A wonderful first Sunday in August in Portland

Saturday, after I was done working on my computer at the Bagdad Theatre Pub, I was planning on taking a quick trip back home to drop off my “office”, and then head back out to the Willamette River waterfront at the Powell Street (Ross Island) Bridge to take photos. But with the 102° heat, and a movie starting in an air-conditioned theatre right next to the bus stop, I decided to watch the movie (see previous article), and then maybe take some photos with the remaining daylight. But because there was no pedestrian access to the bridge, I snapped a couple of shots, and thought I’d try again on Sunday.

Which I did. This time I went downtown, and tried to catch to MAX to the South Waterfront. The MAX only took me a couple of stops to Portland State University, then I had to walk a quarter mile east to the not-quite-South waterfront, where I snapped a couple of photos, including this one where I was taking a photo of some kayakers on the other side of the river– and when I looked through my viewfinder I realized: Hey! It that a frickin’ submarine?

It’s the USS Blueback (SS-581), berthed at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) on the East Bank of the Willamette River. It was the submarine that appeared as the USS Dallas in the movie Hunt for Red October. I then found a streetcar I didn’t even know existed which ran further south.

A few stops down, I realized the streetcar stopped at the South Waterfront campus of Oregon Health & Science University, the largest employer in the State of Oregon, and which operates a sky tram from this location up to the OHSU Hospital campus at the top of the hill.

At the hospital I snapped some photos of the view

 

and went downstairs to drink some coffee and relax in the “Fine Dining” cafeteria, before returning back down the hill. There I caught the streetcar back to the Portland State (PSU) campus, where I transferred to the MAX Clackamas Green line, making one last stop at the Lloyd Center Mall, and picked up some new underwear (which I can never seem to find in my size, but then again, who could be expected to carry Medium?) & plain white t-shirts. The mall isn’t bad (as malls go), and they even had this nice little ice skating rink for the kiddies..

 

And… I finally decided to bring my big adventure to a close, and wandered back to the MAX line to head home.