Portland, OR: day 3

It's Monday morning. Let's see if I can remember what I did on Saturday.

Because I thought the Skipping Stone Cafe might have a queue, I went to the Chevron convenience store around the corner and picked up a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

Then I hopped on the light rail to Washington Park, which is the same stop where the Oregon Zoo is at. I headed for the 4T trail. Here's the beginning of it:

It was about a mile march to Council Crest Park, the highest point in Portland.

I thought I could catch an aerial tram, but I had to keep walking the trail. I went about another mile on the trail, then took a shortcut on a roadway, though it didn't feel like a shortcut, 'cuz it went on for a while -- probably another mile.

I eventually found the aerial tram, it was next to a hospital. Too much information time: thank god the building the aerial tram was in had a bathroom. I had to go something fierce. I couldn't really find anything on the trail, and there were a fair amount of people on the trail.

Anyway, the tram was a short ride, no more than 2 minutes. I tried taking a picture of the approaching tram.

I thought the ride was free, maybe a service of the hospital, because the operator didn't ask for a ticket, but when I got off I saw a ticket vending machine. I didn't buy a ticket. Does that make me a bad person? But I did buy a ticket for the Portland Streetcar.

The Portland Streetcar isn't part of the TriMet network that runs the light rail and buses. The Streetcar takes you through downtown. The one I was on went through the university. One part was really neat, it cut through a shopping district where people were sitting, sipping on their java outside of a coffee shop. There weren't any barriers or anything. The Streetcar snaked over the red bricks a few feet from the shoppers and sippers. Pretty cool!

Eventually I got off the Streetcar and hopped on the light rail. I went to the Fred Meyers supermarket near my hotel and got a salad for lunch.

My hay fever was acting up, with itchy eyes to the extreme, so I took about a 75-minute nap in the afternoon.

For dinner I wanted to go to a local Italian restaurant, but you needed a reservation. So I stopped in at a local pizza joint, Hot Lips, but they were all out of meatball sandwiches. I checked out SFNY Pizza, where I some slices Friday night, but they didn't do meatball sandwiches. I settled on a BLT from Jimmy Johns; I really didn't want to eat there 'cuz I hit it up all the time in Philly, but I was running out of time. I picked up some Lay's BBQ potato chips at the Chevron too.

Around 6:30 I headed to Providence Park for the soccer game. The Timbers played RSL. Good game. The home team was down 2 for a while. The match ended in a draw.

Great thing about your hotel being several blocks from the soccer stadium is you don't have to worry about driving or waiting for the train. Woo-woo!