The Northwest – specifically Oregon and Washington – have a chain called Burgerville. From the appearance it looks like a 50s-facade diner serving up greasy grub. In reality it’s a 50s-facade diner serving up fresh, thoughtful, in-season foods. Their commitment to sustainability and environment is evident through their recycled and recyclable packaging. The food is fresh and ingredients locally sourced. After our walk yesterday Peter was craving a burger. I went for the cherry walnut salad since cherries are their featured seasonal item right now. After we paid I got this receipt:

Most restaurants don’t want you to know their nutrition info. Burgerville prints it on the receipt. That is so so awesome. I love to be deliciously informed. I really hope other restaurants follow suit.

Kudos Burgerville, and Kudos Nutricate.

This morning Peter and I participated in the Providence Bridge Stride. As you may know Portland has several bridges – 11 to be exact. The Providence Bridge Pedal (and Bridge Stride) is a yearly event allowing participants to cross the bridges by bicycle or foot. This Included bridges that normally do not allow pedestrian/cyclist access. Cyclists can cross 6, 8, or 11 bridges. In the stride you cross 2 bridges by foot along a 5 mile route. That’s what Peter and I did.

We took the MAX train downtown and got off near the start of the stride and checked in. Here’s Peter in his COOL vest:

Waiting for the start time (8am)… lots of participants!

The first bridge we crossed is the Fremont Bridge which is I-405. This was the one I was most excited about because it’s normally buzzing with traffic round the clock!

Walking onto the exit ramp:

Excited to be here!

You can see some cyclists also crossing:

The second bridge we crossed was the Steel Bridge. This was exciting because I had never done it, but not quite as cool/exclusive because this pedestrian path is always open.

I’m glad I know about this spot though. Such wonderful views of downtown can be seen here. I snapped a photo but I will definitely come back on a nicer day.

We made it back to the finish line to pick up our finisher pins and hydrate. It was a fun event!

It’s hot. If you live in Portland you are well aware of this already.

I snapped the photo above in the car yesterday.. the “official” recorded high that day was 106, same as today. The highest EVER recorded temperature in Portland is 107 so, we aren’t far off. They say this is the longest 100+ heatwave since 1981. Going on nine days. HOOH!

Another ‘weird thing’ in Portland homes that I neglected to mention is that most don’t have central air conditioning. Most of the year you don’t need it. But this week we sure could use one. Yesterday Peter and I went to the mall to walk around and caught a screening of Pixar’s UP (very good!). The mall was really busy for a Tuesday at 3pm, so I can only guess everyone else had the same idea we did… get out of the heat!

We left Lucy at home, but with a bowl of ice water in her crate and two fans on high pointing at her, so she seemed to be doing fine.

I grew up in the south: Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee. I know what this heat is like. But I did not expect Portland to ever remind me.

Since Peter and I got to Portland and hit the ground house hunting, we have seen 30-40 homes. They have been every different style but we have noticed a few features in Portland houses that we don’t have in St. Louis.

Creepy Crawlspaces
Lots of houses have unfinished basements. Portland interprets unfinished a lot more literally, and they neglect to wall off half the underside of a house. They call them crawlspaces but what they are are exposed dirt piles. Some of them are out in the open, others are visible behind an opening, all of them are creepy.

Creepy Crawlspace © Susan Lawson

Potbelly Furnaces/stoves/heaters
They’re chubby and cute and period-looking. I see the appeal. But I see a huge thing taking up space in every room, which removes walking space or furniture arrangements.

© steveyb

Garages not meant to hold cars
You could chalk it up to older garages built in a time when we didn’t have such massive vehicles on the road, but we’ve seen many that were built this decade. They’re houses with a one-car garage, according to the real estate listing. But in reality there is no way these things could house a car. They’re too small, and more shed-like.

Also we see a lot of garages that, if cleaned out, could fit a car.. but seems Portlanders like their storage space more. I think the lack of need for car shelter can be explained by the lack of snowfall here. These folks don’t know what it is to dig out your car every morning.

Peter and I are night owls. The temporary dwelling we’re at while we house hunt has a bizarre cable package… only like 20 channels and nothing good ever seems to be on. We’ve been watching some public access and old sitcom reruns.. there are some interesting things on TV here.

Here was some..thing on public access recently:

Local commercials are a treat too.. check out this one from Outrageous Audio:

There are countless dateline commercials and local college commercials that drive me to hit mute whenever they’re on… specifically one for Anthem College that pretends to be a telethon with awful actors. The premise is fine aside from the nonstop ringing telephone sound track they added on. It’s obviously not a live telethon, I have seen the same commercial for weeks straight. Jig is up.

There was bizarre television in St. Louis.  Becky Queen of Carpets & Dirt Cheap Beer comes to mind. But I rarely watched TV. And based on this short time with cable television here, Peter and I have decided not to get cable at the new house. TV on DVD and internet is the way to go.