Take the blue line to Gresham

June 29, 2025

We're almost giddy (or at least I am anyway, in my still very amped up state) when we walk out the front door of the hospital, free at last, judged not insane or dangerous, and are free to get on with our lives. In my rucksack is a copy of my discharge papers that I'll glance at but won't bother reading in detail until a few days later when I see that I'm instructed to pick up my first Tyenne prescription and self-administer my first injection as soon as possible - today if possible, an instruction buried in the fine print that wasn't verbalized when the discharge agreement was reviewed with us at the end of our interview.

Rachael has her phone out, checking out the cost of an Uber ride home. It's stiff enough that we decide to see how far it is to the MAX line, discover that it's only a seven minute walk away, and decide that my knees can handle that well enough and start walking.

Two minutes later we check our progress, see that the estimate is now nine minutes, and turn around to walk north instead.

Oh, fine then. We'll walk north instead.

We don't time ourselves, but I'm a slow enough walker that it's probably more than nine minutes until the phone cheerfully informs us that we've arrived! But we haven't, so I assume the line is just on the other side of that busy crossing just ahead, at the low point of this shallow dip we're dropping into. So we drop into it, wait our turn at the light, but when we get to the other side I see that I was wrong and there's no rail line here either; and since the phone says we've overshot by two minutes again we turn around, wait our turn to cross back again, and then walk back to the spot where we once again hear that we've arrived, and stop to see what's wrong with this picture.

What's wrong is that we erred back at step one, when we routed ourselves to the line rather than to the closest stop. In fact the line really is close here - quite close, running through a tunnel directly beneath our feet. Ha, ha.

Another check asking the right question this time shows that the nearest stop is about two miles away, so it's obviously time to phone in a ride. We order one that is due to arrive in just a few minutes and then look in puzzlement at where it indicates we'll be picked up - not here, but at some spot a few blocks away. It doesn't make any sense, but time is short so I stay here to guard this end while Rachael speed-walks to the other spot hoping she'll get there in time and we won't get charged as a no show.

A few minutes later I finally see the car driving in my direction and have my phone out ready to call Rachael telling her to hurry and hustle back because our chariot has arrived when I hear her shout my name because she's in the car already and they're swinging by to pick me up too. Finally!

Five minutes later we're dropped at the Quatama station, after hearing our driver's interesting story of the blind drunk man he picked up wandering around late one night. I've forgotten the details now, but his suffering wife is in the story somehow too and I think threw him out of the house drunk and half naked. Our driver, who's seen everything by now, scoops him up, calls 911, and then drops him off at the emergency room where they're waiting for him.

The train is just pulling in when we arrive so we hustle, get out our Hop cards, but there's only time for Rachael to clock her ride when the train is here so we both hop on and I ride for free. It's a very short ride though and we get off at the Orenco station when we realize we're going the wrong direction and are heading toward the coast range.

So here we need a little background information to make sense of all of this. One important detail is that there are two MAX lines that run this corridor, the Red line and the Blue line. In this part of the run they share the same track, but in fact they're distinct routes with different destinations at the east end. The Red line runs northeast to the airport, while the Blue line cuts southeast to Gresham.

Since we're heading for the city center either line works for us, so why did we hop on the one going west instead of east? It's because my mental map is flipped and the hospital is north of the train line, not the other way around. And in fact when I thought we were walking north we were actually going south. You can see that from the direction of the shadows above and take into account the time of day.

So since my mental map is flipped 180 degrees, when I see a train going to my right I naturally assume it's eastbound and we hop on while we can, ignoring the sign on the other side of the tracks that says City Center. Also, there's the oddity that my drug-addled mind mixed up the big picture here and somehow concluded that line color indicates direction of travel: the Red Line goes east, and the Blue line goes west. Pretty funny, considering that the train just turns around at the end of the line and heads back the other direction with no time for a paint job to occur at the bend; and that I've ridden this line dozens of of times and am well familiar with the layout. But that's mania for you! Full of interesting surprises.

At the Orenco station. Note the helpful sign indicating that this goes to the City Center.

All of which is pretty hilarious when you think about it right. But the real guffaw-inducer comes as we're walking and I have an aha moment because I'm so full of outside the box ideas now: when we come back to Portland next time, let's not stay in the city center like we've always done. Instead, let's find a place near one of the hospitals where I'll go for my ophthalmology appointment. There are lots of good things here. For one, it's probably less expensive. For another, we probably won't be required to stay a minimum of thirty days. And finally, we'd be in a nice base for some rides and walks we seldom do now because they're too far away.

I go over this idea with Rachael and then start listing the pros and cons of staying near the Sunnyside versus the Sunset facility. On the whole, the Sunnyside one sounds best to me and I start explaining why when she stops me right there with the excellent point that the hospital we want is probably the one where my appointment is at, not the one with the best rides and hikes.

This keeps us laughing and in good spirits all the way to the train line, the one we can't access because it's buried in a tunnel beneath our feet.

And that's the end of the story, really. We get off at the city center, catch the streetcar south to Northrop where we get off by Tanner Speings Park, and Rachael heads up to the room while I sit around the park for awhile just glad to be outside and enjoying the colorful scene. And of course I break out the phone to take a few shots to remember the day by.

Which really is enough excitement and color for the day, but we're not quite done yet. I'm taking the photo below when a man in a soccer jersey comes right up to me, stands in my face, and points his finger right at my good eye! "I see what you're doing, taking pictures of the pretty women here. I've got my eye on you!!"

Gulp. I quickly put my glasses on and give my best, calming effort to explain myself and defuse the situation, but he's not to be denied. He finally walks off, turning back several times to warn me that he's watching out for me now and it won't go so easy next time.

Ok, I see his point though. Probably too close. I'm just a sucker for tattoos.

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