Riding the Brown Beaver

also know as Tri-Met Bus 19. Hey, I didn't name it - that's what it's called! What were *you* thinking I meant?

Since I've been in town for a bit over a week, and the weather was supposed to be great, it was time to venture downtown. The bus route is less than a block from the house, and cheap ($1.40 each way), so it only made sense. Stephanie gave me a route map, some pointers, and off I went. I hopped off downtown, and walked up to (one of) the farmers market(s). Cool. A mix of produce and other food items. Wow. I sampled som ranier cherries, and had to get some to snack on. Niiiice. I also got a sausage roll, and a soda, and stopped to eat & watch the world. Pretty cool, so far.

The Portland Library's main branch was only a couple of blocks away, so I stopped there to read a couple magazines, and got a book on business card designs. Not terribly exciting, I know, but I want to put some cards together......

After that I wandered a bit, and stopped by Courthouse Square. What a great space. It's smaller than I remembered. Lots of people out having lunch & enjoying the sun on the steps.

I wantered a bit more, then headed over to Powell's Books. http://www.powells.com/ What an amazing place. I could spend days, and thousands of dollars, if I had the opportunity! Not having the funds, I limited myself to browsing the architecture/planning/landscape sections, then getting a Portland map. Wow, I've been needing one of those. It'll make navigating this city *much* easier.

Time to head home. Just find the 19 bus again, right? Probably. That's not what *I* did, though. I caught the 19 bus going the wrong direction. After a few miles, I realized I was heading someplace other than home. Poop. Time to look at the system map I'd grabbed earlier. Sure enough, I was headed NE instead of SE. I could have simply gotten off, but that seemed too easy. Instead, I hopped off, grabbed the 75 bus headed south, then the 19 bus headed west. Sounds confusing, and it was, a bit. Still, I made it home, and even had an interesting conversation with someone as we waited for the 75 bus.

Lesson learned.