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Saturday, in the park [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-14

The No-Kings Day protest was a walk-in-the-park in beautiful downtown Portland1 today.

This morning I took the MAX (train) into Portland because I expected traffic to be chaos. (and at times the train is faster.) It dropped me right there. The site is a large/long park that extends from the Willamette River inland ~ a city block. The entire park runs about 20 blocks. My line-of-sight was limited to the 6 square blocks along the river between the Burnside and Morrison bridges. It was pretty much elbow-to-elbow from bridge to bridge, and from water to pavement (Naito Parkway.)

I have never seen this many people before in living color. That’s why I waded quickly through a couple of blocks of really happy/friendly people ( many brought their doggies.) I’d guess 50% + carried signs. I cannot deal with that many people (my problem!) so I could only stay about 20 minutes.

I did see a total of 18 Portland Police. They were in three groups of 6. They were not in the crowd, but gathered at the edges just standing and chatting with each other. They did not have a single flamethrower or machine gun amongst them. Many of them were drinking large cups of coffee. 2

I haven’t used the MAX Light Rail in several years. But I probably go Downtown an average of every 6 weeks. I have had an electric car for 7 years, and had solar panels put on my home’s roof when I purchased the Nissan Leaf. So other than tires and insurance my driving is basically free. . . except when I go Downtown and park in a garage. Then it costs me about $4. Today it cost me $1.40 for the “Honored Codger” 2-1/ 2 hour MAX fare. I’m a cheap bastard ! I’m hooked — especially during rush hours. Returning home the Max was doing ~ 60mph alongside the freeway (about 50% of the route.) The car speed limit there is also 60mph, which means the cars were doing 70! — but for 2 hours in the morning and between 4-7pm their speeds are usually below 40 mph. And my Trader Joe’s is just across the street from a new MAX station. Unless I’m buying a case (or two) of Champaign that week, my Shopping bag (recycled Cardboard Box) is light enough to schlep a block at each end of the MAX ride.

Kids, Dogs, rainbow streamers, bongos, guitars, a fortune teller, The Portland Police on their best behavior; what’s more to like ?

x YouTube Video

1(The one without Lobstahs)

2That is probably why they were all within a 2 minute walk to the bathrooms at the Fire Station.

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