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Chapter 3

Saturday Chillinz

The next day after arrival Joleen and I woke after a much needed solid night o’ sleep, except for the tink tinking the pipes made from the steam heating system they still have in the place from yesteryear.  But we where warm and that is what really mattered.  In this non-metropolis of Forest Grove it appeared to be around 11:30am.  We had a taste for food so we headed out to the main dining area and got some grub.

At 1:25pm we walked out to see if we could tell if anything was running.  The day was desolate, like a nuclear snow holocaust, eerily quite.  Walking in snow crunching below our feet and the sound reinforcement left everything very dense.  Once upon the street we saw a steady stream of cars and trucks, with snow chains and studded tires, rolling in and out of town.  Even the front wheel drive vehicles, when properly equipped where doing ok.  Of course, however, the snow was not as piled as heavy as it would be the coming days.  We where only talking about 6-8 inches at this juncture, without the hardened ice level that would be created on Sunday and last through Tuesday of next week.

We started walking toward the heart of Forest Grove.  After about 40-45 minutes we arrived in downtown Forest Grove and stopped in a cafe style establishment.  I had a mint latte and Jo a hot cider.  After a while we got up and headed toward the #57 bus stop to see about catching a bus back to the Grand Lodge versus walking back for another 40-45 minute trip.  We had seen a #57 when heading to the stop heading west so knew it would be turning and heading back in a short time.  This gave us even more reason to wait.

We walked the last block and a half down to the east bound #57 stop and started waiting.  After about a minute a young guy on a bike arrived that was bound for work in Hillsboro.  He had a freestyle slash BMX bike that he was riding, and seemed to be having fun on the thing.  He said he wanted to cut a C in the snow with his bike, and of course, Joleen and I being the devil’s advocates that we are said get on out there and do it!  So he did.

This kid started having an absolute blast at this point with his bike.  Her cut some Cs in the snow and then tried a back flip with the bike.  He fell in the snow and then did a few back flips without the bike, landing in the snow every time.  He lit up with a happy glow at all this goofing about.  We told him we’d watch for the bus coming, and saw it waiting at the time point just west.  Finally it pulled out and we hollered for him to head over.

We all boarded and he mounted his bike and jumped aboard.  A lady that had arrived was still laughing with entertainment at the kids enjoyment of the snow.  He began disrobing his outer layers that where caked with snow on the bus by the back exit door.  Since there was only about 7-8 of us on the bus, it was easy and no problem for him to do.  We talked and laughed about the ridiculousness of the snow while on the bus.  Finally Jo and I arrived at our stop, but we passed it by mistake and got the next stop.  At this point we where both sick and tired of the snow and headed back to the Grand Lodge to warm up.

We arrived back inside and enjoyed a relaxing evening of fire place fires and reading, reading, and more reading.  It was most excellent.  I LOVE fire places and reading.  I honestly don’t think there is a more enjoyable relaxing thing to do - except for maybe shredding for hours on the guitar - but yeah, it was a good bunch of hours chilling in front of the fire place, just forgetting about the world.

Departure Sunday

After another night of tink tinking pipes and a warm sleep of a few hours we arose at 8:45am, hungry, and about ready to get back to the city and home.  The parents that had a lacking parenting skill and boisterous annoying kids where running about, chasing the kids and attempting to hush them, to no avail.  This made our home bound trip all the more desirable.  At 9:45 we headed to check out.

With a short walk out into the cold we stood waiting for the #57 east bound to Hillsboro.  It didn’t take too long thankfully, but what we got was, well, strange to say the least.  The bus arrived, tilting no less than 20 degrees on the left side.  It appeared, even though no one was truly sure, that the side suspension was completely frozen or blown out.  I would think that the cold probably froze it up and it was either completely stuck, or had been punctured maybe and the air pressure wasn’t keeping that side of the bus up.

We wobbled on our disabled #57 back toward Hillsboro at about 5-10 mph.  The operator tried getting up to a little higher speed at one point, which seemed to lift the left side just a bit, but then we hit a few snow bumps and it bounced us so hard she immediately slowed down again.  We traveled like this all the way, bouncing and slowly piddling along.  At one point another #57 zoomed by at what must have been a blazing, lightning fast, NASCAR like speed of 25mph!  We followed this speed demon into Hillsboro where the driver made a smart call and got everyone transferred over to the other, non-disabled #57.  Jo and I meanwhile headed on over to the MAX stop to wait.

The TriMet crew, at this point doing what they did for the remainder of the week, working overtime and busting ass was blow torching the switches to prevent the switches from icing up.  So after a short delay they got our MAX Blue Line train pulled out of the end station and it pulled through the switches and into our station stop.  We boarded and off we went.

The remainder of the trip was almost per schedule.  Smooth riding all the way.  When we arrived downtown we switched over at our transfer point to the #9 and headed out.  It was kind of creepy going across the Ross Island Bridge as you could not actually see ANY of the bridge surface.  We finally pulled up to 21st & Powell, got off, walked across the snow covered and packed street back the half block and into the apartment.

One word at this point, at being home, relief!

Fini

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