Chat
02-01-2012, 11:48 AM
This is one of those dreams where I have to get somewhere. That's it, point A to point B with a mild amount of anxiety because I never seem to make any progress and my transportation options dwindle from powerful and capable to puny and laughable.
Starting in the St. Johns area of Portland, near the Willamette river, I found myself needing to get to Hillsboro, 10 miles or so to the west. The first thing I notice is the river is high enough to breach the bluff that St Johns sits on, and this is not a flood, this is just the new water level with streets and houses just disappearing into waterways as the land slopes to the old banks.
I made my way to the waterline where the flatter streets were more like canals. People had boats instead of cars here. I met some folks who agreed to take me to Hillsboro. Due west is the ridge of hills with Forest Park on the crest that runs north of downtown Portland. The crest is 500+ feet elevation, yet I assured by the driver of the boat there are some waterways that make it all the way across. This made more sense as later on some of the water ways went up and down hills, like a log ride at the amusement park, only street sized.
We take off in a fairly large boat, big enough for ocean fishing, but small enough you could still tow it with a full sized pickup. As we make our way through the neigborhood on the former streets turned canals, the residential buildings turned to the industrial structures of the river- concrete and old factory roofs, large submerged buildings.
Right about now the boat starts to shrink. Every time I notice we are in a smaller, less powerful craft. Up and down the waterways, including up hills and down flumes, and more canals, we went. Eventually the boat is not much more than an open aluminum fishing boat with a small outboard, now getting rocked around more and feeling much less powerful.
At one point I dove into the water. We had stopped briefly on a more open stretch, like a large concrete culvert- like a smaller version of the ones they have in LA that they do car chases in for movies, like Grease. Only it's mostly full. I don't know why I was swimming, I just remember seeing an underwater dog, like a bulldog, black and swimming around. It came up to me and we sort of interacted like it was a manatae. I got back in the boat.
We never made it to the west hills. Not even across where the river used to be. This is how these dreams always end- a dead end, and my transportation device has dwindled to a useless artifact. Usually I start in a car, then a motorbike, then bike, then rollerskates, then hoplessly running in molasses like slow-motion.
We went down a flume into an industrial pond. The water was brown and bubbling. I didn't want to get any on me, until I looked up and realized we had boated into the arena for a marine mammal trick show. People were sitting around the pond in bleachers and the announcer was just getting started and we decided to leave.
Starting in the St. Johns area of Portland, near the Willamette river, I found myself needing to get to Hillsboro, 10 miles or so to the west. The first thing I notice is the river is high enough to breach the bluff that St Johns sits on, and this is not a flood, this is just the new water level with streets and houses just disappearing into waterways as the land slopes to the old banks.
I made my way to the waterline where the flatter streets were more like canals. People had boats instead of cars here. I met some folks who agreed to take me to Hillsboro. Due west is the ridge of hills with Forest Park on the crest that runs north of downtown Portland. The crest is 500+ feet elevation, yet I assured by the driver of the boat there are some waterways that make it all the way across. This made more sense as later on some of the water ways went up and down hills, like a log ride at the amusement park, only street sized.
We take off in a fairly large boat, big enough for ocean fishing, but small enough you could still tow it with a full sized pickup. As we make our way through the neigborhood on the former streets turned canals, the residential buildings turned to the industrial structures of the river- concrete and old factory roofs, large submerged buildings.
Right about now the boat starts to shrink. Every time I notice we are in a smaller, less powerful craft. Up and down the waterways, including up hills and down flumes, and more canals, we went. Eventually the boat is not much more than an open aluminum fishing boat with a small outboard, now getting rocked around more and feeling much less powerful.
At one point I dove into the water. We had stopped briefly on a more open stretch, like a large concrete culvert- like a smaller version of the ones they have in LA that they do car chases in for movies, like Grease. Only it's mostly full. I don't know why I was swimming, I just remember seeing an underwater dog, like a bulldog, black and swimming around. It came up to me and we sort of interacted like it was a manatae. I got back in the boat.
We never made it to the west hills. Not even across where the river used to be. This is how these dreams always end- a dead end, and my transportation device has dwindled to a useless artifact. Usually I start in a car, then a motorbike, then bike, then rollerskates, then hoplessly running in molasses like slow-motion.
We went down a flume into an industrial pond. The water was brown and bubbling. I didn't want to get any on me, until I looked up and realized we had boated into the arena for a marine mammal trick show. People were sitting around the pond in bleachers and the announcer was just getting started and we decided to leave.