Something I wanted to mention but forgot:

When it was raining at Longview, everyone I saw had umbrellas. I take this as a good sign, because it seems to me that any place where people even own umbrellas couldn't get much rain. In Oregon, Washington, and the parts of British Columbia I've visited, it rains all the time, but if you ever see someone with an umbrella, you know the person's from out of state/province.