Ornoth

With the end of cycling’s high season, I was free to spend a week with Inna checking out Portland. Not the familiar largest city in Maine, where I lived for eight years, but its namesake, the largest city in the state of Oregon.

Although we’d both visited before, neither of us had experienced much of the city itself. My 2004 visit was based an hour east of Portland, at Timberline Lodge on the slopes of Mt. Hood; and in 2008 my second visit was even farther away in coastal Astoria and Seaside. Inna’s only visit had been for a brief convention. So Portland was a new city to us. But we had pretty high hopes, based on its reputation and several friends’ experiences.

Wed 2 October

Inna framed by the Columbia River at Vista House

Travel day, flying Pittsburgh to Chicago to Portland. Upon arriving at O’Hare, we had to wait for another aircraft to vacate our gate; and a long delay because the jetbridge at the gate wouldn’t work. The second leg was no better: a delay on the taxiway, and the paid in-flight WiFi internet service was broken. That’s four strikes against United Airlines.

It didn’t get much better at Enterprise car rental, which had a line about 40 people long waiting for customer reps, followed by another dozen in line at the vehicle pool. At the counter Inna confirmed that she had premium status, so we’ll know to cut the line next time.

Finally we were on the road for the four-mile drive to the AirBNB Inna had reserved. We got into the cute and modern over-garage studio unit with no problem. It would provide a comfortable base and refuge for our time in town.

Still midafternoon, we went on a walking tour up and down nearby Alberta Street, one of Portland’s more “artsy” neighborhoods. At Melville Books I picked up “The Essential Dogen” and Jack Kornfield’s “The Buddha Is Still Teaching”. At cat shop Roar I picked up a tee shirt, sticker, and a krinkle toy for Begemot. Stuck my head in Gladys Bikes and got the local scoop while Inna hit the herbalist next door. Stopped at haute coiffure (sic) Salt & Straw ice cream for a malted shake, which was forgettable; Inna tossed most of her coffee-chocolate, which was disappointingly over-salted. Then dinner at Cha Ba Thai, which I’m pretty certain I visited back in 2008.

All that walking was hard for me due to an achilles injury I picked up in late August. But over the course of the week it would improve, despite the ton of walking we did.

Drooping, we headed home, catching one of our hosts on the way in. We admired the little kitty solarium built into the side of their house—although there were very few kitty sightings—and an apple left by a squirrel atop a high wooden fence between the neighbors.

We unpacked and were in bed around 8:30pm, tho to be fair, that’s nearly midnight Eastern time...

Thu 3 October

After a very satisfying shower, we had an expensive breakfast at Vita Cafe on Alberta, then visited Inna’s employer’s local office. As a satellite for the Seattle office, it wound up being little more than two guys in a suburban office park conference room.

Then a stop at Powell’s Books at Cedar Crossing. Inna was overwhelmed by choice, and I chose poorly, getting two books by my former meditation teacher Larry Rosenberg (one of which I later learned I already own), and a tiny book entitled “Rebirth Explained”. Thinking it was written by Bhavana Society founder Bhante G., it was only later that I realized that the author wasn’t H. Gunaratana, but V.F. Gunaratna. At least I'd only spent $1.95 on it! While browsing the manga section, I was amused to find “the life-changing manga of tidying up: a magical story” (sic) by cleaning (but apparently not grammar) guru marie kondo (sic).

Heading downtown, a quick but fruitless peek into Western Bikeworks was followed by a stop at Eb & Bean frozen yogurt; I had vanilla with chopped hazelnuts and white chocolate bits, which was serviceable but unremarkable, tho Inna enjoyed her ginger with streusel topping. Then the city visitors’ center, where the singleminded attendant piled us high with neighborhood-level brochures when we repeatedly asked for a city-wide map.

The most productive stop of the day was at West End Bikes, where I talked to a very forthcoming guy about the local road scene before it turned—horror movie style—into a mad soliloquy about sedentary car drivers being sheep and the desperate imperative of eating healthy.

After freeing myself, Inna and I hit Powell’s flagship downtown store, but by that point we were both too overstimulated to fight the crowds. We headed back to our home base, where we had another brief chat with the other half of our host couple. Then a stockpiling trip to the grocery store and a frozen pizza for dinner.

Fri 4 October

Orny & Inna after dinner at Kachka

Panoramic view of the hiking trail in Forest Park

The view upriver from Vista House

Multnomah Falls

Pond & bridge @ Japanese Garden

Sand & stone garden

Tortured treelimbs

Pavilion and foliage

Full Portland Photoset

Fatigued, we took most of Friday off. While Inna slept, I turned in accumulated reward points for a timely $500 credit on my Visa card.

We stopped at an herb shop on Alberta, but for the second time found them closed. I gained nothing from checking into both River City Cycles locations.

