Urban Exploration with Drunk Fox.

Hej kompisar,

I woke up today and the first two words to come out of my mouth were urban utforska or urban exploring for my non-Swedish speaking friends.

I don’t live in Portland but I live close to it. Portland is known for many things but one of them is a dedicated bike culture.  There are bike routes everywhere.  In 2012 the office of transportation decided to spice up the bike lanes by painting flags of the City of Portland on certain routes.

Do you see the flag?

As mentioned, the flags were painted on in 2012 and it’s now 2017 so the flags are fading.  I found a couple around town.

This bike lane flag could use a "touch up" paint job. 

I got braver when I was looking for the second flag.  That’s me sitting in a bike lane in NE Portland.  I hope no bikes zoom by (or cars for that matter).

The neighborhood where these flags were painted is called Lloyd District.  In the 1950s a developer started buying all the houses in this neighborhood.  Then the developer let them fall into disrepair.  When the other residents of the neighborhood wanted to move and there was only one person interested in buying….that’s right the developer.  Eventually, the developer owned all the houses, tore them down and built the largest mall in the world (at the time, 1960) and it was dedicated by Vice President Richard Nixon. 

I know they do it but why would you build an open air mall in Portland Oregon? 

The mall has a great parking structure and I am hoping to get some photos on top of the parking structure.  I bet there are some good views if I can climb to the top of this structure. 

Made it to the top but not the view I was hoping for.  Let's see if I can find a better location. 

Oooh, a better location. If you look closely you might be able to see the tower of the Oregon Convention Center in the background.

All this exploring has made me hungry.  I can’t find a place that will make a good PB & J sandwich but I did find a food cart that looks beary interesting.  They sell Doner Kebabs and I am up for anything.

Now that I am getting the hang of this "blogging" thing what will I do next?