Trolley fanatics for John Kerry (end of October edition)
Today, the best, the bears, and I went into downtown Portland to participate in a John Kerry rally and march to the post office to mail ballots (neither of us was actually mailing our ballots today; Julie had already mailed hers in, and I'm waiting on a replacement for a spoiled ballot, but that doesn't stop us from going to a Kerry rally.)
This time, I had a camera handy.
On the way across the Broadway Bridge, we saw the tugboat Cascades heading upriver.
Of course, I had to take a picture of the Go By Streetcar sign in the middle of the new development in the Pearl District (I have a photo which I took 26 years ago -- from the Coast Starlight -- which shows that this area was not always a lowrise version of Manhattan Island.)
We parked by Jamison Square, then walked over to the Ecotrust building for the rally. On the way, Silas and I stopped to take a few photos of one of the new Skoda trolleys.
When we reached the Ecotrust building, the Kerry rally was in full swing, so we walked around, took more pictures, listened to the various musicians, and then joined the march over to the post office. Well, Russell and the best joined the march -- Silas and I took a shortcut so we could get a few pictures of the march.
It seemed like a fairly small march, but it was long enough so it bottled up a trolley as it worked its way down 11th Street (if you look behind the marchers on the trolley tracks, you'll see, behind the police car that was following the march, the nose of one of the Skoda cars.
After marching down 11th for a while, the march turned down towards the post office. At 10th, one of the Gomaco trolleys was sitting in traffic waiting for the marchers to go by. (I like the newer trolleys because they are a comfortable smooth ride, but they make a lot more noise than PCCs do. And, of course, they're a lot heavier and they don't have openable windows.)
The post office was a bit of an anticlimax. The march reached the mailboxes, everyone deposited their ballots, the marching band played some patriotic music, and we went on our way. But, before we left (to go to that soul-eating pit of despair known as Home Depot), Russell got his picture taken with a giant Yes on 34 salmon.