A Wasp in Cascadia: Ride Report 3 - Over the river and through the woods

It's a smoky day today - wildfires nearby have made our air 'unhealthy.' Still, I managed to get a ride in before it got too bad.

From my house in far southeast Portland, I went north to Columbia Boulevard, which is a surprisingly nice road that goes east west at the very north edge of the city, near the airport and a swath of industrial developments. There are few stoplights, and though the road is nominally a 45 mile per hour zone, ahem, that wasn’t exactly the speed people were going. Lots of fun.

I nearly ran out of gas, though, because I got confused trying to get from Columbia Blvd into St. John, and then trying to find a gas station in St. John was a challenge. I stopped in at this little convenience store with gas pumps out front only to discover that the gas pumps were apparently decorative or just not in use. I should have taken a picture with a Magritte-ish caption ‘this is not a gas station.’ Still, I did manage to find gas in time.

I rode down to the piers of the St. John’s Bridge, where there is a nice little park and some great views. I discovered this big metal plaque that commemorated some kind of a textile mill that was once on the site, and it had little viewfinder things you could look through to see pictures of the site at the turn of the century. Pretty cool.

I rode back up and across the St. John’s Bridge, which is always a little scary since it’s so high up, and I have acrophobia. Once across the bridge, I entered Germantown Road.

Germantown Road is a wonderful, narrow two-lane twisty road that goes through the West Hills of Portland. It has great hiking trails, and it was full of bicyclists and weekend road trippers (including a phalanx of BMWs – must’ve been a group ride for people who drive BMWs). It was slow going at times because the switchbacks were so twisty I had to take them very slowly or risk losing control of the scooter. There’s a part of the road that has a 45 mph speed limit, but I was not about to take the scooter through the twisties at that speed.

I found myself in the middle of nowhere, and yet I was something like 10 minutes from the city proper. Germantown opened up a little and became a wonderful country road that was leading me I knew not where. Germantown bottomed out at Cornelius Pass Road, and I took that a little ways until I figured out where the heck I was.

Hillsboro, as it turns out. I was surprised to see that sign. Hillsboro is a suburb of Portland, and I had no idea I’d gone out that far.

I turned around, took Germantown back to the St. John’s Bridge, and stopped at the farmer’s market there to pick up some jalapeno jelly and Olympia Provisions kielbasa.

I took Willamette Road back east-ish, past the University of Portland, where a BEE managed to hit my helmet and get stuck in the gap on the bottom edge of the visor. Quite a scary moment, but I pulled over and got the bee out of my helmet without incident.

Willamette turned out to be a wonderful road as well – on a ridge overlooking a great view of the river and downtown in the distance. Eventually I found my way to Interstate, took Interstate to Burnside, and took Burnside home.

Really nice ride.

Here's the route map:

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