This is the 7th in a series of posts covering my trip to the US Pacific Northwest in 2022, adapting emails originally sent to friends. I use NOW to refer to any updates since I did the trip.
More negatives than positives today, though certainly some positives.
I woke up at 4 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up around 4:50 and took some photos of the hostel. I forgot to close the cap on my water bottle and it spilled half the container into my backpack. Being a bit sleep-deprived (probably the most sleep I've gotten in a single night since the trip began has been 6 hours) | didn't think to check my passport until much later; see below. I've had bad luck lately with that bottle; the previous day I accidentally left it in the fridge.
[NOW: The above was at Northwest Portland Hostel.]
I grabbed breakfast from the nearby McDonald's (there are a lot of street people hanging out there/sleeping outside there and one threw things at my feet because I was taking photos, not of people) and walked downtown. I got a daypass from the Galeria/10th MAX Station and visited Mill Ends Park and Salmon Street Springs). At Pioneer Square West MAX Station I look a Red Line light rail (all Oregon only travel today TriMet) and took it to Gateway/99th Ave Station, where I transferred to a Green Line train. Normally the latter starts downtown but not for the first Sat trip of the day. I took it to Clackamas Town Center. I think the latter is between municipalities strictly speaking, though a case could of course be made for Clackamas.
Here is where using an older map book failed me. I didn't want to wait 25 minutes for a bus so I took a route involving two highways. However, likely due to highway construction since the book was made, I found myself way further east than expected, though the right amount of south. To make matters worse I realized too late that even if my book had been accurate, there was still a faster route I could have taken. I worked my way to the small city of Johnson City, probably not even 2 sq km. Because I have a friend with the surname Johnson and I don't know if she's reading these, I'll forego the obvious jokes.
[NOW: I passed through Clackamas and Oatfield en route.]
While there I visited Lake Leona at Mordock Park. It's a nice little area; I just wish I had taken the route that probably would have gotten me there maybe even an hour sooner. The next bus was half hourly or so and I didn't know when the next one was to arrive (many stops require an App instead of posted schedules). I decided to hike to Gladstone instead of busing it there, in part because I wanted to cross a bridge on foot. In between municipalities I visited a grocery store called Tombstone which looks like a western store from the outside, Sadly there was no effort to continue the theme inside. I knew the food etc would be modern, I just wanted western decorations.
[NOW: I walked through Oatfield again en route to Gladstone; that’s where Tombstone was.]
After hiking through Gladstone I crossed a bridge into Oregon City (this was the bridge I wanted to cross on foot again but next time I'll probably save time and bus it straight there). I got a large Coke with a bit of Orange Fanta at McDonald's. I briefly crossed another bridge to West Linn and back, seeing the not that impressive Willamette Falls, though I liked them many a little more this time; but they've bedn molded into an industrial complex. On the way back was the biggest highlight of the day. I saw a guy looking away from the falls and realized he was looking a hawk or osprey. It soon flew to a lower and closer branch so I got some incredible zoomed in shots of it.
[NOW: It was actually a peregrine falcon.]
At Oregon City Transit Center I accidentally let the 33 bus I wanted leave; the wrong one terminates at Clackamas Town Center and the right one at Clackamas Community Collage, so the similar names through me off. A 32 bus driver figured he could get me close to my destination (just half a block away it turned out) and I visited Laurie Paperbacks.
Being behind schedule, I wanted to get lunch out of the way and went to a McDonald's, but only drive through was open and I couldn't find a walk-up window. I took a 33 bus to McLoughlin and Park MAX Station, in Oak Grove I think. I took an Orange becoming yellow light rail to Delta/VanPort Station, where I took a 60 bus to Vancouver WA; this bus and all in Greater Vancouver C-TRAN. Due to construction my itinerary didn't have the right times and the bus I wanted wasn't going to be there for a while. A 32 bus (no connection with the TriMet bus of the same number I took earlier) showed up with Hazel Dell as a destination and I was going to that municipality so I got on. However, it went east at first before going north so I wound up at Vancouver Mall, since I had planned to got there after my immediate destination, I decided to reverse that bit on the itinerary, so getting off well before Hazel Dell. I checked the next bus of the one on my itinerary going reverse; about 18 minutes and hourly. I didn't think I'd make it. I bought an overpriced but tasty combo at Orange Julius (I went with strawberry Julius and bacon and cheese dog), saving the chips for later.
[NOW: The MAX Station was indeed in Oak Grove.]
i visited fye and then much to my surprise made it back to the bus stop on time. I took the 78.bus to Hazel Dell, accidentally getting off a stop early but not too bad. I visited Interstellar Overdrive (sci-fi themed bookstore) and then headed south. I didn't know if the next bus was a minute away or an hour (the App issue again) so I started running just in case. This bus I wanted, 31 did pass me when I was too far between stops. After running about 32 blocks, I managed to catch a 71 bus the rest of the way downtown.
I visited I Like Comics and got a couple of trades. I considered a third book, but it was a B&W collection that didn't translate well to B&W (New Gods; Jack Kirby at his most cosmic). I walked to Esther Short Park, but there was some sort of fair happening. Given security I probably couldn't get in for free. I wanted to get photos from the waterfront but most of it was hard to get to, though a guy did point out an area where I got some decent shots.
I then walked from Vancouver to Portland, crossing over the Columbia River. I was a bit nervous because it was a bit windy and the railings didn't go that high/ I found I could shoot to the right but only look forward. This walk took me to Hayden Island in about 15 minures. I should have taken a bus the rest of the way to a light rail station but I also wanted to cross to the mainland on foot.
I arrived at Expo Centre but much of it was fenced off and it's a big building, so it took about another 15 minutes after arriving at Expo Center to reach its MAX Station. I took the Yellow downtown, deciding to skip Milwaukie, being tired from all the walking/running. Switching memory cards I discovered that my colour image on my passport was now a lot more faded due to the water damage. After visiting Salmon Street Springs and Mill Ends Park, I checked with the hostel if they had scanned in the passport, hoping for a colour image that I could show to illustrate the water damage but they hadn't. I don't think |I'll get turned away because the smaller B&W image looks okay and US Customs has been taking photos, but it's certainly possible I'll get turned away somewhere (bus to Seattle, or returning home, less likely, the hostel because I was there recently) which worries me. I visited Floating World Comics. I asked the two people there if there were fast food places nearby. The woman kept pushing the food vans. My experience with them, at least in Portland is you could watch your infant children grow up and become parents in the time it takes for the servers to make the food.
[NOW: Floating World Comics has now moved.]
I had dinner at the same Taco Bell as yesterday. Slower and more disorganized this time. It doesn't help that the same guy handles in store and drive through orders at the same time. I did a bit more wandering before returning to the hostel and having the chips from my 2 pm lunch outside at Northwest Portland Hostel's outdoor Secret Garden area.
A general note about Portland: its tent city aspect is a bit more literal than in Victoria. You can see the tents all over, not just in the downtown core. I took some shots from light rails, not to shame anyone but because it would have been dishonest not to record that aspect of Portand, even if not to the degree I would record other things. it's very run down and you can see not just tents everywhere but people randomly sleeping. Some people talk about Victoria's homeless problem but we have it a lot better than Portland. Another indicator that the city's gotten run down is that some of the lesser MAX stations have closed. | don't know if it can be reversed, but at the moment it's an ailing city.
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