Saturday morning, I went out early and had a bagel and coffee at the Eisenhower Bagel Shop. Our plan for the day was to go see the 12:45 showing of "The Darkest Hour" at the Living Room Theater in downtown Portland. It is about three miles from the house, so I decided to walk to get some exercise and left earlier than Patty, Ben and Martha who all took the train.
When Ben and Martha were in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Southeast Portland, I was surprised to see the intersection painted. Apparently, it is not the only neighborhood to do so. These were on Overlook Drive about a quarter mile from Ben and Martha's home.
My route took me past Overlook Park, about three quarters of a mile from Ben and Martha's home - I decided that I would need to explore it later.
Following the route given me by Google Maps, I crossed the Willamette on the Broadway Bridge, an older draw bridge. Looking north from the bridge, I had a nice view of the river and the I-405 bridge.
Just as you cross the river, Union Station is to your left - we had previously taken the train to Seattle from there. To the right is the Albers Milling company with their colorful signs.
A couple of blocks before reaching the Living Room theater, I passed Helen's Market and sent a photo of it to my sister Helen.
Patty, Ben and Martha arrived a few minutes after I did. "The Darkest Hour" tells the story of Neville Chamberlin stepping down as Prime Minister and Winston Churchill taking his place. Chamberlin and Lord Halifax wanted to negotiate with Hitler through Mussolini as an intermediary. As we know, Churchill resisted and urged that they fight. The movie only covered the month of May in 1940. But it was a great show. Here is a link to the website for the movie.
After the movie, Patty and Martha took the train home and Ben and I walked back, and had a nice chat during the hour long walk.
Saturday evening, Ben drove us to Oui Restaurant at the Southeast Wine Collective for dinner. They now accept reservations if you choose the chef's choice menu. As usual, it was excellent with fine wine and many dishes for all of us to sample. Some of the dishes I remember are chicken liver mousse with quince cranberry chutney, baguette slices with whipped butter mixed with smoked maple syrup, the shaved cabbage salad, butternut squash with chick pea delicatta, roasted chicken with fingerling potatoes in fine herbs aioli and hedgehog mushroom farrotto. And then there were three deserts to share, two from the menu - half baked chocolate chip cookie and butterscotch pot du creme - and four ice cream sandwiches made for a large event - homemade gingerbread on the outside and eggnog ice cream on the inside. And of course, ample amounts of wine. Martha was the designated driver and drove us home safely.
On Sunday morning, I went out for a walk and to explore the neighborhood some more. Ben had told me that northwest Portland has become very gentrified and home to many yuppies, while north Portland where they live still has older homes. On their street, only one home has been replaced by a new home.
The rest of the houses in their neighborhood have been there for decades, with most being modest middle income one story or two story homes.
Many have well tended yards, especially in the odd shaped lots where angled streets meet.
And many of the trees are huge - the trunks of these are at least three to four feet in diameter.
More than a half mile from their home, next to Overlook Park, new homes and multi-story apartment blocks have been added.
Overlook Park has a large open area and a nice circular trail.
As the name implies, there are great views overlooking the Willamette River and the Union Pacific Railroad freight yard.
As the day progressed, a light snow started to fall.
Here are Ben and Stowe running around in the snow.
And the snow slowly began to accumulate as the daylight hours passed into the evening.
After dinner, we set out on foot to walk to the Prescott Street stop of Max, Portland's light rail system. With the snow and ice, it was walking weather - we definitely did not want to be driving in the snow/sleet/freezing rain.
For Sunday evening, our destination was the Portland Center Stage at the Armory in downtown Portland. We had tickets for "Twisted Dickens" - it is a spoof of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" that included many references to modern day events - including Portland not having salt for the streets in the current snow and ice storm - and some scenes with George Bailey from "It's A Wonderful Life."
Many people did not go because of the weather, so there were lots of empty seats and they told people to feel free to move closer to the middle and/or front.
I walked out to Interstate Ave. and headed south towards Overlook Park. As a main thoroughfare, Interstate has the light rail tracks in the middle and many newer buildings. But there are still some older ones as well, such as the Polish Library Association Hall.
There is also this older building which is now labelled as the Kaiser Permanente Town Hall, but it shape indicates that it was either a large barn or maybe the hall for some community organization. When I searched online for it, the info is that since earlier this year it is inactive - but further sleuthing finds that it was built as a Finnish Social Hall in the early 1900s and moved to this location in 1990. It is part of a large Kaiser Permanente campus across the street from Overlook Park.
As I walked through the now ice and snow covered park, I again checked out the Union Pacific facilities and noticed a turntable for reversing direction of train engines and cars.
In another part of the park, young kids were sliding down the hill. And some teens were going down the hill on a modified bike which had the front tire replaced with a short ski.
At the park, there is a sign on a side street pointing to the Overlook House, so I went down that street. It had many very nice older homes as well as the Overlook House which is a community center and has nice gardens and patio on the grounds.
Then I continued on some other side streets to get back to the house for one last dinner in Portland. Monday evening was a quiet evening spent with Ben, Martha and Stowe, and spent packing for our return to Phoenix on Tuesday.
We are so fortunate to be able to spend the holidays together and I am so thankful for our family.
When Ben and Martha were in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Southeast Portland, I was surprised to see the intersection painted. Apparently, it is not the only neighborhood to do so. These were on Overlook Drive about a quarter mile from Ben and Martha's home.
My route took me past Overlook Park, about three quarters of a mile from Ben and Martha's home - I decided that I would need to explore it later.
