Manufacturing near The Dalles

The map on the left shows that Portland is actually a center of manufacturing, as well as a major manufacturing region. The text nor the legend indicate what type of manufacturing activity there is. One other thing that the map tells us that its the ONLY area in the state of Oregon in which there is any manufacturing activity. This could be due to the goods it provides nearby: game from the port, the agricultural goods from The Dalles, et cetera.
Under-lapping the manufacturing activity also lies livestock and specialty crop, which explains the delicious cherries and peaches that I remember seeing in the fields. There seems to be wide activity of dairy productions throughout The Dalles, and next to The Dalles seems to continue on with livestock ranching. The dairy production with livestock activity is pretty self explanatory (livestock = cows, dairy production = milksheds).

 There is definitely a lot of "open space" surrounding Portland and The Dalles. The lack of population density has allowed for more room to produce (manufacturing, livestock, dairy and crop production). Their proximity to each other makes for convenience of transporting goods in that region of the Pacific Northwest.

This map also demonstrates more on manufacturing region activity. The pattern is evident: manufacturing activity tends to cluster within or around urban cities. North of Portland is Seattle with its manufacturing region, and north of Seattle is Vancouver. There seems to be a "linear" regional pattern in the Pacific Northwest. This could be in due to the "city port" activities that are attributed. Manufacturing is necessary for export of goods. If goods are available near the port, it is in its best interest to establish manufacturing in order to generate revenue and so forth. The Eastern US does seem to have a denser amount of manufacturing activity, and is probably more complex in terms of import/export, transportation, and goods itself. The PNW does not seem as complex, but definitely important. Having manufacturing activity near a town like The Dalles (as well as other PNW locations) is most definitely a win-win deal.

The Dalles - Four Seasons

Since we were on the subject of climate in the last entry, I thought we can take a break from the charts and graphs with this pretty well-put video that someone compiled of landscape images of The Dalles. Many of these images of The Dalles are as I remembered it: the train, the dam, the large conifer trees at the parks, there's even images of those cold snowy winters. Play some music on your iTunes and check it out!

Climate

Glad I was able to toy with simple .pdf edits! Here we go....
   Looks like The Dalles is dominated by cold needleleaf forrest & coastal forest. Although, just a glance to its left is semi-desert. It explains the fact that there's so many pine trees, its snowy winters that it shares with Washington's northwest.


Here's a chart of their annual averages courtesy of usclimatedata.com

  LOTS of precipitation during the winter. While my family in The Dalles does claim that it begins to rain plenty during the month of November, it increases during December and January. These past few years, strong snow blizzards and storms have occurred during the winter, a head-scratcher in terms of non-average weather occurrences and possible climate change.