Transit Trip: Estacada via TriMet Bus

Someone is blasting Snoop on their phone when I change from the Green Line MAX to TriMet’s Bus 30 at the Clackamas Town Center, and “Gin and Juice” plays in my head as the bus winds its way out of the parking lot and rolls onto SE 82nd Avenue. With someone else doing the driving on 82nd, I stay laid-back. And like Snoop, I’m pretty pleased with myself, though instead of downing gin and juice, the pair I’m excited to check off today is south and east. Bus 30 is taking me to Estacada, the southeastern extreme of TriMet’s service area.

A long-ago neighbor of mine who worked for TriMet said the Estacada run was one of her favorites to drive. Back then it was called the 31, and it left from downtown Portland. Nearly a quarter century later, the closest the route gets to downtown is the Clackamas Town Center, and I’m finally checking it out.

The 30 passes industrial parks and mini-storage facilities along OR 224, plus the occasional house built back when this was the far-off countryside. Nearing Carver, the homes are newer, with recent construction hidden behind brick walls or high hedges, and trailer parks behind chain-link fences. As we pull out of Carver, I wonder if the bus windows have suddenly taken on an emerald tint, and New Order’s “Everything’s Gone Green” takes over from Snoop as the soundtrack in my head. Moss-covered roofs and ivy-sleeved tree trunks create a tunnel of green. Once we emerge from the forest bath and the hills flatten out around Barton, I’m feeling pretty far from the big city.

Turning off 224, we pass Philip Foster Farm, where a manager of the Barlow Road once greeted new arrivals along the Oregon Trail (and had a son named Egbert, I later learn). Nowadays the nonprofit-run historical site hosts school tours, camps, weddings, and an annual cider press in September. Soon I notice freshly built houses creeping up the hillside, landing places for today’s new arrivals to the growing exurb of Estacada. We zip by the brand-new library and an under-construction park, passing kids at recess outside a 1930s-era art deco middle school and a 2000s-era elementary, and then the bus drops me off right in front of city hall.

Before this trip, I’d been in “downtown” Estacada exactly once, more than 20 years ago, to visit the taxidermy-filled Safari Club. Opened in 1970 by a lumber baron/big-game hunter who wanted a place for his trophies, the lounge closed in 2013 (some of the taxidermy moved to an Oak Grove storefront) and has since been razed, with a Dollar General built in its place. On that early-aughts visit, I might have been on my way home from Bagby Hot Springs, or maybe I was in the area checking out Milo McIver State Park. Known today for its disc golf course and fishing spots, Milo McIver is where, the same summer the Safari Club opened, Gov. Tom McCall’s office famously diverted a feared mob of Vietnam War protesters from downtown Portland by siting the state-sponsored Vortex I music festival along the Clackamas River instead.

The section of river close to town, between the Faraday (originally Cazadero) and River Mill Dams, is called Estacada Lake. In its early days, Estacada was largely a camp for dam workers, and the railway that carried materials to the hydroelectric projects helped spur the growth of the settlement. From the bus stop, I cross 224 and walk along Lakeshore Drive. After the road ends, a paved footpath continues toward Timber Park. Benches, picnic tables, and a “Be Here Now” sign dot the walk, with the traffic sounds from 224 competing with the occasional waterfall. Just past a bench labeled Tony’s Bluff, trails lead down to a rock jutting out in the river that might be an inviting summer swim spot if it weren’t covered in broken glass.

Signs posted along the river path by Portland General Electric forbid camping and campfires and, near a swim dock with a kayak launch, warn of swift currents and submerged hazards. In Timber Park, it’s not a PGE sign but a cry of “fore!” that lets me know I’ve wandered onto a disc golf course, albeit a less famous one than Milo McIver’s across the river. A mini log cabin sits in the middle of the course and offers shelter from flying objects, plus plenty of graffiti to read while I wait for some disc golfers to pass. Later I remember I have a Sharpie in my bag and could have added some of my own, but I’m not sure I can compete with the poetry of “Smok’n Fatties” or “Boners Ahoy!”

Fittingly, there’s no graffiti back in town at the Estacada Veterans Memorial, where bricks on the Wall of Honor name people with local ties who served in the military, not just those lost in combat, and include some details of their service. I spot families with multiple generations in the US Navy or Marines, and soon find myself googling to read more about the Sky Dragons Airborne Corps and learn what CTI stands for (cryptologic technician interpretive). I purposely avoid looking up the namesake of nearby Zobrist Street, though, and choose to believe it was recently renamed for Cubs second baseman Ben Zobrist following his 10th-inning double in Game 7 of Chicago’s victorious 2016 World Series.

The curse-breaking MVP should come to town and take a selfie with the street sign at the corner of Second and Zobrist. While he’s there, he could treat himself to a very freshly made, very large doughnut from Grammy’s, a family-run food cart that pops up in Estacada most Fridays. Hungry from my walk, I overestimate how many I can eat: One original giant ring is surely enough, but maple won’t be the flavor of the month again till September, so I have to get one of those, too. The cart was founded in part to be “a blessing to others,” and my son certainly feels blessed the next day when I share my leftovers.

