Tag: Portland

Transported

Looking out the window at the snow it is as if I have been transported from the rainy green city of Portland to some snow covered hamlet somewhere in Colorado or Montana. It is snowing again today and we have inches on the ground. Having lived with snow in some for for over a week now, I can say the following generalizations about Portlanders are true.

They never go out in the snow.
They are unable to operate a snow shovel.

The people of Portland disappear when it snows. They stay holed up in their houses and emerge for only the most dire needs. They never, thank the lord, drive. The cars I’ve seen on the roads this week all have chains on them, but cars are few and far between. This is a good thing as Portlanders have little practice driving in the snow and have little to no skills in that area. Unlike any other place I have lived, the equipment to plow the roads is sparse and the roads themselves aren’t really sanded and definitely not salted. The (very small) downside of this is that life grinds to a halt when we get measurable snow. The upside is that the snow remains beautiful and white instead of nasty and gritty and brown, even on the major roads.

I would guess that 60% of Portlanders don’t own snow shovels. It makes sense. Most of the time when it snows we get a day or so of winter beauty and then everything warms up and it rains. Poof. The snow disappears. Why bother to shovel? This is in stark contrast to Massachusetts, where if you don’t clear the snow from your sidewalk it freezes and remains a slippery mess for weeks, if not months.

After shoveling my walk this morning, I took a walk of about three miles to run some errands. After I left my shoveled walk, guess how many shoveled sidewalks I encountered on my round trip? One. I even took a more traveled route in hopes that I would find some clear sidewalks. Not only do residents of the neighborhood not shovel, but businesses don’t either. The only exception was the North Star Coffee house, and they did the lazy “make a path one snow shovel wide” method. No one even throws down those things that make ice melt.

So it is a winter wonderland here, but one that has me wishing I owned snow shoes.

Snow downtown

On the last day of school before winter break, a snow day was called. That was no different for me than the four previous days which were also snow days for west side schools. So I have a three week winter break, instead of the scheduled two week break. I did go into work for a few hours this morning to put together a lunch order for the day we go back to school and then ran some errands downtown. It was snowing Hollywood snow, the kind you always see on TV: big wet flakes floating slowly to the ground, and it looked lovely in Pioneer Square.

You will note that there isn’t really a lot of snow on the ground. This is because a reasonably reliable forecast for any amount of snow here is the equivalent of about 18 inches of actual snow in Massachusetts. Schools are canceled, people stay home from work, many, many people avoid driving for any reason. I have a theory that American workers, starved for more time off from work, take any advantage of the weather to have more days off. Here that means a chance of snow causes many things to grind to a halt. Perhaps if we had more vacation, we would be more willing to go out in the snow.

Parking lots and snow

One thing I always remember about snow in Boise, is how a light snow would fall and cover everything, including the parking lots. People would drive to the mall, or the store, or someplace with a parking lot and take their best guess as to where the spaces were. They would then go in a shop, or perhaps work. Meanwhile the temperature would warm up and the snow would melt, exposing the actual parking spaces, many of which were difficult to park in, because the people who guessed would have guessed wrong, yet their cars were still there, parked outside the lines.

With that memory in mind, I was pleased to see this ingenious solution at a parking lot near my work.

SNOW!

So far it has turned our Holiday Party/Overnight into just a Holiday Party (for this I am thankful.) It has canceled our church service and Sunday school at 11:15. It has kept people from the Nutcracker, ensuring me the best seat I will probably ever have at the ballet. What will it do next?

It doesn’t look like a lot, but for Portlanders, any snow is too much snow. Sometimes even a forecast for snow is too much snow.
The pioneers have even more struggle. They are covered in snow!
City Hall looks picturesque.

Turkey Trot

For the past few months I’ve been training for the Turkey Trot, the annual four-mile run at the Zoo. Turkey Trot day arrived clear and cold. I took the Yellow Line Max to Pioneer Square where I transferred to the Blue Line Max that would take me to Washington Park. It was about 6:30 in the morning and workers were lighting the holiday tree. But, strangely, other workers found it important to cut back wisteria too. I have no idea why.
Sunrise over parking lot full of people waiting for the start of the race and people waiting in line for the port-a-potties.

Self-portrait before the race starts.
The race started late (grrrr) so I had ample opportunity to contemplate these banners at the World Forestry Center. The middle one I get, it’s the logo. The right one I get, it’s a picture of a big tree. The one on the left I don’t get at all. What does a family white water rafting have to do with a forest? I guess they could be rafting through the forest, but it still seems an odd choice. If they wanted to show recreation in the forest why not some cross country skiers, or snow shoeing?
For those of you who have never had the pleasure of running the Turkey Trot, it’s a pretty “ugh” course. Two miles downhill, turn around and groan your way through the same two miles you just ran, but now they are two uphill miles. Once I started I thought to myself, “I do not, in any way, shape or form, feel like doing this right now.” But what could I do? Turn around and finish with the slick actual runners in their running shorts and with their 5 minute miles? Not really an option. I persevered, and eventually finished. Dispute the very uphill portion, I ran this faster than my usual Saturday long runs which happen on flat land. The Turkey Trot is a fun run, so I don’t have an official time, but the time I kept was 50:52 for four miles. I’m not a fast runner, though I do have designs.

The “I finished” self-portrait:
Then it was a quick walk to the parking lot where Mom whisked me away to the Thanksgiving celebrations. Though there was a bit of parking lot waiting before we could really “whisk.”

Les Aucoin Plaza

I picked up my race packet for the Turkey Trot today at the World Forestry Center and came across Les Aucoin Plaza. You can find it yourself by taking the Blue or Red line to the Washington Park stop and taking the elevator to the top. I wondered as I walked by, if Les Aucoin was a person, or a french name of something. It could go either way, so I took a picture to remind myself to check.
Ah. I see he was the first Democrat congressman to represent Oregon’s first congressional district since statehood. He also spells his name AuCoin. If the plaza sign wasn’t in all capital letters, that would be more obvious. He gets a plaza named after him because he and Mark Hatfield worked their congressional magic on the east and west side light rail lines. How lovely.

And now I know.