Then dinner at Kachka, a restaurant founded by a second-generation Russian immigrant, and whose cookbook (of the same name) Inna enjoyed… although the fake Cyrillic font constantly misleads both of us to read the name as “Kdsnkd”. Inna's initial excitement wore off the more she ate; whereas I received a chicken leg and overcooked potatoes, which—due to my skepticism and narrow palate—I considered a culinary victory until I received the check.

Friday evening Inna dropped me off at the Portland Friends of the Dhamma meditation group. It seemed like a nice, friendly, focused group of a dozen experienced practitioners. We chanted the refuges in Pali, sat for 45 minutes, and participated in their ongoing discussion of the Vitakkasanthana Sutta (MN 20).

Afterward, I walked through a neighborhood full of bread factories and delivery trucks to where Inna had simultaneously attended a regular Portland Authentic Relating Meetup, where she’d met a new local friend named Lauren. We compared experiences on the drive back to our lodgings.

Sat 5 October

Saturday morning, Inna bounced out of bed like a Muppet in order to get to the big Portland Farmers’ Market at Portland State University, which we verified upon seeing dorm windows with My Little Pony drapery.

With such an abundance of agricultural crops in the Pacific Northwest, the market’s nearly 200 stalls were indeed impressive, including tons of fresh flowers, live pepper charring, and Mexican food fried on huge, round grills, but surprisingly no ice cream. Inna picked up mushrooms, chard, tempeh, and a rice ball, while I came away with chocolate-covered hazelnuts and cayenne kettle popcorn.

From there, we drove over to peruse the art offerings at the riverside Portland Saturday Market. Inna acquired some baseball cap technology, some tiles featuring chickadee artworks, and a “purrmaid” card from Whatif Creations for our catsitters, and I picked up a Bike Portland tee from Local922. We stopped to enjoy the sun, a burrito and ice cream, and watch people on a suicide prevention walk-a-thon along the river.

After an abortive attempt to park at the Portland Japanese Garden, we drove up into the hills and walked one of the trails through Portland’s wooded Forest Park. Although it was true all week long, this is a good time to mention that our visit coincided with some striking autumnal foliage, to Inna’s constant delight.

Some neighborhood exploring led Inna to another herb shop, while I scouted around and discovered Ruby Jewel, an ice cream shop with an unwelcoming, boarded up door, but which immediately won me over by playing Devo background music.

With weary legs, we turned back toward our local grocery store, where I picked up ravioli and alfredo sauce to cook at home, while Inna fried up her marketplace haul.

Sun 6 October

Sunday it was my turn to get up early, leaving Inna to sleep in while I drove to a 9am orientation group at the Portland Insight Meditation Community. The founding teacher, Robert Beatty, arrived late due to the Portland Marathon running through town. I spent the extra time staring out the window at the cats in the neighbor’s yard.

Eventually he arrived and asked myself and the seven women who’d showed up to introduce ourselves and say what question brought us there; my question was whether he knew the cats’ names. Then Robert provided a very eloquent summary of Vipassana meditation, punctuated by a squirrel pausing on a fence inches outside the window and staring in. Then it was time for the 10am sitting in the main hall.

PIMC owns a large former church, and around 90 people attended the sitting. They sung (not chanted) the Three Refuges in English (not Pali), accompanied by Robert on guitar, and the unexpected aura of American folk spirituality jangled my nerves. Then a 45-minute lightly guided meditation, followed by 10 minutes of qigong movements that I declined. Then Robert gave a rambling dhamma talk on afflictive emotions like anger. The group seemed to have the same basic lineage and connections as Portland Friends of the Dhamma, but more diluted and Americanized.

I made my way back to the house to catch a soccer game. Inna was out having brunch with her new friend Lauren, whom she subsequently brought over for a brief visit.

Other than that, we mostly hung around all day, taking it easy. I noticed that—with respect to my achilles injury—my heel felt better than it had in weeks, but for some reason my calf had begun hurting more.

Mon 7 October

After another aborted plan to hit the Japanese Garden, I offered to take Inna on the old scenic highway along the Columbia River Gorge, since she hadn’t seen the river yet. With some fall colors, the drive was very picturesque.

Our first stop was at Vista House, which I’d visited in 2005 with my DargonZine authors. As you’d infer, the little observation tower perched on a high bluff provides a great viewpoint up and down the great river.

Next we continued on to Multnomah Falls, which I’d also visited back in ’05. Despite it being a Monday morning, the limited parking area produced a real traffic jam, which we luckily avoided by having someone pull out of a parking spot directly in front of us as we inched along. We admired the staggeringly high falls, and climbed up to the footbridge perched between the upper and lower cascades.

