Northwest Hills, March 1, 2012

I change from one bus to another at the intersection of SE MLK and SE Couch. I'm standing in Northeast Portland when I wait for that second bus. Often I look west across the Willamette River, towards the Big Pink and the venerable Portland Oregon neon sign. The Big Pink is south of West Burnside, so it is in Southwest Portland. The Portland Oregon sign is north of West Burnside, so it is in Northwest Portland.

This particular morning snow had fallen at the higher elevations. The wintry view enticed me to quickly get my camera out of my backpack and take a few photos. Would that I had had more time. Alas, the bus arrived. My responsibility--to get to work on time.

ABC Wednesday - G is Glow

Sunday morning's sunrise glows outside our kitchen window in Portland's Northwest Hills.

Serendipity--you gotta love it.

On Oct. 14 these red trees grabbed hold of me and I had to pull the Buick off Barbur Blvd. into a Fred Meyer parking lot, and take this photo. Last night when I took a better look at it, I got plumb tickled. Look at the car. Look at the man's shirt. Look at the trees. I love it.

For fun and foliage-filled walk around our block in Portland's Northwest Hills, go to my other blog, Mama and Me from PDX.

Great Leaf Moments, A Series, III

Y'all know how fond I am of telling which direction I face when I take a picture. Can't do that this time. The minute I drove the Buick west on NW Johnson and turned right onto NW Westover Road, I soon lost track of direction.



I just kept turning onto the high road at each intersection. Looking at the Google map just now proved to be no help, either. The roads resemble curving pasta of different lengths, lying nearby and atop one another on a small dish. Suffice it to say that we went up and up, circled here and there, pulling to a stop wherever possible to take a few pictures. Mostly we went, "Look at that!" I couldn't stop because a vehicle was behind me, so I missed quite a few photo opportunities.

I managed to drive by one house three times, each time from a different direction. I recognized its almost two-stories high concrete retaining wall. Twice I drove by a nice flat concrete driveway where I could have turned around but for the fact that as I approached the driveway, all I could see underneath the concrete at is juncture with the roadway was space, empty space. The whole house, driveway, carport, everything is on stilts or pylons or whatever they call them. No was was I going to tempt fate with my toes, much less an entire automobile!





In spacious, flatter areas, streets widened but houses still sat atop steeply banked lawns, hiding behind well-kept plantings.

Great Leaf Moments, A Series, II

The Buick's headed north on NW 22nd Avenue. I was NOT driving and taking a photo, I promise. I stopped in the middle of the street once I realized there was not a car in sight behind me.

And I promise, I do NOT know the owners of all of these matching street-level accessory vehicles. Chalk it up to serendipity. Or as Mama would say, "You can see more drivin' than I can just ridin' and lookin'!"

Notice how flat the street is? Once it slopes down from West Burnside, it flattens out at our street, NW Everett, and stays flat all the way to the Willamette, as far as I can tell.

Great Leaf Moments, A Series, I

You're looking west. This is the intersection of West Burnside and NW 23rd Avenue, to the right, and SW Vista to the left. To get you oriented to previous posts, I could have turned around after I took last week's photo looking east down Burnside, the one that showed you Jim Fisher Volvo and the trianglular building, and seen this intersection. I didn't take this one right after the other one, though, because the sun wasn't up enough to do the leaves justice.

On Oct. 13, after Mama, Duncan and I got into the car, this is the first photo from our tour of the neighborhood. One week later, the first tree in the row alongside Burnside, the one right above the white van, had lost every single leaf. Like I said, it's been raining and blowing a good bit. Within weeks, leaf-less limbs will branch out from trunk after trunk all over the city, so I'm embarking on a series of sorts to share this beauty with you, in a rush with nature I suppose you could say.

The small brick building on the left houses a State Farm Insurance office. Across from it you can see a sign that reads Zupans--that's a nice high-end grocery store. Up the hill to the left you see a pale building with many windows and the word Envoy top center. Here's a bit from the Web: "The Historic Envoy, built in the 1920's, has been renovated to its original charm and converted to condominiums. Units feature vintage hardwood floors, paned windows and covered off-street parking. Many have city and mountain views." The few I found for sale are in the $330,000 plus range, even the one bedroom. Y'all are beginning to understand why Mama and I happily rent, right?

An hour or so later after driving the twisting and turning roads above our neighborhood to the west, we've stopped on NW 23rd Avenue, waiting to cross West Burnside, so that we can take SW Vista up into another part of the hills. Burnside divides Portland into north and south, hence the direction change for the streets. Some but not all streets also change names, like at this particular intersection. Here's the corner from another angle.



After driving up Vista and making a couple of right hand turns, plus stopping to take a few photos from a stairway hanging on the side of a steep hill--or at least that's how it seemed to me, the one with a pronounced fear of heights--we arrived at the intersection one last time.

You can see from this photo how steep Vista is as it heads south from Burnside. It gets even steeper very quickly. My goal is to be able to walk up it so that I can go to the Vista Bridge and take photos from the 120 foot tall bridge--there's no where nearby to park, so why not? Well, to tell you the truth, it will be scary as all get out, as we say in the South, but I'm going to do it because I want to take photos from it. This photo-blogging is positively changing my life.

