June 23, 2014 - Portland Waterfront and Voodoo Doughnuts

Today's 10k walk began at Portland State University. 

We had some adventures before we even started walking. We were told to park at a meter on the street and then go into Ondine Hall to register for the AVA NW Regional Conference and get a PSU parking pass. We found a parking spot not too far away and paid $1.60 for an hour and went into Ondine Hall. We registered for the Conference and today's walk and the AVA people told us to go to the housing desk just a few steps away to get a parking pass. At the housing desk we found out we needed to go to an office on the second floor of another building a block away to purchase a parking pass. When we entered the building at the address that was given to us by the housing desk the elevator said it was only for access to classes and we didn't know how else to get to the housing office to get the parking pass. Finally we just took the elevator to the second floor and wandered around until we found the housing office. We got the parking pass and 2 sheets of directions about where, when and how to park.  

We went back to the car and we were parked facing the away from the three parking structures we were able to use. We thought we could just go around the block and then we would be headed right toward the first parking structure. Not in Portland! After a series of "no right turn" streets, we seemed to be heading towards a ramp onto the interstate. To make matters worse, we were driving in the streetcar lane and a streetcar was coming and clanging its bell at us. Next to us was a "bus only" lane and next to that was a lane for cars, but we didn't know whether it was going in our direction or not. After some crazy driving and a desperate turn that may have been illegal, we finally did get back to where we started and found an entrance to Parking Structure 1 and found a spot that we were allowed to park in (above level 3 only). Boy, did we feel like hicks from the sticks in the big city.

We began our walk by heading over to a pedestrian mall and then downhill about 6 blocks toward the Willamette River.

We saw some nice landscape, fountains and sculpture along the way.

Look! I think I see one of the cast members from Portlandia.

We followed a walkway along the river for a few blocks, passing some nice outdoor cafes.

Upon reaching the Hawthorne Bridge, we crossed over to the other side of the river and walked along the Eastside Esplanade to the Morrison Bridge.

The Hawthorne Bridge

Isn't this just what you'd expect from Portland?

The esplanade was a nice idea, but maybe not so nice as intended. Most of the time we were walking underneath a highway and we passed several homeless camps. Bicyclists were constantly zipping by without warning, so you had to be very alert. 

View of Portland from across the Willamette

I thought it would be a relief to get back across the river, but I was wrong. On the west side of the river we walked along the riverside park. The park had been taken over by numerous gangs of homeless people and the walkway had been taken over by bicyclists. We did pass a maritime museum located on a sternwheeler, but it didn't look that interesting and we didn't stop. 

Upon reaching a sewage pump station we were directed to cross the park and cross the parkway to an interesting-looking plaza area and fire museum. We then followed a narrow street toward third street where we came upon a big commotion. There were all these people with pink bakery boxes.

Some of them were sitting at picnic tables eating, and some of them were triumphantly holding their boxes like glorious prizes. We had not been alerted by the walk instructions, but we came to the realization that we had arrived at an important Portland landmark: Voodoo Doughnuts. We saw an episode of Portlandia that educated us about this type of thing: When a place is really popular, there will be a long line and some fences to control the line and when you see that, you should get in the line. And so we did. 

This really was the highlight of the walk. The doughnuts were delicious. They were beautiful and creative and we got a big pink box, which turned out to be quite a conversation starter.

A pink fence marks the line to get doughnuts

Across the street there was something called Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream. I never found out what that was all about. 

Make up your own caption

As we turned the corner onto 3rd Ave, we reached what was once Chinatown and is now Skid Row. There was a long line of homeless people waiting to get into a soup kitchen. There were homeless people lying on the sidewalk and on benches. There was a vacant lot nearby that had been turned into a huge homeless camp. There was a park where every bench was occupied by homeless people. 

When you are a tourist, always look up, and always look down

I'm not sure why the walk route included so much of the seedy side of Portland. At least 35% of the walk went past homeless camps, places where homeless people congregated, and places where a woman would not feel comfortable walking alone. It was not a way to make a good impression on visitors. 

Possibly it was intended to allow us to walk by several "installations." I didn't see plaques on them and the walk instructions didn't identify them, but I liked them.

Unfortunately, we soon returned to the river. After walking past an empty "police horse arena" we walked by Albers Mill, a fairly uninteresting site on the National Register of Historic Places. We passed some nice condos by the river and then arrived back at the sewage pump station. From here we retraced our route past the same groups of homeless people, dodging numerous cyclists. We climbed back up to 6th Avenue via the uninteresting Columbia Street and soon returned to Ondine Hall without a very good sense of what Portland is all about. We will have two more walks in Portland this week, so I'm hoping for a better experience.

Walk Route: C

Walk Instructions: C+ (The route marking was excellent. The instructions lacked km milestones after 3.2 k. Information about the sites we passed was almost completely absent. We missed the turn onto 3rd Avenue because of all the commotion at Voodoo Doughnuts. A panhandler was standing in front of the street sign. Why not say "Turn right at Voodoo Doughnuts"?)