Cyclist Photographer Plods Onward Under Heavy Hail

The storm picked up again during the night – I woke up several times and heard it drumming on the roof over our bed and howling through town like a witch with broom rage. Looks like Portland lost a few trees, though I don’t know how many. Here are two I ran across while riding today. The first one was a big branch that came down at about NE 24th and Stanton.

The second, a whole entire tree, happened in Couch Park, that beautiful park across the street from that yellow apartment building I used to live in. These two came out kind of blurry, sorry.

By the way, Blogger never did let me add that missing photo to last Wednesday’s post, so I’ll just stick it here. The name of the building was The Biltmore.

While I was living there, our last record-breaking windstorm brought down another thick old tree, roots and all, leaving a giant crater in the lawn along the Glisan edge of the park while the length of the felled tree spanned diagonally the sidewalk and intersection where you can see that white truck coming out. A couple of days later I was walking past that crater, the lower part of the now sawed-up tree still extending from it, and saw that someone had placed a funeral wreath in it. What a statement. I always remember that gesture when I see trees killed by storms.

This afternoon, just as I was photographing the tree in Couch Park, a vicious hailstorm started. I always wondered what it would feel like to ride in one. The answer is: Ow!