Today was generally a pretty quiet day, but it started off with a bang. Ellen and Mike live in Southeast Portland, a young, hipper neighborhood like Echo Park or Sunset Junction. They are a couple blocks north of Division Street. When I first came to Portland, Division Street was a fairly dreary commercial stretch with little to recommend it except for the presence of Pok Pok, Portland’s best-known Thai restaurant. In recent years, however, it has become a hotbed of what David Brooks called the “bohemian bourgeoisie” and there are now dozens of interesting restaurants and stores up and down the street. About a half dozen mixed use projects are planned for the street, and a couple of them are already under construction.
Each year the merchants and neighborhood associations put on a street fair. It starts out with a parade.
A drum band lead the way and these pales lasses, who looked like the customers of the vampire bar in True Blood, twirled flags and batons.
Not all the participants were so unwholesome. This charming little fairy tossed fruit candies to the bystanders.
The usual assortment of politicians were there, and in Portland style there were more bikes than you might normally see. There was also some contention on display as members of the neighborhood association protested the city’s decision to allow developers to build apartments on the street with no parking. This is based on the assumption that everybody will bike or take public transit. That seems a little far-fetched to me, too.
Ellen and Mike spent the day hard at work on their house. Ellen has done a great deal in recent years with the gardening as you can see below.
Mike continued his work building the new rental unit in back.
In the afternoon, Ellen took a break and she and I rode bikes along the Sweetwater trail to the charming neighborhood of Sellwood. I didn’t bring the camera along, but I found this photo of the bike path right as you come to the Sellwood bridge.
We walked up and down 13th Avenue, the main commercial thoroughfare, and we had ice teas, after an interminable wait, at Jade.
In the evening, Mike and Ellen took John and I to dinner at Avignon, a local wine bar. The food was delicious. Other than John accidentally setting his napkin on fire, it was a perfect evening!
