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                                      Wednesday, Sept. 5 -- Portland -- 31 miles
Our first order of business on Wednesday
was to assemble our bikes, in the basement
of the Bluebird Guesthouse.

We had flown to Portland the day before, paying the airline's steep fee for the bikes, which we had packed in cardboard boxes. The airline failed to get Rick's bike on the connecting flight, but delivered it to the guesthouse late that night.
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Meanwhile, we walked around the Division/Clinton neighborhood
(Clinton Street is a bike/pedestrian-friendly Neighborhood Greenway)
and ate at the Nightlight Lounge.


Views from
Council Crest,
which used to have
an amusement park.


We descended through Hoyt Arboretum and the Japanese Garden and the Rose Gardens, where we had walked on a previous visit (after a Columbia River Gorge bike trip).

 Flashback: Rose Gardens, 2008

The Hung Far Low sign in Old Town / Chinatown caught our attention.
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Here's the story
of the sign.

We crossed back over the river
on the 100-year-old Steel Bridge

and followed the Eastbank Esplanade.
We're not used to urban riding
 among this many cyclists of all varieties!
To navigate in the city, we used
the Portland by Bicycle map,
the Southeast Portland Bike/Walk Map
and the book "75 Classic Rides Oregon"
by Jim Moore.
Crossing the Willamette River on the Hawthorne Bridge was easy. 

This 3-minute video shows bicyclists on the bridge
at rush hour.

Downtown, we grazed at the
Portland Farmers Market at Shemanski Park.
We sampled peaches, tomatoes, goat cheese, gluten-free desserts and more, and bought fresh salads and grilled corn on the cob.
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We biked up to Council Crest Park. We didn't realize we were heading for the highest point
in Portland, at 1,073 feet above sea level.

From Council Crest, you can see
Mount Hood (zoom view below),
Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens,
and Mount Rainier.

Council Crest is the final climb of a springtime hillfest known as Tour de Ronde or Ronde PDX.


Check out this 6-minute video about the ride. Council Crest is shown from about 5:27 on.
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Back on the east side of the river, we took the Eastbank Esplanade along the waterfront and then a bit of the Springwater bike trail, south to Sellwood. We turned back north on city streets and hit the Moreland Farmers Market for another peach.

I had to pose at the sign for Tolman Street.
.
We got back to Clinton/Division near dusk and ate at a sidewalk table at a
Japanese noodle bar called Wafu.

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