Following the route given me by Google Maps, I crossed the Willamette on the Broadway Bridge, an older draw bridge. Looking north from the bridge, I had a nice view of the river and the I-405 bridge.
Just as you cross the river, Union Station is to your left - we had previously taken the train to Seattle from there. To the right is the Albers Milling company with their colorful signs.
A couple of blocks before reaching the Living Room theater, I passed Helen's Market and sent a photo of it to my sister Helen.
Patty, Ben and Martha arrived a few minutes after I did. "The Darkest Hour" tells the story of Neville Chamberlin stepping down as Prime Minister and Winston Churchill taking his place. Chamberlin and Lord Halifax wanted to negotiate with Hitler through Mussolini as an intermediary. As we know, Churchill resisted and urged that they fight. The movie only covered the month of May in 1940. But it was a great show. Here is a link to the website for the movie.
After the movie, Patty and Martha took the train home and Ben and I walked back, and had a nice chat during the hour long walk.
Saturday evening, Ben drove us to Oui Restaurant at the Southeast Wine Collective for dinner. They now accept reservations if you choose the chef's choice menu. As usual, it was excellent with fine wine and many dishes for all of us to sample. Some of the dishes I remember are chicken liver mousse with quince cranberry chutney, baguette slices with whipped butter mixed with smoked maple syrup, the shaved cabbage salad, butternut squash with chick pea delicatta, roasted chicken with fingerling potatoes in fine herbs aioli and hedgehog mushroom farrotto. And then there were three deserts to share, two from the menu - half baked chocolate chip cookie and butterscotch pot du creme - and four ice cream sandwiches made for a large event - homemade gingerbread on the outside and eggnog ice cream on the inside. And of course, ample amounts of wine. Martha was the designated driver and drove us home safely.
On Sunday morning, I went out for a walk and to explore the neighborhood some more. Ben had told me that northwest Portland has become very gentrified and home to many yuppies, while north Portland where they live still has older homes. On their street, only one home has been replaced by a new home.
The rest of the houses in their neighborhood have been there for decades, with most being modest middle income one story or two story homes.
Many have well tended yards, especially in the odd shaped lots where angled streets meet.
And many of the trees are huge - the trunks of these are at least three to four feet in diameter.
More than a half mile from their home, next to Overlook Park, new homes and multi-story apartment blocks have been added.
Overlook Park has a large open area and a nice circular trail.
As the name implies, there are great views overlooking the Willamette River and the Union Pacific Railroad freight yard.
As the day progressed, a light snow started to fall.
Here are Ben and Stowe running around in the snow.
And the snow slowly began to accumulate as the daylight hours passed into the evening.
Martha and Ben brought out some of the charcuterie from Friday night's soiree and some of the wine they picked up Saturday as members of the Southeast Wine Collective. Patty had learned about and enjoyed Blaufrankisch wine on her trip to Austria in April, so we enjoyed that and because Helen had been on that trip with Patty, sent her this photo as a reminder of the wine.
After dinner, we set out on foot to walk to the Prescott Street stop of Max, Portland's light rail system. With the snow and ice, it was walking weather - we definitely did not want to be driving in the snow/sleet/freezing rain.
For Sunday evening, our destination was the Portland Center Stage at the Armory in downtown Portland. We had tickets for "Twisted Dickens" - it is a spoof of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" that included many references to modern day events - including Portland not having salt for the streets in the current snow and ice storm - and some scenes with George Bailey from "It's A Wonderful Life."
Many people did not go because of the weather, so there were lots of empty seats and they told people to feel free to move closer to the middle and/or front.
After the show, it would have been a 40+ minute wait for the next train or a slightly longer walk with a shorter wait for a bus - we opted for the bus and managed to walk home.
Monday morning, I went out for a Christmas day walk in the ice and snow to see what we had struggled through while walking home Saturday evening after the show.
Martha made a magnificent brunch for us of salt caramel bread pudding, thick slices of bacon and eggs cooked with cream cheese and herbs, fresh fruit and hot chocolate for Ben and Martha, coffee for Patty and me.
After brunch, we started the opening of gifts by letting Stowe open a gift from Ann and Terry.
And then Stowe got to play with his new antler.
We then spent a couple of hours opening gifts and enjoying Christmas together as a family. After noon, I took a nap and then went out for a walk. There was still a lot of snow and ice.
I walked out to Interstate Ave. and headed south towards Overlook Park. As a main thoroughfare, Interstate has the light rail tracks in the middle and many newer buildings. But there are still some older ones as well, such as the Polish Library Association Hall.
There is also this older building which is now labelled as the Kaiser Permanente Town Hall, but it shape indicates that it was either a large barn or maybe the hall for some community organization. When I searched online for it, the info is that since earlier this year it is inactive - but further sleuthing finds that it was built as a Finnish Social Hall in the early 1900s and moved to this location in 1990. It is part of a large Kaiser Permanente campus across the street from Overlook Park.
As I walked through the now ice and snow covered park, I again checked out the Union Pacific facilities and noticed a turntable for reversing direction of train engines and cars.
In another part of the park, young kids were sliding down the hill. And some teens were going down the hill on a modified bike which had the front tire replaced with a short ski.
At the park, there is a sign on a side street pointing to the Overlook House, so I went down that street. It had many very nice older homes as well as the Overlook House which is a community center and has nice gardens and patio on the grounds.
Then I continued on some other side streets to get back to the house for one last dinner in Portland. Monday evening was a quiet evening spent with Ben, Martha and Stowe, and spent packing for our return to Phoenix on Tuesday.
We are so fortunate to be able to spend the holidays together and I am so thankful for our family.
No comments:
Post a Comment