For lunch in downtown Estacada, I could add to the burger count (over 2 million served) at Lew’s Drive-In, grab some corn-tortilla tacos from Hueso or curry from the Thai Bento cart next door, nab a BLT and a hunter-safety-orange souvenir hoodie from the Old Mill Saloon, or play some arcade games next to a thin-blue-line flag while I wait for my pizza at Hitchin’ Post. But I land at the Sabor Yucateco cart for a plate of polcanes, hearty mounds of masa stuffed with white beans and ground pumpkin seeds and topped with pickled onions, cabbage, and salsa.

“The chubby ones take a little longer,” the cart operator tells me, but she doesn’t know how full of doughnuts I am and that the wait suits me just fine. With salbutes, empanadas, and panuchos on the menu, plus tacos and tamales, the cart alone is a reason to plan a return trip. I wash down my polcanes with a pilsner around the corner at Time Travelers Brewing, a cavernous, family-friendly space that’s quiet on a Friday afternoon, but I spy some tiny bowling pins on its shuffleboard table and am curious to come back sometime for a game.

I pop into the lovingly laid-out gift shop/old camera museum/birdfeeder emporium Mossy Rock, where a group of plush-toy bunnies seems to be having a family meeting in the front window, a fuzzy squirrel shows off a walnut in another display, and boxes of stuffed-animal dogs and cats are set under shelves of matching cards and blank books. While I’m paying for a red octopus finger puppet, I’m told it’s First Friday. There will be wine and cheese across the street later at the Spiral Gallery, a local artists’ cooperative where it’s hard not to leave with something, even if it’s just a $3 greeting card and a free brochure highlighting the murals around downtown. The many tableaux celebrate quilting, train travel, and a variety of outdoor activities—a river scene on the side of Clackamas River Outfitters, next to a rolling rack of kayaks, feels especially apt. (I decide a tiny Chicago Cubs sticker on a door that interrupts the mushroom foraging mural is supporting evidence for my Zobrist theory.) Later this year, a small army of painters will turn the side of the Hi-School Pharmacy into the next community masterpiece.

One mural shows suspender-wearing bargoers in the Trails Inn and Timber Room, so I’m a little disappointed when the chalk art inside the actual bar is more of the boobs-and-butts variety; I wonder if some of the same scribblers from Timber Park’s log cabin have been here. Or maybe I’m just getting a little moony thinking about the late, great Safari Club, whose parking lot sign still stands across the street from the Dollar General that took its place.

I get back on the bus but hop off a few stops north of downtown at the library, where I can charge the phone I’ve depleted reading up on old World War II airborne divisions. Nothing says a place is growing quite like an airy new library, so the soaring cathedral-like ceiling here—the timber triangles and skylights bring a dash of the Bodleian crossed with the Portland airport’s new roof—is as much an indicator of the burgeoning population as the fresh homes in the distance. Closer to eye level, a cardboard cutout of Dolly Parton watches over the space like a guardian angel and an old card catalog cabinet holds a community seed library. Armchairs near a fireplace invite some perusing of quality periodicals, and one wall is lined with bins from the “Library of Things,” where you can check out a springform pan, a fondue pot, Frozen– and Thomas the Tank Engine–themed birthday decorations, a day-hike backpack, or a stud finder. A free shelf in the entryway holds some books I’m guessing the library is happy to be rid of: a biography celebrating Bill Cosby as “America’s #1 entertainment legend,” a Roman Polanski cinematic study, and a guidebook for wannabe millionaires. (I’m guessing The Art of the Deal has already come and gone.)

I ponder skipping the next once-an-hour Bus 30 to check out the Wade Creek Vintage Marketplace down the street, but it’s closing soon. So I hop back on and hop off in Carver 20 minutes later. For happy hour, I can choose between the bustling Carver Hangar, with its sports memorabilia and all-ages section; the roadhouse-like Rock Garden Tavern, packed with regulars; and the Echo Inn, where bar stools offer a view of the river and the setting sun. The sheer number of signs threatening car towing in Carver is enough to make me glad I came on the bus, but the designated driver is a bonus, too, as all three watering holes seem worth a stop.

From Carver, it’s just another 20 minutes on the 30 back to the Clackamas Town Center, where a Green Line MAX train is waiting to take me home. There’s no Snoop soundtrack this time, but a man on the train is listening without headphones to an audiobook of a romance novel. I don’t catch the title or other details, so for all I know it could be called Boners Ahoy. Maybe it’s about a third-generation navy captain/muralist living a quiet solo life along the Clackamas River until a street-namesake World Series MVP paddles up in a kayak one day. Maybe a huge maple doughnut is proffered as a wedding ring. And maybe—no, definitely—I won’t wait another 20 years to go back to Estacada.