A few more views from on high

August 23, the afternoon found Milton, Kay and me in downtown Portland on the 30th floor of the Big Pink, at the Portland City Grill. After a snack and a drink, I stood up and walked from the bar to the dining room to take a few more photos.


Looking northeast across the Willamette River. The rust-colored bridge is the Broadway Bridge. The sweeping arched bridge is the Fremont Bridge. And in the foreground is the magnificent Union Station which is undergoing some sort of work on its exterior. I altered the photo in Picnik with the exposure and the sharpness tools.


Looking more north than east across the Pearl in the forefront and a sort of light industrial area that brackets the train tracks as the head north out of downtown Portland, not far from the river. See there in the distance where the hills meet the river? Two dark, upright shapes? Just to the left of the leftmost one, there's a dimmer upright shape. And between the two dark, upright shapes there is a dim shape that goes from the dimmer upright shape on to in between the two dark, upright shapes and parallel with the surface of the river. OK. The two dark, upright shapes are part of the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge, a truss bridge with a vertical lift. The dimmer upright shape and the dim shape parallel with the river are part of the St. Johns Bridge, a photo of which is included in my September 19 post. When I rode the SP 4449 on July 3, we crossed the Willamette River using that railroad bridge. Milton and Kay crossed it as they entered Portland. I altered this photo with the HDR-ish effect and put a frame around it.


Looking straight down to the east at Voodoo Doughnuts' original location on the corner of SW 3rd Avenue and SW Ankeny Street. See the tiny people in line from the red truck, along the front of the building and ending almost beneath the pink sign? Those are a few people in line for doughnuts in the middle of the afternoon--that's the hold that Voodoo has on folks, some folks anyway; to tell you the truth there are usually a whole lot more people in line. And the small, almost school-bus-colored items side-by-side in SW Ankeny are actually wooden picnic tables, while the black and white spots farther on are actually umbrellas over additional picnic tables. Portland decided in late July to make this portion of SW Ankeny car-free, a sort of patio area. The bit of a bridge that you can see on the left is the Burnside Bridge. See the MAX train in the trees, about two thirds of the way up from the bottom of the photo? It's crossing alongside the Skidmore Fountain in what's known as Ankeny Plaza. All through those trees where the three cars are parked you'll find the Portland Saturday Market which continues to the white arches topped with bricks and across the street and beneath the rest of the trees. The gray area between the trees and the river is the sort of plaza just south of the rest of the Saturday Market.

Looking through ...

... the bus window at a couple of food carts on SW 3rd in downtown Portland.

A mid-afternoon line at Voodoo Doughnuts

Voodoo Doughnuts is on SW 3rd. It's in the middle of the block where I managed to correctly complete the back-in-angled parking with the Buick. The dark arched doorway on the left of the photo is the entrance. I doubt that the waiting/ordering area is any larger in square footage than two side-by-side Buicks, thus the line from the doorway to the corner. If you look at the link about the parking, you'll see the Buick. Then if you look closely to the right of the white container being carried by the woman wearing the brown top, you'll see a small portion of an automobile just past the white car, not the Buick but it's parked exactly where I had parked the Buick previously.


From the Voodoo Doughnuts Web site: Famous for their girth, our doughnuts are made fresh with love and care. You can pay us more for our product which is locally made, locally owned, and an honest dream come true, or you can buy cheaper, megalacorp, machine cut, rebaked, defrozen, warehouse doughnuts and pastries.

What would you decide? I myself have eaten very few doughnuts lately--I'm trying to kick the habit.

Before I forget, see the sign at the right of the photo, Berbati's Pan? That's where Lamont first worked when he moved to Portland in 2000. He was a one-man grill person, the line cook, prep cook, waiter, cashier, bus boy and dishwasher. Whew.

By the way, Mama made it fine Tuesday. She says that is because she didn't do anything much at all. Tomorrow she's going to try dust mopping but promises to be careful. I got about 80% caught up at work which is good.

For supper Tuesday night I chopped up some Vidalia onion, sauteed it a little while on high heat, then added some rough chopped cabbage, orange bell pepper and yellow bell pepper, stirred it all up pretty good, making sure that all of it had some oil on it, let it cook for a minute, then I poured a little bit of water in the skillet, turned down the heat, and put the other big skillet on top as a lid, turned upside down and balanced just right--hey, it works. They cooked for a little while, then I placed six frozen, skinless chicken tenders on top of the pile of vegetables. I sprinkled some salt and pepper onto the chicken and put the lid/skillet back on. A few minutes later, I checked the jumble (Mama's name for it), turned the chicken, and turned up the heat, leaving it uncovered. Soon, I looked at it again and called Mama in to take a look. I asked her if she'd like the chicken cut up into bite-sized pieces. Her answer, yes, so I did that. In our hammered aluminum Dutch oven, I had steamed asparagus and broccoli. Mama likes broccoli but refuses to eat asparagus, so I put broccoli and the jumble on her plate, asparagus and the jumble on mine. I warned her that I had no idea what the jumble would taste like, so when she heartily approved after one bit, I breathed a sigh of relief. I like it, too, and best of all, we've got left-overs!