Portland - April 2021

In mid April, Mary Ann and I decided to take a trip to Portland, Oregon.  Rather than fly we took the train.  While a flight is less than 2 hrs and costs around $300 for two, a sleeper on the train takes some 16 hours and costs over $900.  So it is not for the economy of time or money that one takes the train, it is for the experience of train travel and the scenery that you can see on the way.

We boarded the train in Sacramento around midnight on Wednesday night.  We had what Amtrak calls a Roomette - basically a small two person compartment with face to face seating in the day that converts to an upper and a lower bunk for sleeping at night.  As it was night we climbed into our bunks as the train moved slowly north from Sacramento to Chico and Redding.  As the sun came up we were in the Sacramento River Canyon near Dunsmuir passing through the Shasta Trinity National Forest.  Shortly thereafter we had splendid views of Mt Shasta over to the east.  

Mt Shasta and Shastina

After breakfast in the Dining Car (in these Covid times there was no cooking going on, just microwaved prepared food) we stopped in Klamath Falls and had a chance to stretch our legs and get some fresh air outside.  The next stop was in Chemult and after that we had a beautiful stretch of country as we moved down the Willamette valley to Eugene.  We lost over 4000 ft from Chemult at 4700ft down to Eugene at 430 ft.  It was particularly scenic alongside Lookout Point Lake which is a long skinny reservoir on the damned Willamette River.

Lookout Point Lake

After Eugene the countryside was not so exciting - just a flat plain of agricultural land through Albany, Salem and on into Portland.  We arrived in Portland around 4:30 Thursday afternoon.  It was warm and sunny.  Perhaps not quite the typical weather one expects of Portland.

The Benson Hotel

We walked up to our hotel, the Benson, and checked in before going out to explore the city.  The hotel is named after Simon Benson, a local businessman and philanthropist who made his money out of the lumber industry at the end of the 19th Century.  He gave his name to the hotel and to the Benson Bubbler, a type of water fountain found around Portland, and to the Benson Seagoing Raft, a huge seagoing log barge used to move lumber from Oregon down to Southern California. 

A Benson Bubbler

Portland is a nice city but there are not any major sights in the tourist sense.  We visited Powell’s Books (a city block of books that must be one of the best bookstores in the world); we walked along the banks of the Willamette River with great views of Mt Hood in the distance; we admired the Portland Building, a fine Michael Graves post-modern building with an impressive statue of Portlandia clinging to its side.

The Portland Building

Finding food in this foodie city was not easy in this time of Covid.  Limited indoor seating and a lot of closed restaurants.  We had to settle for a hamburger and fries -  albeit a fine hamburger and fries.  Similarly the next morning finding a decent cup of coffee was not easy and I had to settle for Starbucks.  Don’t think ill of me.

Multnomah Falls

We picked up a rental car Friday morning and we headed out of town along the Columbia River gorge.  The gorge itself is quite spectacular and the river here is impressively large.  We stopped at Multnomah Falls and took a hike up to the top of the falls and then a short way up the trail beyond the falls.  It is certainly beautiful countryside - lots of streams, lots of waterfalls, and very nice trails.

Above Multnomah Falls

Back at the car we drove further up the Columbia Gorge past the Bonneville Locks and Dam, the Bridge of the Gods (spanning the Columbia River), the old Cascade Locks and on to the town of Hood River (where the Hood River joins the Columbia River.   Hood River has a really nice feel to it.  It was a beautiful afternoon and we enjoyed walking through the small downtown area.

Mt Hood from the Hood River Valley

We turned up the Hood River valley towards Mt Hood.  The valley here is the home to many apple orchards and the apple trees were in blossom.  With the apple trees in blossom and Mount Hood in the background it was a wonderful sight.

Timberline Lodge

We wanted to visit the Timberline Lodge, the WPA built lodge on the side of Mt Hood that was the location for the film - The Shining.  We got as far as the parking lot but the lodge was closed because of Covid restrictions so we didn’t get to see its splendid interior.  The lodge was above snow level but the ski resort there was also closed. 

Mt Hood from Timberline Lodge

Timberline lodge was the start of the Hood to Coast Run which I took part in a couple of times in 2003 and 2004.  It is a 12 person relay for 200 miles from Mt Hood to the coast at Astoria.  The first time I did the race I took the first leg, straight downhill from the lodge to the main road 6 miles below.  I remember it was my fastest ever 6 miles but the constant downhill did a number on my quads for the rest of the weekend.  I would not do such a thing so aggressively these days.

Driving back into Portland we paid a visit to Mt Tabor.  This is a hill that is an extinct cinder cone on the east side of the Willamette River that is a popular park and a great place to watch the sun going down over the city of Portland below.  

The Bust of York

There was once a statue of one Harvey Scott in Mt Tabor Park.  Mr Scott was the owner and editor of The Oregonian newspaper.  His statue, by Gutzon Bordlum of Mt Rushmore fame, was torn down by protesters during the BLM protests in 2020 (along with the statues of Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt in the same year).  A bust of York, the slave of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, and the first African American to have crossed the USA to reach the Pacific was secretly installed on the site sometime in 2021.  The bust is quite impressive and I am sure it will be a permanent installation on the site.

