Lovejoy Bakers

Busy day for us old duffers today. We went to the Pearl District in Portland and found a parking spot. Yay, us! We saw this bakery on our way to finding the parking place and we walked our way back to this spot. We had a little snack and a latte and sat outside and I felt so "urban" and "hip". Do people say "hip" anymore. Hmmm, probably not. It is on Lovejoy street and lots of things are named Lovejoy in Portland, named after Asa Lovejoy who was one of the "founding father's" of the city. Asa Lovejoy's family tree ends up in Maine where it comes to a halt. However, I am pretty confident that his roots probably extends to the Lovejoy's that settled in Massachusetts as many of them headed north into Maine. I only mention this, because I am related to the Lovejoy family. My grandmother was a Lovejoy. I am also pretty confident that most of the Lovejoy's all come from one family in England. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. I digress. Sorry.

We walked, we gawked, I took photos of stuff and it was a pretty warm day, so I suffered a bit. But this is no doubt the last warm day of summer, as rain is on the way, so I was not going to complain and I didn't. It was 81 F and beautiful!! We found one of the parks that had a fountain and kids playing in the water. I really wanted to play in the water. I probably could have, but I didn't want to get my pants wet. We saw lots of people, some with kids and/or dogs, a really scary looking couple, a moose head, art work, a nifty store called Cargo which was a really fun place to explore with lots of Asian artifacts and do-dads to look at, and honestly, if you want beer, coffee or food, you won't walk but 10 feet without passing a place that will accommodate you. We saw new buildings and old buildings and new buildings made to look like old buildings. We saw Whole Foods and their beautiful store and the Mothership building of the Henry Weinhard Brewery. We didn't see everything there is to see in the Pearl, as it takes up a lot of real estate but we did our best. Then we went to Andina for our dinner. We had great beer, good and interesting food (steak for Bill and duck for me) and dessert. I don't want to look at food for at least a week. Then we left and ended up going to Rocky Butte which is a hill with a nice place to view the city in NE Portland and we got there to see the harvest moon still fairly low in the sky. There were a lot of people up there enjoying the perfectly warm evening and taking photos of the moon. A family had a picnic and a young man was playing the cello! It was wonderful. If you want to look at a whole bunch of photos they are here. That includes the moon party and the photos are junk, as I didn't have the right lens or a tripod with me, and I had to get rid of shadows so you could see the guy playing the cello. But, you can get a sense of what it was like. If you want to take a quick look that is. Your call.

PS. If Lovejoy sounds familiar and you watched The Simpson's, then you know where Reverend Lovejoy got his name from. Matt Groening is from Portland and many of his character names have roots in Portland.

It was a fun day and I enjoyed spending it with Bill. Now I'm tired..!! See ya later.