This weekend, Kim and I rode bikes from our apartment in the Lloyd District of Portland to the Tacoma Bridge, following the Esplanade and the Springwater Corridor. The ride took a couple of hours at our mild, Sunday-morning pace, and it offered gorgeous views of the Willamette River and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge.
Spring and summer are the best Portland seasons. Perfect weather and big white clouds. I have to pause and remind myself often that other places in the world are not so verdant or pluming with foliage of all kinds; this bounty is on full display between May and September. “It’s so green here!” my father used to tell me. I suspect he loved southern California, where he spent most of life, but all he could talk about after we moved here in the 1990s was the deranged and lovely Oregon plant life — and the kindness of strangers.
Our halfway point on the ride was a pioneer church built in the 1800s that was, at one time, floated down the Willamette from its original location to the city of Sellwood, where it now sits. Kim and I walked our bikes to a quiet area behind the church where we ate snacks on an inviting bench.
You can’t beat true love and bicycles.
