…I’m paddling a pirate dinghy across Portland’s most ridiculously polluted river, the lovely Willamette. YEE-HOOOOOO!
See website: the Portland Challenge. Three rules: no money, no motors, and no bridges. Most people swim it (check out the galleries, they’re really neat), but I’m playing it safe and putting an inflatable raft between me and the toxins.
The PORTLAND CHALLENGE (yar!) starts at a tavern in the middle of the East Side, with lifejacket dispersal and a Historical Reenactment of a 19th-century-style Portland shanghaiing. Topical? Whatever, baby, it’s Historical! Next, there’s an eight-block trek to the waterfront with a “Portland Challenge” banner and drum corps, and then…
…well, you paddle/swim/sail across the Willamette, rinse off in the Salmon Street Fountain, and then go party it up with food, music, and beer on the West Side’s Oysterbar Alley (also very Historic).
From one of the press releases: “This is maybe one of the first things I’ve done that’s constructive and sort of ridiculous,” [founder Jay Rubin, 23] laughs. “There’s no good reason to swim the Willamette.”
True dat. Hey, happy birthday, me, and viva Portland!