Day 14: Portland

The next morning, as the rain abated, Molly and I went for a run back up the hill we walked the previous night.  And what a view!

And at the top, of course, a giant mansion.  Now a bit of a public park, this is the Pittock Mansion.  He was a newspaper editor of some repute, and in the early 20th century, he built a massive modern house overlooking the city.

The things you can do and see when you have money, right?

But now its open to the public, and the grounds, as well.  

It is an anchor on the south side of Forest Park, a long park that follows the aforementioned ridge line for a number of miles north of Portland.  A few friends have mentioned this park, so we were interested in checking it out.

Miles and miles of heavily forested trails, mostly following the contour lines around this ridge.  It was amazing, and great running.

Eventually we came to small stream, and followed it back into town.  Passed this odd stone structure, now taken over, as most old stone structures in cities, by graffiti.

But lovely in its own way.

We decided, after breakfast, to give Portland's street car system a try.  We rode the NS line to the South of town, which we learned was a large brownfield area, now reclaimed.

And quickly being turned into high rise buildings and parks along the Willamette.

The multitude of planks made for a multitude of puddles, and as my new thing is to try to use puddles for reflections, I had fun trying to get a good shot of this man made bird perch.

But realized that a close up of the plank itself looks pretty cool.

And even without a reflection.  Okay, enough self-indulgence.

Okay, one more.

Then another ride on the trolley over a recently constructed bridge that seemed to be for transit, pedestrians, and bikes only.

Okay, Portland, I'm starting to get it.  Bikes were everywhere, and even the streetcar system ran pretty well.

And the river is nice, too.  

Oh yeah, and the ridiculous foods.  Somehow, I expected a biscuit centered restaurant in the Northwest to be a bit precious, but these were pretty tasty.  You can't really argue with heavily buttered bread with fried chicken and an egg.

The fork is for size reference.

Oh yeah, it also had an attached pizza joint, as well.  Again, expected to be a little too #tasteslikehipster, to use a phrase I just learned, but the pizza was also really tasty.  And, unlike other places that may have a combined Biscuit/Pizza parlours, they were not overpriced at all.  

We stopped at Ex Novo Brewing, (which was right near the park where the above picture was taken).  It bills itself as the first non-profit brewery in the country, and had rather good beer to boot.  Molly and I met the brewers as they got off shift, and had a great time distracting them from eating their dinner...er, that is, chatting with them.

The walk home, across the Broadway Bridge.

And back at Downtown.

With selective focus, too.

In any case, we were slated to leave Portland the next day, so we had a lovely walk home, cooked a great dinner, and got ready to fly out...to NEW ZEALAND.