Todd, weather, or actually unpleasant weather, is one of the things that always made me want to be somewhere other than the greater Portland, Oregon metro area. It's too dark and dreary and gray for me with so many towering evergreens, frequent low coulds, and the all too frequent wet weather. We moved to Portland from Ogden Utah when I was 10 so I have spent most of 59 years living in Oregon, and since September of '08 I have much more enjoyed Eastern Oregon's Arlington and now three years in Vale.

Comparing Eastern Oregon's Vale to the Western Oregon city of Beaverton average climate conditions shows why:

Elevation here is 2254 ft. and there is 246 ft.
Annual Rain is 10.7" to 40.4".
Annual Snow is 9.6" to 1.8".
Sunny days here are 209 to 141 there (and those additional 68 sunny days here sure is nice )I
Precipitation Days per Year are 35.8 here to 98.2 there

Then there are the typical park and school grassy areas to deal with. When I travel back 'home' and hunt parks, schools and other public areas, I note that most of them are well watered or for whatever reason have decent lawns to easily probe with a rounded-off screwdriver to make coin and other small-target recoveries. The same is true in most of the similar public places I hunt here in Vale or most of the other Eastern Oregon towns.

But there in the OWZ chunk of this state (the Oregon Wet Zone), where the big Willamette River merges with the mighty Columbia River and there is so much annual rain, I have always been amazed at the number or parks and schools that are never watered. This season, as you mentioned, the grassy areas are much easier to make target recoveries, but so common in the summer season the lawns are not maintained (watered) and often get a bit drier and much harder to deal with for target recoveries.

Then we address the amount of coins we might find. You live in a much more populated area than I do now, but places I have hunted often over the past fifty+ years, and you reported finding 3 Quarters, 4 Nickels and 2 Dimes. No Pennies? All that from a ball field in 1½ hour time. The saddening part of it all is that sports fields, grassy parks, picnic areas, and even tot-lots and larger playgrounds are so very seldom used these days, and we've witnesses the decline in use and activity over the past twenty-five+ years. Little activity results in minimal coin and jewelry loss for us to find.

I guess the bright note, if there is one, comes from having some decent detectors these days that weigh less and are better balanced than many of those older units we used to use, combined with the fact that those of us with enough experience going back long enough know that there are still coins out there to be found. Perhaps in fewer numbers and not as many older dated as we once enjoyed, but the potential is still there ... and the main thing is we can enjoy the 'fun' of getting out and giving it a try.

With a good TID model and a proven non-display Tesoro in the mix, you're still set to get out and find your share. Best of success to you as fall blends into winter and target recoveries get easier for you to make.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product Reviews monte@ahrps.org ... or ... monte@stinkwaterwells.com 503-481-8147Nokta-Makro:(3), Teknetics:(1), Tesoro:(4), White's:(1), XP:(1)Killer B's 'Hornet' and White's 'Pro Star'Note: Detectors are listed alphabetically by Brand. Models are chosen based on search site conditions.*** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***