Again in this time of Covid we found it difficult to find a place for dinner in Portland.  We did however stumble across the Tabor Tavern which had outdoor seating and pretty fine food.

Shattered Glass and Paint outside Starbucks

Driving back into Portland we left our car near the car rental office and walked back to our hotel.  On the way we came across the rear of a protest march, fortunately moving away from us.  We then saw the damage done by the protesters - broken windows, paint spilled on the pavement, graffiti spray painted on the buildings.  The scary thing was that some of the windows showed signs of bullet holes - that is not your everyday protest march.  In Portland they have a very organized group of protesters - they are all uniformed in black T shirts, they have pre-arranged meeting points and routes through the city.  The random and indiscriminate property damage does not seem to work in their favor however.

Portland Museum of Art

Next morning, Saturday, we had tickets for the Art Museum.  The walk up to the Museum passed many fine art deco buildings but no artisanal coffee shops that were open (Starbucks again).  Portland is certainly a beautiful city.  The Museum was nice but didn’t really have anything spectacular, in my humble opinion.  

Voodoo Doughnuts

After the art museum we walked down to the river and walked along the riverfront to the Saturday Market.  Apparently, Portland is famous for its Saturday Market and this Saturday was the first day it had been held since Covid.  There was the chance of interesting people watching but nothing else was too interesting to me - lots of jewelry stalls, T shirt stalls, and of course CBD oil vendors.  Portland has a reputation for doughnuts and one of the more well known establishments is Voodoo Doughnuts.  The line outside the store was long enough to deter us from wanting to try them out.

Who is Missing?

Back at our hotel we just had enough time to look at the display of historic photos in the hotel’s staircase before leaving for our train.  The staircase from the 13th floor down to the ground has photos of Portland history and famous hotel residents.  Many presidents have stayed there - at least FDR through Obama and the current President.  Missing thankfully was Mr Trump. 

 

The Coast Starlight

We boarded our train for Sacramento around 2:00 pm.  There was a problem with the lift bridge over the river that delayed our departure by an hour but we made that up over night and arrived in Sacramento on time at 6:00 am.

We were lucky on our “roomette” assignments on the right side (odd numbers) going up to Portland, and on the left side (even numbers) going down to Sacramento.  Most of the good scenery was on our side of the train.

San Francisco - April 2021

 In the first weekend of April 2021, Mary Ann and myself, went down to San Francisco for a quick post Covid lockdown getaway.  We drove down to our hotel, the Petite Auberge on Bush Street  near Union Square, parked the car and set off to explore on foot.  We had booked a 2:30 entry into the De Young Museum so that was our ultimate destination.  On the way we walked over to Union Square and down Maiden Lane to see the Frank Lloyd Wright building there, the V.C. Morris Gift Shop.  Unfortunately the building was closed so we could not see the interior which apparently is impressive and it was a prototype for the curving staircase in his later Guggenheim Museum in New York.  

Frank Lloyd Wright's Maiden Lane building

Walking the streets of San Francisco that Sunday afternoon we immediately noticed a two things; one that the streets were not at all busy - where there would normally be throngs of tourists, today there were hardly any; the other that lots of businesses were closed - with all the tourists staying away and with many office workers working from home it has been difficult for many businesses to stay alive and one wonders how many will reopen when this pandemic is over.  In some ways that made it nice to be around when there weren’t many people, but then on the other hand it was quite sad to see what a toll the pandemic had taken in the city.

We walked in the general direction of the De Young and went through the Tenderloin District.  At the best of times this is a pretty sketchy area but right now it looked particularly bad.  There are just so many people having a hard time these days and they are accumulating on the streets, particularly in the Tenderloin.  It was almost a third world-ish scene plus there was plenty of evidence of drug usage too - culminating in one guy injecting himself, between the toes, in an alleyway off the main street in the middle of the day.  It was not a comfortable walk.

We grabbed a bite to eat at one of the few places open, Max’s Opera Cafe.  It was a mediocre lunch in a place where I had previously had decent food.  We then Ubered over to the Golden Gate Park and the De Young.  The park was more crowded with people out and about enjoying the fine Spring afternoon.  People were wearing masks too.  That message had obviously gotten across to everyone.  I can’t say the same has happened in Sacramento.

The exhibit at the De Young was a combination Picasso and Alexander Calder exhibit.  I had only been aware of Calder as a maker of intricate mobiles but he was much more - a painter and a sculpture and a talented bender of wire.  I liked the wire sculptures the best - from lengths of wire he formed shapes that were so expressive.  Viewed from different angles and with carefully lighted projections of their shadows on the gallery walls they took on remarkable form.  Picasso, of course, dabbled in everything, including sculptures and mobiles and his work is always enjoyable.

