The interesting, the unique, the beautiful ...Portland

Honestly, you never, ever know what you're going to see in Portland. It's a wonderful place to be.

Not long ago I walked around my building after eating lunch and saw the Hot Lips Pizza delivery vehicle waiting at the traffic light. "Shoot," I thought, "I left my camera upstairs!" I knew I'd get a shot of it for y'all, eventually. Saturday two weeks ago, I wandered the East Rose Garden in Ladd's Addition, taking photos, hardly raising my head, until something made me look up. There it sat, parked as the driver made a delivery across the street! Click, click. Satisfied, I walked back towards the car and spied one of the most unique vehicles I've ever seen. The Thing, all Volkswagen, all orange, all convertible. If I hadn't stopped to smell and photograph the beautiful roses, I'd have missed the interesting and the unique vehicles.












For the curious:

A bit from Wikipedia about The Thing:

The 181 has become something of a cult classic, due in no small measure to their funky angular styling, which leaves no question as to its strictly utilitarian purpose. The doors are removable without tools and the windshields fold down (like a Jeep). The interior is a perfect illustration of form following function, and its painted steel door panels and split, flat bench seats look appropriately post-modern, industrial chic today. Prices range from $3000 USD for restorable units to upwards of $15,000 for nicely restored examples. In early 2007 four 181 "Things" sold at the Barrett-Jackson auto auction for well over $20k each, with one 1973 example selling for $42,560 USD.[1].

If you have time and are curious, click here to see Ladd's Addition from the sky, http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=45.50854&lon=-122.64940&z=15

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Ladd's Addition:

Ladd's Addition is one of the oldest residential districts in Portland, Oregon. It is in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, located in the near southeast part of the city. Ladd's Addition is known in Portland for its peculiar diagonal street pattern relative to the rest of the area. It is roughly eight blocks (east-west) by ten blocks (north-south) in size (by reference to the external grid) and is bordered by SE Hawthorne, Division, 12th, and 20th.

Ladd's Addition is named after William Sargent Ladd, a nineteenth-century Portland mayor. He originally owned a 126 acre (500,000 m²) farm on this land, and in 1891 decided to subdivide the land for residential use. Rather than follow the grid that the majority of Portland was based on, Ladd was inspired by Pierre L'Enfant's plan for Washington, D.C. Ladd designed the plat based on a diagonal street system surrounding a central park.

In addition to the off-kilter layout that has confounded many Portlanders, the narrow streets in Ladd's Addition are lined with American elm trees and many lead to a large traffic circle in the center. Other streets lead to four smaller, diamond-shaped "circles" located to the east, west, north, and south. Each of these "circles" contain one of Portland's test rose gardens, with the northern garden's rose bushes being in a slightly different layout than the other three.

FLAG - Friends of Ladd's Addition Gardens, raises money and volunteers to maintain the beautiful rose gardens, and Save Our Elms inoculate the elm trees yearly for Dutch Elm Disease. They sponsor fun neighborhood events such as BBQ's, a neighborhood yard sale, and home tours.

The entire neighborhood is designated a Historic district. The neighborhood also hosts several churches, a hat museum, a few shops including an espresso and dessert house (Palio) and "Funky Church," a residence that was formerly a church and currently hosts small concerts and other events. Portlanders directionally savvy enough to navigate the web-like neighborhood can often be found walking their dogs, or admiring the many early 20th century homes and gardens.
Musicians Elliott Smith and Neil Gust lived in Ladd's Addition after graduating from College.

Friday Night Moving Van Mania, or an episode of our lives in the middle of a Richard Scarry* book.

Living in Portland is a treat for us, day in and day out. There's always something going on outside the window, whether that's the vehicle, office or apartment window--the sights and sounds of the city. I love it! Even those two moving vans at midnight last night. And the serendipitious appearance of the auto commercial with the DUH in lights. Perfect situational statement.

Here's what happened. Just about 11:40 p.m., I heard air brakes right outside the living room windows. This was before I had put in my earplugs--which I often do on weekend nights or sporting-event-at-PGE-park nights--and crawled into bed. Curious, I looked out. Imagine my surprise when I saw a full-sized moving van parking in front of the building across the street! I went into Mama's room to look out her windows and got an even bigger shock when another moving van made its way east in front of us, pulling to a stop, blocking the entire intersection as it went back and forth, back and forth, under the not-so-helpful direction of two men, one the driver of the other truck, on a passenger in one not yet parked. Finally, finally, it hissed to a stop beside our sidewalk at 11:50 p.m. By now, we've got the screen out of one bedroom window, our-curious-selves watching in disbelief as one man opens a door on the street side of the moving van across the street. Keep in mind that moving is an unbelievably frequent activity around here, with apartment buildings on all four corners of our intersection as well as up and down each and every street in the neighborhood, but this is our first midnight moving experience. Our last? Who knows.

A slender, mature-looking woman, dressed in a matching casual outfit, joined the men at the back of the truck across the street for a few minutes, then disappeared into the building. Our street has two parking lanes and two traffic lanes or these guys would've been chopped liver as they pulled moving pads out, tossing them in the street. Traffic continued, passing closely as the three men toted boxes into the building, loaded two two-wheelers with heavier, bulkier boxes and wheeled them into the building, carried rugs taped into cylinders and boxes that must have held framed artwork. When this particular man happened to look up at us, Mama asked him how long they'd be. He said, "Ten minutes, not more than that, 10 minutes," saw my camera and asked me to take his picture. Not enough flash for a good photo--we live on the 4th and top floor of our building--but you can see wrapped in plastic and cardboard the biggest thing they carried in on a two-wheeler. Could that be a curio cabinet or a grandfather clock? I wanted to try some photos without the flash, so I did, until no one was beside the truck and I got second picture below with the flash.


Mama and I made our way into the living room; she said she was hungry and headed for a carton of yogurt. I checked the Comcast guide again when Jay Leno introduced the music act, names I didn't recognize instead of Brad Paisley who was listed on the Guide, doggone it. Mama went to bed, earplugs installed. I watched a rerun of Nextel Cup practice at Bristol on Speed because I didn't think I could fall asleep yet. At one point I looked out and saw our intersection just like I wanted it to be, empty and quiet in the middle of the night. Every once in a while, one of the men would bring out an empty box or two and throw them into the van. Things appeared to be winding down. When two of them separately stepped between the truck and trailer of the nearest moving van, to relieve themselves I think is the mannerly way to state it, I knew it wouldn't be long before they started the motors and left.

Finally, at 1:10 a.m., the moving vans pulled away. I slept fine after that, no earplugs installed, with the sound of my fan serving as white noise.

I must report, though, that I dreamed that the three men looked up at us and asked if they could come upstairs and use the bathroom, and we unhesitantly replied yes! Once they'd used the facilities, they sat down to tell us moving tales and fell asleep all over the couch and chair! Mama calmly went back to bed in her room, the door shut. I myself couldn't fall asleep, fearing that the men were playing possum and would leave our apartment stealthily, loaded with more than they had in their possession when we had opened the door for them.

Can you say, "There's such a thing as carrying creativity too far"? I'm close, ain't I?

*Some of my all-time favorite children's books to read to Lamont and Leland were Richard Scarry books. Here's the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Scarry.