Greetings from Oregon...things look a wee bit different here

Yesterday dawned clear and crisp, a relatively rare occurence 'round these parts. Not the crisp part, but "clear" is not necessarily and adjective you'll find in use to describe the Willamette Valley during winter. Before, I get too far along, I do want to clear up one misconception. While I was back in Texas, I heard the "yeah, but it rains all the time there" refrain more times than I care to remember. The reality is that it really doesn't rain all that much here in Portland...if you're talking in terms of inches of annual rainfall. In fact, Houston gets far more rain on an annual basis than Portland. What we DO have here, though, are extended periods of time that could only fairly be described as grey...and drizzly...and dreary.