When our family made June-July travel plans to England, even though I was looking forward to seeing Shakespeare’s green and pleasant land in all its green and pleasant glory, I regretted that I would be missing several of the most beautiful weeks of summer in one of America’s most beautiful locations, the Pacific Northwest.

I need not have worried; England rewarded us with perfect weather and gave itself to us in full bloom.  I’ve never seen more flowers in my life, or hills more green and sensuously rolling.  I’ve never encountered more charm, better lamb chops, friendlier pub owners (with more contented, moderately tipsy patrons), frothier ale, or tastier strawberry tarts.  For an idyllic summer afternoon, you can’t beat a cold cider (the fermented kind, of course) imbibed on the deck of a barge sliding down the swan-studded waters of the River Avon.

Nevertheless.

There are pleasures to be found only at home, which in my case is a small, sweet town near the Columbia River.  Since you might have noticed that I’m fond of lists, I’ll list those pleasures for you, so as not to disappoint:

1.  The sun.  I realize there is also sun in England, but it is a different sort of sun, and somehow not quite as golden.  Or maybe it’s just that I kept looking at the sun through an empty pint glass.

2.  Stunningly clear views of snow-topped Mt. Hood against a vivid blue sky.  Every time I see its landscape-dominating summit rising in the distance, I gasp a little and wonder how it is that I’ve wandered onto the Lord of the Rings set. Mt. Hood is nothing less than a mystical, magical wonder of the world. You can also get excellent hot cocoa at Mt. Hood’s renowned  Timberline Lodge – but never mind; that’s a winter pleasure.

3.  I’ve already mentioned swimming in rivers and lakes, but I must mention it again. We go to Cottoonwood Beach nearly every day, where there’s plenty of sand, not too many people, and the great green rippling swath of the Columbia stretches from here to the ocean. Ospreys swoop overhead, speedboats hum past in the distance, and the cliffs of the Columbia Gorge fade into the background in overlapping layers of purple. Not a bad place to get a sunburn.

4.  Tillamook Ice Cream. Yes, made by the same people who make the cheese! (…that’s another fun time – if you’re ever in Tillamook, Oregon, check out the cheese factory, where you can witness thousands of orange cheese-bricks chugging down the conveyor belt and straight to your local grocery store.) For maximum results, eat it in a park with a view of Mt. Hood in the distance.

5.  Blueberry picking. I know, I know – I’m sure you can pick blueberries in England, too – but you can’t pick them at a farm perched on the cliffs above the Columbia River. (ENOUGH WITH THE RIVER, ALREADY, SPYKERGYRL!  WE GET IT!) Ahem. Anyhow, there are few things that give me more joy than standing in a field full of fat, ripe blueberries, plucking them off the tree, and hearing them go ker-plunkety-plunk into my bucket. My next favorite thing is eating them, still warm from the sunshine. My next-next favorite thing is making them into jam. (BRIGHT IDEA FOR THORN:  Maybe we could do a writing competition about blueberries, and the prize will be a jar of my homemade jam, mailed directly to the winner, anywhere in the country – or anywhere in the world!  Yes, it’s that good.  I’m not going to bother being humble about it.)

So.  That’s my Top 5.  What are yours?