I was headachey and the crowd was getting to both of us, so we turned back homeward. Inna picked a food joint along the way. McMenamin’s Edgefield turned out to be a huge 74-acre complex that began life as the county “poor farm”, but their restaurant fulfilled our needs.

After resting at home, we went to NEPO 42, a local pub, for burgers, and had a lengthy and enjoyable conversation with Lauren, who met us there.

Tue 8 October

Our final morning in Portland saw us pack up and leave the AirBNB at 11am, but we had all day (and evening) to kill before our midnight flight.

While a heavy rain passed, we took up residence at Cool Moon Ice Cream, which we both agreed was our best ice cream experience in Portland.

After the rain departed, we made our final, successful trip to the Portland Japanese Garden, which was wonderful and would have been amazing in better weather. The pictures do it more justice than any writeup.

A brief stop at The Meadow—a shop selling literally “Salt - Chocolate - Bitters - Flowers”—was followed by a terrible snack at The Fireside gastropub. Then off to the Game Knight Lounge, a gaming cafe where we killed a plateful of nachos and a few hours playing different games.

Then the usual dance of gassing up the rental car, dropping it off at the airport, getting through security, and finding our gate. True to form, our flight—which had only an 8 percent on-time record—was late arriving, which delayed our departure. And then...

Wed 9 October

The redeye flight was painful for me thanks to United’s ludicrous and Scroogian definition of “legroom”, and Inna was so uncomfortable that she barely got any sleep. When we arrived at our intermediate stop in Newark, they threw us another curveball by moving our outbound flight to a completely different terminal, necessitating a hurried shuttle bus ride. We hustled along as quickly as we could, and managed to make our tight connection just as they began boarding.

Then—let me be clear which airline this was—United hit us with a final insult by announcing that our flight was at least twentieth in line for takeoff, and they were multiplexing one runway for both takeoffs and landings, so we’d be delayed another 30 minutes. Fortunately, we didn’t have to worry about any further connections and could relax. Following the flight: the drive home, and an enthusiastic welcome home by the resident house-tiger. Job done!

Overall Impressions

Thinking about Portland as a possible place to live, let’s start with the positives. Like the other cities we’ve visited, it does meet much of our absolute baseline criteria. In addition, it doesn’t really snow in Portland. And for an outdoorsman, the environment is amazing: ocean, rivers, nice flat areas, hills, mountains, and even volcanos and hot springs, and woodland everywhere! It’s incredibly scenic and great for an outdoorsy person.

Unfortunately, that’s kinda it. In contrast, there are a pile of less-than-desirable features.

The climate is cooler, overcast, and drizzly, especially in winter. Not the nice, warm oasis I’m hoping for.

The entire town felt shabby, underdeveloped, run-down… even what passed for a central business district. Lots of boarded-up buildings. It didn’t show any signs of the vibrance and growth I’d been led to expect. It left me concerned about the tech job market. And despite—or perhaps because of—the drivers being extraordinarily timid, it was surprisingly slow/difficult to get around by car.

I didn’t get any sense that Portland has distinctive neighborhoods; there were no obviously affluent sections and no lower-income hoods, just an endless, undifferentiated mass of bland urban standalones amid strips of half-occupied, depressed-looking commercial buildings.

In the same way, also I found none of the ethnic diversity you’d expect in a thriving city. Just a lot of nondescript middle-class white people doing your average mainstream white people things.

Portland would also make it difficult for us to travel. The small airport has limited direct flights, necessitating connections on United at O’Hare, Newark, or Denver (and if you’ve read this far, you’ll already appreciate my feelings toward United). And it’s pretty prohibitively far from our preferred travel destinations: Pittsburgh, Albany, the Caribbean, Europe, and (potentially for Inna) Israel.

There’s also no kyudo in the city at all; the nearest group is three hours away in Seattle. And no casinos nearby.

So on balance, Portland doesn’t seem like the place I would pick if I had the unimpeded opportunity to choose where I want to live… and I do.

The Big Picture

This was the third expedition on our tour of places we might want to live, and the last of our “first tier” options, having hit Boulder & Denver in July, and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill & Charlotte (no writeup yet; hopefully forthcoming) way back in March.

At this point, the routine is getting awfully tedious: making arrangements, traveling back and forth, trying to feed ourselves, driving around residential neighborhoods, interrogating the locals, asking the same questions. It’s a big expense and a lot of physical, mental, and emotional effort.

We have yet to hammer out our conclusions, but all these cities have their own advantages and disadvantages, which are different for the two of us. It would be silly to think we’d find any place that was absolutely perfect for either of us; and we’ve long known that—due to our perpetually mismatched preferences—no city could ever be ideal for both of us.

With that in mind, there’s no clear and obvious winner among our candidate cities. So our next step is to sit down and decide what compromises we can each live with, and whether it makes any sense to “satisfice” or incur additional delay to look beyond our initial top picks for something else.