Calder Mobile

Calder Sculpture

Picasso - Portrait of a Young Girl

After the main exhibit we went into an AI exhibit that should have been more interesting to me, but I think by then I had had my fill of gallery viewing.

From the gallery we walked back towards the hotel through Golden Gate Park and then down onto Market Street before getting an Uber back to the hotel.  At the hotel wine and cheese were awaiting.  For dinner in the evening, we got take out food (paella) and ate it in our hotel room - that’s a common way to do it these days.

In the morning after breakfast we set off to view some of the more obscure highlights of the city.

Isadora Duncan birthplace

We started with the building where Isadora Duncan, the dancer, was born.  A plaque commemorates the place and an alley has been named after her. 

The Bohemian Club

Then it was on to the Bohemian Club, the boys club for the wealthy and the powerful of this world.  A nice enough building with nothing to identify it as explicitly the Bohemian Club.  There is a plaque on the outside with a line from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream - “weaving spiders come not here”, implying that concerns from the outside should not be brought inside the building.  

Greta T.

On the way over to our next location there was a mural of Greta Thunberg.  Not a very flattering mural but nonetheless there she is on the side of a building in San Francisco near Union Square.  She has certainly made an impact on all of us.

450 Sutter Street Entry

450 Sutter Street

Next was a quick look at the building at 450 Sutter Street.  This is a high rise building (26 floors) designed by Timothy Pflueger.  Its exterior is impressive but not the most impressive you will find in the city but the entry doors and the interior lobby are extravagantly wonderful.  I guess the style is known as Neo-Mayan Art Deco.  We were ushered into a lift and so off we went up a few floors but these upper floors are just unremarkable medical offices, it's the main lobby that makes it well worth the visit.

Maltese Falcon Plaque

A few blocks away in a small alleyway called Burrit Street is a small plaque commemorating a fictional murder.  In Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, Brigid O'Shaughnessy “did in” Sam Spade at this location.  It is a pretty seedy location and one could well imagine that sort of thing happening.

Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires

Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires

We next stepped inside a nice little Catholic Church further down Bush Street - the Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires.  A lovely church with some beautiful stained glass windows.  The church was built by French Catholics in the late 1800’s, it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906 and then rebuilt.  It still offers French language services.

The Corporate Goddesses

On California Street on the top of a high rise building designed by Phillip Johnson are a series of sinister draped figures.  The artist that created them called them “Corporate Goddesses” but they look more like grim reapers.

The City Club/Stock Exchange

At the City Club Building in what was once the Pacific Stock Exchange we tried to get in to see the first mural painted by Diego Rivera in the USA.  Alas we were not allowed in.  We will have to make an appointment to view it the next time.

We then walked over to the Ferry Building stopping at Blue Bottle Coffee, a mecca for coffee enthusiasts, on the way.  We found the Ferry Building and the nearby Embarcadero Center to be almost deserted.  What typically is a very busy tourist and workplace location is now very different.  Many businesses are simply closed either temporarily or perhaps even permanently and there were relatively few people around.  

Amazon Go Store

There was one of the new Amazon Go stores around so we tried that out.  You check in with your smartphone app and then just wander around picking up whatever you need.  There is no check out but as you leave you are billed for whatever you pick up.  The ceiling of the store has an array of cameras that are tracking your every move through the store and identifying whatever you pick up or replace.  It is not done by bar codes or anything like that but perhaps by shelf location and some product packaging recognition.  Is this the future?  I don’t know but it was a fun experience.

Dennis Sullivan Memorial

Back at our hotel to pick up our car we noticed a plaque on the building across the road.  It was a memorial to Dennis Sullivan who was the Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department at the time of the 1906 earthquake.  He and his wife were in bed at the time of the earthquake and they were buried in the rubble as buildings around them fell.  As if that weren’t enough, poor Dennis was also badly scalded by a broken radiator that continued to pour out steam and hot water after the quake.  He later passed away some 4 days later.  This took place at a firehouse further down Bush Street but the memorial is here, across from the Petite Auberge in what also looks like an old firehouse.

Standard Gas Station

In the car now, we drove over to Van Ness to see the one and only Standard Gas Station in California.  This gas station is in almost every way a Chevron station but the signage shows Standard.  It is maintained as such so that Chevron can have an active trademark of the Standard name.  Standard Oil being the name of Rockefeller’s monopolist company that once controlled 90% of the US oil supply and that was divided up in 1911 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rincon Annex Post Office

Rincon Mural

After an abortive attempt to find the Defenestration Building which sadly has been demolished we moved on to the Rincon Post Office.  This is a beautiful Streamline Moderne building once occupied by the U.S. Post Office.  While the exterior is wonderful what is inside is even more wonderful.  The building houses some 27 murals painted by a Russian artist, Anton Refregier, who won a contest to paint the murals sponsored by the US Government.  The murals were controversial in that some of them portrayed events that some did not like to be reminded of (like labor unrest) and it was even discussed that they should be completely removed or destroyed.  Fortunately they have survived and the most beautiful of post offices is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Rincon Mural

Interior Rincon Post Office Annex