Back to the Waterfront Blues Festival, July 5, Let's get this party started! And several inadvertent plugs for corporate sponsors

First large-scale sight of the day, right about 10:30 a.m., a welcoming spray from the Portland Water Bureau's fireboat. To me, it doesn't get any better than this--living in a city with a river running through it, populated by all sorts of waterborne vessels, some outfitted with water canons! Well, I have to tell the truth, it does get better, when the water is red, white and blue. Rising above the Willamette River is the north- and south-bound Interstate 5 on the Marquam Bridge. The various shaped roofs you see, and the red chimney, are the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, a great place to visit. The red letters you can see on the wall, beneath the leftmost water cannon spray, spell OMSI. We say Ahm-zee around here.
 

First large-scale sound of the day, the Transcendental Brass Band played their way across the bowl at Tome McCall Waterfront Park on their way to the rest of the festival grounds. Love, love, love those sounds!

BTW, did you see the inadvertent plugs for corporate sponsors? Two are major sponsors, FedEx and Kia, the other is a Safeway Sponsorship Partner, Dave's Killer Bread.

Seen outside the Oregon Rail Heritage Center

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Saturday, February 16, I enjoyed visiting the Oregon Rail Heritage Center, going in through the front door, a regular-sized-people-use-door, through the building with gigantic steam locomotives on each side of me (more photos soon), and out the back doors which are huge because the locomotives use them! 

Out back I finally got a photo that I've been wanting to take since last September. Here's the Portland Streetcar crossing over the whole area on the bridge built especially for it. That streetcar was made at United Streetcar which is in Clackamas, Oregon, southeast of downtown. United Streetcar is a subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works. On the tracks in front of me, the Nickel Plate Road 324 switcher, not operating at this moment, so I'm completely safe. To the left, those ramps are part of the Marquam Bridge, I-5 north and south. The buildings in the distance are in downtown Portland.