A year ago today, with a post about Budvar finding its way to beer taps in Portland, this blog was born. 256 (4.9 per week!) posts later and I’m still here. Whew!
Thanks for reading and commenting and linking!
Note: the nifty Star Wars Scrolling thing that I had up here on Sunday is no more. Starwarscrawl.com was asked by LucasFilm to remove it from the interwebs 🙁
I used to make mental note of the dates and times of upcoming Timbers matches, eating contests, festivals, fairs, and events in and around town, and pester my friends with the information via email weekly as the events beckoned. If it had a beer garden, I was on it!
During the summer, there are worthy events every weekend, sometimes overlapping (e.g. the Mississippi Street Fair and Bastille Day festival are both on July 12th this year). I would plan itineraries for my friends, so that we could make it to everything, even if that meant a couple hours downtown in the morning, then the afternoon in SE Portland, and then to PGE Park in the evening for a Timbers game. I’m carfree, so I would plan out the transit routes and timing as well, and pass that along to my friends (though they almost always drove anyway). It was quite the undertaking, and my friends were thoroughly irritated pleased by my persistence in reminding them of my plan for their weekend.
At the beginning of last summer, a few friends and I were discussing the Polish Festival. Someone asked when it was held, and another friend said “Dave Knows.” That was the eureka moment. Daveknows.org was launched soon after.
And one of the features of that nascent blog was the DaveKnows Calendar. As the festival season faded last fall, I stopped updating it, but as the summer event schedule picks up, I’ve begun populating the calendar once again. All the events mentioned above are on it, as are all the Timbers game.
NB: My calendar is not an exhaustive list of Portland events. It’s the list of events my friends and I might want to go to. Some other great resources for local events:
With my super ninja google skills I found this French-language nugget:
Lyon envisage sérieusement de suivre un camp d’entraînement aux Etats-Unis lors de la deuxième semaine de juillet. On cite la ville de Portland pour accueillir les champions de France. Pour l’occasion, deux matches amicaux seraient programmés.
Now I’m only in French 102 (seriously), but this seems to be saying that the French League champs, Olympique Lyonnais, will be training in the USA, in the town of Portland in particular, and will be playing two friendlies in July.
If this is true, it will be quite the coup for the Timbers.
Maybe Mississippi Avenue should be closed to cars all the time?
Tomorrow afternoon the Cirque du Cycling comes to town. Later in the summer the Sunday Parkways and the street fair will also serve up some bike and pedestrian friendly time on the strip. As part of the Cirque du Cycling Saturday, Mississippi will play host to a bike parade and bike races.
Bonus beer garden!
Other than the clowns, the parade sounds like it will be amusing:
The Mississippi community is coming together to put on the best circus street fair in town. Get ready for clowns, jugglers, unicycle jousting, sculptural bikes, freakishly tall bikes and other two-wheeled creations beyond your wildest dreams!
Earlier in the day the Cirque kicks off with a family bike ride through the Boise-Elliot neighborhood.
At 7pm at PGE Park the Timbers play their first exhibition match (of many) of the summer. Juventus Primavera is the foe. Who the hell are Juventus Primavera? The Timbers press release explains all:
A team of up-and-coming players for famous Italian club Juventus, its Primavera squad features four youth international players and several who have already seen action with Juventus’ first team which competes in the Serie A – the top tier of Italian professional soccer. Juventus Primavera competes in Italy’s Campionato Primavera, a 42-team league comprised of the top feeder teams from each of Italy’s Serie A and B clubs. In its 46-year history, Juventus’ Primavera team has captured several titles both in league and nationwide competitions.
I’m pretty confident the Timbers Offside Blog will be previewing the game soon . . .
Well not exactly.
But Portland does host the Towards Carfree Cities conference from Monday, June 16th through Friday the 20th.
The theme of the conference is Rethinking Mobility, Rediscovering Proximity.
The Towards Carfree Cities conference series brings together people from around the world who work to promote practical alternatives to car dependence. The conference attracts professionals, advocates, and community leaders who focus on the creation of sustainable transportation systems and on the transformation of cities, towns, and villages into human-scaled environments rich in public space and community life.
The fundamental role of the conference is to share knowledge and assist the practical work of conference participants, whether it be organizing community events, promoting urban cycling, or building the carfree cities of the future.
Registration remains open during the week. The program includes a public day on Tuesday, which you can register for separately.
The conference is followed by Portland’s very first ciclovia, which the city is calling Sunday Parkways. Next Sunday, June 22nd, from 8am to 2pm a big chunk of North Portland will be carfree.
From the PDOT Portland Sunday Parkways webpage:
6 miles, 6 hours, zero traffic!
A circular route of city streets open to walk, bike, run, jump & skip – without having to watch out for cars!
A 6 mile “temporary park”, connecting North Portland neighborhoods and residents.
A relaxed, non-competitive, FREE event featuring a variety of activities in 4 parks and along the route.
Below are some links to local and national coverage of the Towards Carfree Cities conference: