I enjoy reading 360digest when I get a chance. Not only is my brother-in-law Dave a newly-minted real estate agent but the house next door was up for sale for a while recently. Real estate is one of those things that we all have to deal with, because we all need a place to live.

Anyway, I was amused to read that on the blog this quote:

In Portland, Ore., $300,000 means a clean and simple floating home on the Pacific ocean

Ummm, it would not be a clean and simple home. Because the Pacific Ocean is 90 miles away from Portland, which is on the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

100 years ago, Portland was a more significant city than Seattle because of those rivers. It was simply easier to float things up and down the rivers than to try to move them across land. With trucks and interstates and container ships, that's changed significantly.

Now it's important to have deep water and make it easy for big ships to navigate into docks as quickly as possible. So new Portland is "little sister" to Seattle. Which never lets us forget it.