I live in a fairly large city (a few million people) so we don't consider Portland, Oregon too far out in the boonies, but this story on Yahoo tells of a tragic boating accident off the Oregon coast. But the byline is for Palo Alto, California and, although the accident happened near Tillamook Oregon (think cheese ), the article reports it as "near" Portland and then even has a picture of Oregon in relation to Washington state so readers can know this little piece of geography.
I guess Oregon is the boonies.