Jack-knifed trucks and wayward buses

Today's winter follies hung up traffic at the corner of Sunset and Capitol when a dairy truck jack-knifed on the icy snow.

In other local storm news, TriMet buses are now being diverted from Capitol Highway east of Bertha and Beaverton Hillsdale Highway. The downhill slope to Barbur is just too much for big rigs.

The #44 and #45 have been canceled altogether. Go to the TriMet web site for updates.

In short, it's nasty out there. Even, or perhaps especially, if you are walking, keep an eye out for drivers rolling the dice on the ice.

One of the storm's lessons about Capitol Highway is that it manages quite nicely as a two-lane street. Think of all the things we could do with those three we don't need. Median plantings. Wide bike lanes. On-street parking. Underground utilities.

A Marshmallow feast!

The patio table, once merely set with Nature’s finest white linen, now offers diners a Giant Marshmallow. Dig in!

A Two-Season Day

We woke to accumulating snow, but by mid-day, it was as if it had never happened. But here's proof that it did. As for tomorrow...who knows?

The top photo is Gabriel Park with a December look about it.

The house below is our hillside igloo.

















The two shots of the flowers show the same cluster of daffodils just hours apart. Talk about resilience and renewal.

In the first photo, the blossom in the background is protected by a shrub. They should all be so lucky.

December in March

This photo doesn't quite capture it, but that's snow at noon today in front of our house. It was coming down in cotton swab globs but not sticking. Tonight could be another story.

Icing on the Hill

I've learned over the last week or two that this winter's snow isn't staying around for long. This morning we had a serious snow flurry for about an hour, but by evening little snow was left on the ground. Just down the hill in the Hillsdale Town Center, you'd never know it snowed at all.

I poked my head outside at mid-day and took these photos while there was still whiteness to record. The shrubs looked like someone had doused them with gloppy sugar frosting. The patio table was covered with a soggy snow-white table cloth. The bird feeder, full of seed, was glazed and unvisited. The birds have been noticeable by their troubling absence.

Thoughts about walking on a snowy day

Daniel Ronan, a senior at Wilson High School and a Hillsdale Neighborhood Association board member, wrote this as last week's snow was melting:

The snowfall that came to the Portland Metropolitan area on Tuesday crippled the city as many commuters were unable to make their daily trips and buses ran on limited service.

One thing I realized while drinking a mocha at Baker and Spice in Hillsdale, was the number of walkers in the streets.

As we rethink what it means to live in a city, how the issues of land use and transportation affect our planning decisions and how we want to start creating walkable neighborhoods for all to enjoy, let us remember the snow days.

Remember the days where people get out of their cars and take to the streets and buses to get to work, coffee and the bank. Remember that what we envision in Portland are days like the snow days when people and places interact.

The more we work towards neighborhoods that are safe to walk in and enjoy, the more sustainable Portland becomes, and the more Portland becomes a prominent model for rethinking of America's cities.