TITLE: A First Run in Portland
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 03, 2005  6:52 PM
DESC: A new sort of drawbridge and an interesting warning sign made my first run in Portland more than routine.
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BODY:
For many, many years, my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana,
was the largest city in the United States not located on a
navigable waterway.  (Phoenix has that distinction now, and
some other cities in the Sun Belt have probably passed
Indianapolis by now, too.)  My family didn't travel much
when I was growing up, so I have relatively exposure to
life on the water.  This accounts for some of my enjoyment
of water when I run at conferences.
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-10.html#e2004-10-31T16_38_40.htm">
   Running in Vancouver</A>
is still among my favorites.

I'm in Portland today for the
<A HREF="http://www.oopsla.org/2006/">
   OOPSLA 2006</A>
fall planning meeting.  This is my first trip to Portland,
and naturally the first thing I did this morning was to hit
the road for a pre-dawn run.  5:00 AM here is 7:00 AM on my
body's clock, so that was easier than it sounds.

Portland is defined in large part by its water source, the
<A HREF="http://www.epa.gov/rivers/98rivers/fswillam.html">
   Willamette River</A>,
which divides the town northeast and southwest.  With just
one day in town, I kept my route simple, running from my
hotel on the northeast side of the river to a 3-mile loop
up and down a riverwalk in the downtown area.  It was a
nice mix of scenic riverwalk and the sort of gritty area
that I seem to experience
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-10.html#e2004-10-26T11_00_21.htm">
   in water towns</A>.

I had a couple of fun new experiences this morning...
<UL>
<LI> <EM>drawbridges</EM>

     <P> I've seen drawbridges before, and even driven over
     a cool little manual drawbridge on Cape Code.  But this
     may have been the first time I've run over one -- and
     I ran over two.  The first was an auto bridge of the
     traditional sort:

     <CENTER>
     <IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/misc/drawbridge-standard.gif"
          ALT="traditional drawbridge">
     </CENTER>

     <P> But imagine my surprise when I began my second lap
     across the river, where the pedestrian walk parallels
     a railroad track, and ran into a closed gate that had
     not been there on my first pass...  and the bridge
     was just gone!  Well, it wasn't gone so much as 30
     feet in the air:

     <CENTER>
     <IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/misc/drawbridge-new.gif"
          ALT="new sort of drawbridge">
     </CENTER>

     <P> I was so caught up in marveling at this feat of
     technology that I didn't notice how cool I became
     as I waited for the bridge to come back down.
     Standing still in 35-degree rainy weather during a
     run can be that way...

<LI> <EM><FONT COLOR="FF0000">Warning!</FONT></EM>

     <P> It didn't rain while I ran, but it had rained
     through the night.  That, and the Pacific Northwest's
     reputation for rain, rain, rain, made one warning
     sign I encountered all the more humorous:

     <BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
     Warning! &nbsp;&nbsp; Sewage &nbsp;&nbsp;
     Avoid contact with river after rain
     </EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

     <P> Hasn't it always just rained in Portland?
</UL>

I enjoyed my morning run so much that I may skip the
conference committee dinner this evening and try a
different route...  More on the conference itself
tomorrow.
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