PT. In Portland, there are multiple public gyms that have the equipment Ben needs to use and they are open outside of work hours so Ben can do his PT AND get paid.
Additionally, on the subject of gyms and working out, Hood River has taught me that climbing is truly a sport for the privileged city folks. We have no climbing gym in Hood River, and far too much rain and snow to make climbing outside viable. Therefore, if you want to be a climber and live in Hood River, your options are as follows: obtain an expensive gym membership at a crossfit gym and have access to a shitty bouldering wall with inadequate and unsafe pads, build a home bouldering wall (that will require you to be able to afford the space, tools, and materials for the project), or drive seventy five minutes each way into Portland to climb at one of the many gyms in the city. When I lived in Portland, I would climb 2-4 times a week, now in Hood River, I climb 1-2 times a month and my climbing has suffered.
While one could write off climbing as an activity for rich city kids, access to weights and cardio machines is a basic requirement for physical fitness. In Hood River, access to even a basic gym is an expensive privilege. While in Portland, I could pay 35 dollars a month to go to a local community center that provides weights, yoga classes, and cardio machines, I must agree to a six month commitment of 75 dollars a month for a stinky center with cramped facilities and broken equipment, or pay 59 dollars a month for access to a nice crossfit gym (classes will be extra and they don't offer yoga) and an additional 20 dollars per yoga class at one of the two downtown yoga boutiques. So, if I wanted to lift weights three times a week and go to yoga twice a week, my monthly expense would be 219 dollars a month or 75 dollars a month for access to facilities that will probably give me Hep C. It's easy to see how obesity has become so common in rural America- health isn't cheap out here!
In Portland, our most expensive gym, Planet Granite, costs 77 dollars a month and has access to a huge weight area, unlimited yoga and fitness classes, a giant bouldering area, ~100 roped climbing routes, a sauna, and access to trainers and coaches if you feel like paying extra. I laugh now when I think about how expensive I thought Planet Granite was...
One advantage Hood River does have, is that it is close to Mt Hood and skiing. This was the first year that I have skiied and so far, I've logged 25 days on snow this season. I am grateful to live so close to the mountain and not be trapped in the Portland traffic which can make the drive upwards of two hours sometimes. Access to the mountain is one of the best things Hood River has had to offer. Ben and I had both wanted to support the local ski shop in town, but after they told Ben he'd be fine in skis longer than he requested with higher DIN settings than he requested (spoiler alert: he tore his ACL on those skis when the binding didn't release) and they ruined my new skis when I took them in to have bindings mounted, I really can't recommend them in good consciousness to anyone. Go to EVO or REI in Portland, don't risk yourself or sanity in Hood River.
But the skiing and the windsurfing is how Hood River pulls in the tourists. The city population doubles and triples in the summer when the crowds come in. The tourists drive up the costs for goods and services, for real estate, and serve to further alienate the local population. If you live in Hood River and don't work for Insitu or a couple other businesses, you're a poor service industry worker. So that 500 ski pass or 59 dollar gym membership are going to be really tough to justify after you pay for health insurance and face rent costs that rival Portland's. Because the town is so full of tourists, it's difficult to meet locals and make friends. Many people are seasonal employees who chase with wind or snow. I have been lucky to meet some of the girlfriends of Ben's coworkers and they are nice people who I have become friends with and am thankful for, but at 28, I'm too young to be a kept woman and am hungry for the work opportunities that exist in Portland.
Why pay more for shitty services to live in a town that's just as, if not more expensive that Portland?
Why remove yourself from access to social services and community centers?
The answer to that is, because it's so beautiful here. Look at the mountains, the river, and the flowering orchards that stretch on for miles. Oh, those orchards? Yeah, they used to belong to a mostly Japanese population until they were stolen by the government when we let xenophobia have precedence over sanity and interned our own citizens because their skin was a color other than white during WWII. Also, those orchards rely on workers who may or may not be citizens of this country and face deportation under the Trump regime. And before all of that, this land hosted a thriving population of Native American peoples but the white folks had no problem kicking them out and damning over Celilo Falls.
I do not think I have ever seen a black person in Hood River. Ben has one Asian-american coworker who came here from Seattle. Hood River does have a Hispanic population of note, yet you rarely see people of color outside of Walmart or Safeway. I wonder if that is because those populations congregate more around Church life and have little interest in windsurfing and skiing, or if it is because they feel unwelcome and uninvited to these expensive outdoor sports.
On the subject of Walmart, I have met many people in Portland, and include myself in this group who "would never shop at Walmart" people who "can't understand why someone would willingly go there". I can now understand how someone can shop at Walmart, because it's the only place in a sixty mile radius that sells extra wide Ace Bandages and good ice packs, because in Hood River, you don't have the luxury of choice on the matter. In the tiniest way, trips to Walmart have made me most aware of the rift between city and rural life.
I don't know how to fix Hood River on its own, or how to bring diversity back to the town. I do think we can prevent future Hood Rivers from happening by Never Again interning populations of American citizens and shipping them away from their homes because of the color of their skin and wht country their family was from. I think that if our country focuses more on installing sidewalks and public services in towns like Hood River that quality of life would improve. I think Hood River and similar towns would improve if they had local community centers with access to cheap fitness, and there was incentive for good doctors to practice in the country.
I think that there are many beautiful aspects to Hood River and I am grateful to be able to took at two gorgeous volcanoes everyday, but it is foolish to assume that the picture-perfect apple blossoms reflect a perfect reality out here.
