The Lords of the Willamette

The trail popped me out in the quiet residential area in back of the campus of OHSU, which is up in the forested hills south of downtown. The back neighborhood is one of those little pockets of hat is not usually on one's route unless you live there. The houses and apartment complexes looked like the type students might live in.

From there I walked down the street towards Terwilliger Drive. The back edge of campus was marked by a student parking lot, and the old quaint buildings of the School of Nursing.

From there I cut through campus to the VA Hospital, and then walked along the level winding road. It was easy and level. One felt high up above the rest of Portland.

A few minutes later I came upon the next ravine, which is no longer wild, but rather is opulent with soaring palaces of glass along sides. The towers are even connected by a majestic glass sky bridge for pedestrians. Down through the gap one could see blue sky and the hills beyond the river.

I picked my way along the concrete staircases, following the official trail signs. Then I followed the sidewalk up to the OHSU hospital, then doubled back along its outdoor walkway, in front the windows of the hospital reception area, through a sculpture garden.

As I did, I passed a crowd of people going the other way, who had just gotten off the aerial tram.

I zigzagged along the obvious corridors to get to the tram station. When I opened the door to the outdoor platform, the cold wind blasted me and held the door open.

The passengers were waiting in line to board. I waited for the door to close, then I watched the car descend along the cable to the station below. Far down below I could see another car making its way up the other cable.

I went out to the very edge of the platform and took in thea deep wide vista of the city and the volcanos. Mount St. Helens in snowclad glory looked almost as grand as Rainer.

Down below Portland seemed never so revealing.  East Portland rolled in a big long grid across the river. Towards downtown could see the Hawthorne Bridge spanning the river and the little triangle of water that had been visible from the Marriot. From this high vantage point, the Marquam Bridge looked outrageous---a beautiful interweaving of lanes not depicted on most maps.

My mind reeled, trying to trace the traffic along the intermixed lanes of I-5 and I-84. Like I told Red, when I was tracing out the highways on the map for her, it's like nothing I've ever seen.

I watched the traffic pile up helplessly, trying to get onto the Ross Island Bridge to reach East Portland. I thought of my friend Adam, who lives in the neighborhood on the opposite side of the bridge, and to whom I once dedicated a book. He knows a ton about typography.