My first visit to Salem occurred on November 12, 2008, on a red-letter day for Oregon weather — wet and slick and dark and miserable. And yet, we kinda liked Salem. We sure liked the people that my husband interviewed with here better than the options in Eugene and Portland, if you can believe it.
I liked that there was a downtown with department stores — what a throwback!
I liked the little candy-colored cottages that led up to said downtown.
And being a complete nerd who veers off the road when she sees brown highway signs, I really, really wanted to find the travel office.
Not a single person I asked knew where it was. I had seen some signs around town, these faded green and blue things on the side of the road that sent you heading towards Stayton — as if to suggest, if you are a traveler in Salem, you must be heading out of town.
We finally found the center, at the time it was located in a corner of the Mission Mill Museum. It was staffed by a dear little old lady who didn’t really know how to cater to the likes of us (no offense to dear little old lady volunteers, I’m going to be one someday).
Well, much has changed since that first visit. Travel Salem is kickin’ it downtown and is running, Usain Bolt-like into the new millennium with a concentrated marketing effort that includes a pretty steady Twitter presence. And while I can’t say I really understand the slogan “Absolutely Oregon,” and the “Culture Seeker” option on its website currently leads to a dead page, and the “Sunday Brunch” page only lists one restaurant, I think that Salem is indeed becoming a destination people might want to punch into their GPS. Travel Salem does seem to be playing a part in that.
Still, the entries on Salem in travel books floor me, hence this month’s column in Salem Monthly on Salem’s travel mojo.
I didn’t really intend it like a call-to-arms, which the title suggests, just a way to get people thinking about image and place and change and travel.
Read the column, and do let me know what your first Salem sentence is — what’s the first thing you say when people ask you about the place you live?
