I meant to put this up earlier this week, but the week just got away from me because I was in Portland, which is the genisis of this post. Somewhat circular, or redundant, or confusing. Or something. Anyway.

I was down in Portland on Tuesday and Wednesday to meet up with my coworkers and to produce a webinar announcing the Sustainable Industries Top 10 Green Building Products (pardon the shameless plug, but I am proud of the book). Tuesday evening, we all met up at this bar (I’ve now forgotten the name Update: it’s called Hedge House) for some beers and I saw a sight that perfectly illustrated what I love about that city:

Lounging on a restaurant lawn

Unfortunately, my minimal talent as a photographer lies in taking pictures of people’s faces, not scenes. But what is going on here is that a full restaurant/bar on a lovely summer evening, the overflow crowd (most of whom have ridden bikes there, natch) are simply lounging on the lawn, drinking beers, tossing balls, and generally goofing around as if they were in a park.

Portland is such a relaxed, subdued town, people think nothing of creating a third place whereever they may be. It’s a lovely place to spend time because of that.

I’m in Portland, Oregon all this week for work. The magazine I write for–Sustainable Industries–hosted its Portland Economic Forum on Tuesday and then we held two days of editorial meetings afterward. Since I was already planning to come down this coming weekend to help pick grapes at Blooming Hill (where my mom and Jim live), I decided to make a week of it. So I’ve been staying at the farm all week and commuting in to Portland on the light rail every day. (An aside: It is so nice to have a train to take to work instead of a bus. I wish Seattle were more forward-thinking. AH well. Soon we’ll have light rail too.) One of the benefits of this is that I get to wake up in and go to sleep in a beautiful setting everyday. Although I never want to commute this far to work on a regular basis (about 30 miles or so) because most of my time is spent at work, getting to work or sleeping and not enjoying farm life, it does provide opportunities like waking up to the view I had yesterday morning.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Sunrise at Blooming Hill Vineyards