Over the bridge, through the park, to catch the 17 bus for home.

When I left work and didn't see a bus, I decided to walk west over the Hawthorne Bridge--I'm a veteran of that now! This is a street between Grand and the Willamette River--I don't know which one, but I loved the colors and shapes.



I'm thinking right about now, whew, this is a wide bridge. Total length according to Wikipedia--1382 feet. Those two tall things sticking up are the vertical lifts that raise the bridge when tall ships need to continue upriver.



How about this sidewalk! That's on Grand, right beside my building, headed towards the bus stop. It was not snowing when I left the building.



I wish these three photos of this guy cross-country skiing had loaded in order. This is the second one, as he approaches a pedestrian ramp at the west end of the bridge.



Here he is when I first noticed him--in the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.



There's the Willamette and the building on the west side. It had started to snow again by then.



Be sure to click on this one so that you can see the unique way in which the needles trapped the snow. I found the pattern fascinating. The whole tree comes up later, with a bus I could have caught sitting beside it before going slowing down to the intersection. If I'd been riding, I would not have had such a good time, and I would have been smothering in all of my layers!



Here's the cross-country skier at the top of the ramp. I said, "I'll bet you love this!" And he replied, "It's the only way to go." He certainly made it look effortless as he headed across the river on the sidewalk I'd just traversed.



All of these park photos are of the same place where I took the golden ginko leaves photos. Different kinds of beauty.




Here's that tree where I took the close up shot. I made it down the curving ramp just fine, thanks to my YakTrax.





I didn't do this sitting-down-snowman justice with this photo, but I thought I'd show it to you anyway. He's on the sidewalk on Pine, between 4th and 3rd, wearing a furry orange hat, with a green E poked into his chest, and holding some green bottle in his left hand. I really didn't want to stand in the street and try other shots since it was so slippery, especially with the potential for cars to come by.



I love this combo photo, with Union Station's tower in the background and that limo wall beside the parking lot.



I got off this 17 bus and took this picture so that you could see the chains on its big back wheels. TriMet got caught, as one person put it today, with its chains down. The morning commute saw at least 70 buses in trouble, stuck or sliding or running late, you name it.

Once I got home, I peeled off all those layers, put on my lounging-around-in-the-apartment-clothes, and crawled into bed to sleep for a couple of hours. Exhaustion prevailed, but sleep revived.