Flip 16--Below the Bluffs

7/20/2011  Wednesday  7:00 PM

Location:  Overlook neighborhood, N. Basin and Leverman

This flip takes me to the edge of the Willamette near the University of Portland.

From above, one looks down on Portland Harbor and Swan Island.

Getting to the bottom isn't easy. I find an old path that takes me to a rail line.

 

The detritus of decades of trains litters the tracks.

Once down on the flat along the river bank, I pass a Coast Guard station. Behind the barbed-wire fence, a man sits cross-legged on a picnic table, playing a small flute or recorder. I don't get a picture, unfortunately, but it's a nice sound to hear in the early evening, and an image a little unexpected from a serviceman.

I pass a lot containing rows of military trucks, newly built by Freightliner, headquartered nearby.

The streets hold an eerie quiet, broken only by the sigh of semi trucks driving to and from warehouses.

 

On an overpass over the tracks, I stop to watch a train. 

After two engines pass, nothing but flat, empty cars.

The Cyclone fence advertises what it's made of.

Riding through deserted winding streets, I pass boxy, industrial buildings surrounded by manicured lawns. A sprinkler system whispers, not unlike the sighing trucks, millions of tiny droplets glinting in the descending sun.

Up on the bluff, I see the building I was born in. Once a hospital, it's now the American headquarters for Adidas.

From an elevated road, I look down at a stationary train, each of its cars holding three green light assault vehicles.

On the other side of the road, the city appears trapped in a cage.