[pdx] Photos On Sunday: An Outer East Portland Cloud Atlas

3078.

Sometimes I have a theme, sometimes the theme has me.

I wanted pictures last Sunday, but there was nothing I could come up with to go out to particularly. But this was the Sunday that lived up to the immortal Oregon dictum if you don't like the weather, stick tight for five minutes, and it'll change

A world in the sky. 14500 Block of SE Stark St

The sky was in its gentle turmoil. Since the power of a raindrop is so small and you only get little bits of it at a time, and clouds are wisps of vapor, so it's easy to forget how much power there is there. The sun drives a great engine above us.

Westbound on SE Stark Street near SE 139th Avenue

There's also a local adage that instructs the layman on how to use Mount Hood to forecast the weather. it's a simple, 2-step process:

1. If you can see Mount Hood, it's about to rain.
2. If you can't see Mount Hood, it's raining.

Very little of Mount Hood was seen this day.

Where you can get actual typewriter ribbons.
The phone number's there on the window.

They call Portland's east side 'flat'. That's only in comparison. It's flattish. Surprising ripples and ridges obtain. It's comparatively flat. There's extinct volcanoes, ridges produced by the Missoula floods, buttes, small gullies. But it is flat enough that you see things coming your way. We watched a rainstorm approach from Out 122nd Way.

Looking west from the Bi-Mart at 122nd and Halsey. We love that Bi-Mart.

Stopping at Bi-Mart to complete an errand, we look west, and see unsettled gray. We look east, however, and see the last rainstorm leaving. A blue-gray-green gradient, all the way down to the deck. It's that unearthly sort of thing. There's a feeling to storms in every part of the country. This storm gives a uniquely Oregon feeling.

Looking east from the Bi-Mart parking lot. If they don't sell it, you don't need it.

All sorts of energy here. And bits of blue. And a cell tower, too.

West down Halsey from NE 122nd Avenue. Cropping just-so to give
the feeling of a telephoto effect. 

A long look down Halsey west from 122nd hints another storm coming our way. After the library stop, it's to the Burgerville for supper … and it's gotten closer and macho'd up considerably.

Majestic, powerful, and coming our way. The clouds fair to tower over one.

Standing in the middle of SE Stark Street, a silly thing to do.

The big billowing storm in the distance, going from the middle toward the right of the photo, is full of visual drama. I couldn't take my eyes off it, neither could The Wife™. I took a risk of standing momentarily in the middle lane of SE Stark Street, which was silly, but my girl was off so that she couldn't see me. Avoided a boxing of the ears that way.

Looking west down SE Oak Street from SE 122nd. 

The storm boiled up, came over us, and rained. And it was all very quick. Titanic as it came, gentle upon arrival.

As the day wore on, the familiar salmon tones in the clouds. Dramatic, somehow,even though it was subtle.

Boiling, like the sea. Framed by The Wife™. Art is where you find it, or,
in this case, where she did.

The world from the Burgerville dining room.

And, to close, here's one that looks like God hissef could come down out of the cloud … Something Cecil B. DeMille-Bible-storyish about that notch.

Almost thought I saw Chuck Heston, there. It made sense.