Hanging around Portland for the flight home

On Friday morning Paul drove by with the van and trailer to take my bike to the FedEx drop-off at 8:00 am.  My bike is supposed to arrive home in a week traveling by FedEx ground transportation. After that I went back to my hotel, did laundry and updated my blog.  I left my bags at the motel front desk and went downtown on the Tri-Met light-rail train around 2:00pm.  The trip was supposed to take about 20 minutes according to the schedule, but actually took just over 40 minutes.

The platform at the Parkrose Sumner station of the Tri-Met Max train near my hotel.

A view down the Willamette River from the train crossing the bridge.

A view towards the north end of downtown Portland from the train - the Union Station is near the center.

Downtown I walked around and saw some of the sights in town. The city was very busy and pretty clean.  There are bike paths on many streets and lots of cyclists all over downtown.  The transit system also provides lots of options for getting around center city.  It also seems like Portland has more than its share of homeless people and "characters" for a big city. 

The Pioneer Courthouse in downtown.

Union Station on the north end of downtown.

An Amtrak train getting ready to depart.

This city park near downtown had water fountains and was filled with kids on this very warm day.

It happened that there was a weekend food festival on the downtown waterfront which began on this Friday at lunch time - the Bite of Oregon.  I went in and found a couple of very good food choices for reasonable prices.  I also took a walk around the waterfront area.

Entrance to the Bite of Oregon food festival on the downtown waterfront.

Inside Bite of Oregon.

A view towards one of the drawbridges looking south along the waterfront.

The view to the north from the downtown waterfront.

Around 6:30 pm I rode the train back out to my motel near the airport.  I picked up my bags at the motel, walked back to the train and rode it to the airport.  The access to the airport from the train was very easy.  The station is right at the end of the departure area which made getting out of town very easy.

Another water fountain near downtown filled with kids cooling off.

Surprisingly, I ran into Ben and Simon while walking around downtown Portland.

I also found riders warming up for a downtown criterium cycling race just before I had to head to the airport.

My flight from Portland was a red-eye leaving after 11:00 pm on Friday.  I arrived in Chicago before 5:00 am on Saturday morning, waited for just over 3 hours and caught my plane home to Allentown about 8:00 am.  I arrived home about 11:00 am.  When I walked out of the airport with Pat we walked into heat AND HUMIDITY - something I hadn't encountered for several weeks.  Welcome back to the northeast U.S.!  Still, although it was a great trip, it was great to be back home.

I still plan to post a few thoughts on the trip sometime in the next day or two, so don't quit reading just yet.  Thank you to everyone for your words of encouragement about my ride and about my blogging efforts!

A few observations about Portland:

Portland is a very bicycle friendly city.  It claims to be the best bike town in the country which is probably true.  There were cyclists everywhere.

The commuter traffic on the highways around town is terrible.  We ran into and saw traffic slowdowns everywhere around the area.  That may help explain why bikes are so prevalent.

The Tri-Met MAX light-rail train helps with the congestion, but can be very slow.  Perhaps this is because it runs on the city streets instead of being an underground system like Washington, D.C.

The transit system is FREE to everyone in a fairly large area of center city.  This probably helps relieve some downtown traffic congestion.  You still have to pay to commute to/from the suburbs.