The Dinosaur Of Maywood Park Is Wise In The Ways Of Mask

3716At the corner of NE 102nd Avenue and Failing Street, on the side of NE 102nd that is actually outside of Portland and inside the small, triangle-shaped City of Maywood Park, there is a house and that house has a multicolored fence made of those slatted window blinds and behind it, there's a bonsai T. Rex, in skeletal form.

You can see it in the below, head above the blue and rose colored ones, and right in front of the chimney.

And maybe it's because the dino has seen some stuff, but they wear that mask with a certain dash.

Take it from someone who knows from extinction.

Wear your damn' mask, Portland.

The Hill Going Up 102nd From Parkrose

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Maps can, of course, be unintentionally deceptive: Anyone looking at a map containing northeast Portland who have never been here may be forgiven for thinking that's a simple way to go, from NE Halsey in the Gateway district to NE Sandy in the Parkrose district via NE 102nd Avenue.

That first step, as they say, is a doozy. Here's a look up that hill from the street in front of the market I wrote about in the chapter immediately preceeding:

To give some idea of scale, the distance from the traffic signal in the foreground, NE Prescott St, at the 4500 block north, to that signal in the distance, at NE Fremont St, at the 3500 block north, is 10 blocks or 1/2 mile. The distance from where yours truly is standing to the crest of the hill is about six-tenths of a mile. The change in elevation? About 170 feet.

That is a steep hill. Think of it whenever someone goes on about 'Portland's flat eastside'.