I took the bus downtown and strolled through Pioneer Courthouse Square where the city's Christmas tree arrived on November 5 to be fitted out for the annual tree-lighting ceremony on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
Then up to Park Avenue Cafe at the entrance to the Portland State University campus. It was a lovely afternoon to be sitting at a sidewalk table for an espresso and journal session.
I failed to get a photo today. Here is one from August taken from a table by the cafe entrance.
On the way to the waterfront I walked past a small sculpture outside Pioneer Place on Taylor Street at 4th Avenue.
If my memory serves me well there was a nice bookstore here on Taylor between 3rd and 4th Ave when I came to Portland in 1998. A different time.
I believe it was Looking Glass Bookstore, which moved from its downtown location Sellwood in 2007 because of a rent increase, downtown city construction projects, and loss of foot traffic as nearby offices moved to the Pearl District. The store held out in Sellwood until it closed in 2011. (Tom Hallman Jr, Southeast Portland: Looking Glass Bookstore victim of changing times, The Oregonian/OregonLive, January 19, 2011, updated January 10, 2019). Looking Glass was the American Booksellers Association's store of the week March 28, 2006.
My path took me to Waterfront Park for a few more photos before walking across the Hawthorne Bridge and catching a bus home.
Looking south from beneath Hawthorne Bridge toward I-5 and beyond it the new Tilikum Crossing Bridge of the People that opened September 2015. The bridge carries MAX Orange Line trains, buses, streetcars, cyclists, and pedestrians across the Willamette River. I have enjoyed many fine runs across the river at Tilikum Crossing.
Another shot from the same spot.
A nice afternoon in a city that for all its troubles still has some redeeming features.