Leaf Down, Leaves Up

A week ago Saturday, I walked to get the car so that Mama, Duncan and I could tour at leisure our neighborhood and the steep hill above it. We wanted to find more colorful autumn leaves to enjoy and to share with everyone.

I walked around to unlock the passenger door and couldn't believe this golden leaf balanced so perfectly on the door handle. Then I looked up to enjoy the leaves still on the tree.

View from Mama's windows, moments ago.

In and around Portland, it's been raining, it's been blowing ... off and on for days. That happens this time of year, with welcome sun breaks now and then.

Still and all, beautiful sights await my camera and me. I couldn't believe that at the moment I decided to push up one of the windows in Mama's bedroom and take a few photos of the trees across the street, there walked two women in perfectly colored raincoats--more street-level accessories for our autumn leaves. Oh, I didn't lean out to take the photo this time because I wanted to stay dry!

Flexcar is not a car that bends in the middle.

Just last week I took these photos, one of the sign that designates the parking space for a Flexcar and one of the Flexcar itself, in the area known as Old Town Chinatown. Then on Saturday I found the Fall/Winter 2007-08 NW Portland Business Guide in our mailbox and read that Flexcar has over 200 vehicles in Portland, with around 60 in the Northwest. That explains why I've noticed more and more evidence of the car-sharing company in our neighborhood in the Northwest Hills.

Since I first became aware of Flexcar last summer, I've thought that someday in the far off future when our '96 Buick Lesabre kicks the bucket, it's Flexcar for Mama and me. I don't think I've sold her on it, yet. Do you have any experience with car-sharing? Preferably positive, of course.

Fall Colors, on NW Everett Street in the Northwest Hills

This evening the television weatherman said that Portland's weather is more like November than October, as much as ten degrees cooler than it ought to be. When I was a kid growing up, October meant cooler weather and the leaves changed color, so I think it's just right.

On our street you can see reds beginning to overtake greens in one of the trees in front of the Manhattan. I first saw the change in the tree when I looked out the bathroom window. Then I noticed the yellow and black car with the For Sale sign in the window, and continuing on up the sidewalk, I saw the red car and the other yellow car. Ah. A perfect fall foliage photo, with street-level accessories. I leaned out one of Mama's bedroom window to get the shot I wanted.

P.S. I took the close-up of the leaves resting on the sidewalk in the rain Thursday evening after shopping for groceries at our nearby Fred Meyer. I couldn't resist that vivid red.

Without a doubt, the most unique small business sign I've yet seen. How about what you've seen in your city?

Mad Dog Garage, on NW Everett, between 15th and 14th, as the street descends out of the Northwest Hills and into the Pearl District.



Y'all curious? I am. Next time I walk by I will take a slower look. With these photos as evidence, this doesn't seem like any garage door I have ever seen, even if the tiny dog's head is mounted on a gear-shaped disc.

So, it's raining in Portland. I still love the place.

In the Northwest Hills, all sorts of beautiful trees line the streets. This time of year, the leaves start to fall. When it rains hard enough to cause water to run in the streets, those leaves clump together and float to low places along the curbs and sidewalks. Drains become blocked. (Later on I'll show/explain how the City of Portland and Neighbors West Northwest deal with those leaves.) Look how the water rises into the air in a straight line. Is this an illustration for some sort of law of physics?

I think the drain must be clogged here, at the corner of NW 21st and Glisan, Tuesday about 5:30 p.m. I knew y'all would love to see the cars driving through the puddle that stretched from one corner half way out into the street. Slinging water, making ripples, the cars drove by every time the light changed. Safely out of range, I stood close to the Nob Hill Old Pharmacy Cafe, beneath a teensy little overhang, out of the rain, and snapped couple of shots. Look



It didn't rain all day long on Tuesday or Wednesday, just off and on, sometimes light, sometimes heavy. Wednesday evening while "Jeopardy" was on the TV, Mama and I heard hail hitting the windows on the east side of our apartment. I grabbed my CoolPix L12 and got this shot, though the screen and the closed window. You're looking at the streetlight on the corner; that's the Rose Plaza Apartments in the background. We heard it hailing for maybe two minutes, and the rain stopped in 10 minutes or so.

Sammy's Flowers at Trader Joe's in the Northwest Hills

Looking east on Glisan, almost to 21st--here's Sammy's Flowers ready and waiting to be set out in front of Trader Joe's, which bills itself as "your neighborhood grocery store." I took the photo about 7:45 a.m. this morning as we walked to our car.


I can't help myself--I have to give you these other two shots I took around 4 p.m., after I'd parked the car and headed back to our apartment. Looking west, then looking east again.


For those of you who drool over gorgeous fresh produce, you'll do the same over Sammy's Flowers.

Shades of Blue

Living in a city affords the unique in the midst of what ought to be the mundane. For instance, Jim Fisher Volvo--a multi-story car dealership at 21st and Burnside, in the Northwest Hills. Where I come from car dealerships are multi-acre, so this place fascinates me.