"However, the Willamette Valley is so wonderful that if the only way a visitor can swing it is to stay in Portland and "commute", so be it--it should not be missed!"

This may come as a bit of a shock to some people who live in Portland - but the Williamette Valley extends well over 100 miles south of Portland - to down past Eugene:

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Valley

Tomsd, you're right, of course. As first-time visitors to the area last year, we stayed in the northern parts of the valley; when we return this fall (fingers crossed), we may expand our horizons.

Newbe - hope yo do. Oregon has a lot of beauitful things to see/experience.

NewbE--I thought of something. What route did you take? You mentioned 99, but how far up did you take it?

Ptsk--Thank you so much for initiating this post - I'm collecting a lot of great ideas for an Oregon trip we are planning to the area in early September. Please do post your trip summary! When in July will you be traveling?

I wanted to make sure I came back and made some comments after the trip. We went for 5 days at the end of July.

First, I should note that almost all of my research was done here going through the various discussions about Oregon. My wife did some extra research on hotels and I ran a couple of google searches on restaurants. However, the information we received here was very good. You really can plan a nice trip with this website alone. Someone at Fodor's should feel free to contact me for my promotional fee.

We got in on a Tuesday and drove west to the coast. The coast was very nice and we stopped at several places along the way to see some nice views and take some pictures. If you haven't seen the Oregon coastline, I recommend doing this. We stayed in Portland that night at the Hotel DeLuxe. The rooms are small but I didn't care. It was nice and in a good location. The next day we went to Multnomah Falls. We enjoyed that a lot- a great combination of good exercise with the hiking, great views and nice waterfalls. We'd definitely do this again if/when we go back.

The next three days were spent in the wine country. This is where my wife likes to be. It was a lot of fun. We went to a lot of wineries and had good experiences at just about all of them. I won't rehash where we went because we got out recommendations from other discussions on this site. I will say that the Oregon wine country is very nice like Napa but not nearly as crowded. The people were generally nicer as well. We bought 12 bottles, bought a box to put all 12 of them in at one of the wineries and checked it on the plane. It was easy.

The highlights:

The weather couldn't have been better, especially coming from Florida where the weather couldn't be any worse for 4 months out of the year. It was hard to believe I was spending the day in high 70 weather with very little humidity.

The wine country really was nice and a better experience than places we've been in California.

The Multnomah Falls was a great experience because we both like hiking and natural attractions and this had both. We liked the Rose Garden as well.

As for restaurants, my favorites was probably Tasty N Sons. We went there for breakfast on Thursday. Great menu. For dinner, Paley's Place was very good. The Joel Palmer House in the wine country was outstanding. On our last night in Portland, we went to The Screen Door. I've lived in the South most of my life; that's the best southern food I can remember having.

The only thing we did that was a waste of time in my opinion was the cheese factory at Tillamook (I think). They weren't making any cheese there so maybe that's the attraction but I don't see the attraction regardless.

Overall, it was a very good trip and everyone here was very helpful with their ideas. I'd love to move to the Northwest and maybe I will some day. Until then, we hope to go back within a year or two.

If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to ask. Thanks.

Sorry that they were not actively making cheese when you stopped at the cheese factory. I bought some Tillamook cheese this morning at the grocery store.
Did you at least sample some of the wares?
I like the curds there which I can rarely get from my store.

I didn't word that well. The cheese factory wasn't a waste of time. We were driving down the coast anyway and it was on the way. We also bought some salt water taffy for the kids which they liked. We didn't eat any cheese though.