Sunday, April 29, 2012

Pacific Northwest Trip 2008 Day 11 Thursday July 30, 2008

UPDATED: February 4, 2022

This is the eleventh of a series of posts recalling my third annual trip to Seattle, though at this stage of the trip I was in Portland, not Seattle. I’ve made minor corrections to these reports. Also, I’ve added additional thoughts with the hindsight of five years later or to add further clarification; I use “NOW” to denote such cases.


In the morning I ate breakfast at a chain in this area called Burgerville, then walked downtown, got a daypass, and rode the MAX line to the streetcar.  Despite two drivers during the trip I got wrong info about if I was heading to my next destination correctly (I've definitely found that the metro drivers are a wealth of misinformation in Portland) but finally got a streetcar to my real destination, an aerial tram with a nice view of the city (it goes to and from a hospital). 
[All transportation this day TriMet Transit except the Streetcar, which is run by the Portland government]

Heading back downtown I got a graphic novel by Rob Zombie at the city's oldest bookstore, Cameron's, then took a MAX train to the Mississippi stop.  The place I wanted to go to, a comic shop was further than expected, but I made it there.  Colourful area (dressing, not people).  I asked at the comic shop about a library used book store called Title Wave and was told you won't always find what you're looking for but you'll always find something cool.  True enough: I found a book on comic book artist George Tuska, the first series of Chef, a British show about a cranky chef, and cheap bottles of Vanilla Coke.

[The comic shop was Bridge City Comics. Chef was one of the items that got stolen not long after. Title Wave is now closed but may reopen in the future in a new location].
 
Next it was a free vacuum museum inside a vacuum store.  Small but free, so no it didn't suck.  The next comic shop was closed, so after a bite at Wendy's and a stopover at Rite Aid for batteries, I did a quick visit of some book and comic shops on Sandy Blvd, then a movie place called Movie Madness where I bought DVDs and took photos of movie memorabilia. 
 
[NOW: The Vacuum Museum at Stark's Vacuums is now a lot smaller and does suck.]

I returned downtown and tried to get an all route bus book so I wouldn't be taking back smaller booklets, but they were all out.

Now I need to back up to shortly after I arrived in Portland.  A really scraggly looking guy suggested I take photos from the roof of a parking lot once the weather was better.  Actually not a bad idea; just shows you can't always judge by appearances.  I finally did that today and got some decent shows, highest being about 10 stories up.  I relaxed at whatever the faux International Fountain is called, visited the Pearl Harbor memorial, then took more photos of Mill Ends Park on my way here.

[NOW: The fountain above is Salmon Street Springs.]

Tomorrow is going to be a daunting day and I won't have time to send an e-mail until the following day.   I'm going to try to set foot in 10 places and if I don't set foot in at least 8, my trip has gone seriously south: Portland Olympia, Lacey (optional), Tumwater (optional), Shelton, Brinnon, Port Townsend (technically optional  but I'll be bored if I stay on the outskirts), Sequim, Port Angeles, Victoria,  So very long day ahead of me tomorrow.

[NOW: As my final blog report on this trip will demonstrate, things didn’t go at all as planned the next day]

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